My girlfriend recently commented to me that one of the biggest problems with any new system or change that has happened, or could happen, to improve our society, has often carried over the same basic prejudices with it, more specifically from her point of view, the patriarchal standpoint which effectively views women as inferior. She is right to a certain extent. Even though women gained certain rights, there was always some sort of backlash, or something not met that would grant women the full extent of that right. For example, women gained the vote, but society still restricted in both the US and Canada, what education was available to women, not fully enfranchising them, by restricting their capability to be educated and act as full citizens as what men were getting. Women get into the workplace, but there are certain restrictions. For example, few women are CEOs of companies, those few, like Martha Stewart, apparently, get penalized for having increased their companies so fast, there is still a glass ceiling for women in general in the corporate world, or at least large pockets of it still, and advertisements are still trying to perpetuate the standard feminine ideal, which has been known to be a major cause of eating disorders in women, a self esteem demoralizer, and in general keeping women sexualized and effectively, subservient, by often making them viewed more as objects rather than people. I could quote a slough of advertising to back this up, and I'm sure most of you readers are well aware of the same problem. And of course, there is the fact that any time women apparently are encroaching on men's turf in society, men will move into the turf the women left, and shift it so that it is idealized as part of the masculine image so that women are still kept subservient. One recent example of this is an advertisement where a man was teaching a cat to jump for food, and the woman comes in and says, "I taught that to him last week." Recently, the ad was changed, to simply have the woman look surprised, and the man looking smug, as if he's superior again, showing he has smarts around the home now too, while the women are going off to work. Notice the perspective change by a simple change of an ad? The woman originally was able to shock the guy, but they change it so that the guy not only has home and animal smarts, but that he's superior for it. Can you say subtle mysogyny?

I digress. Thing is, I thought about what my gf had said, and how she had said Cosmocracy could be in danger of this too, particularly if in small quarters, in space, women's work ends up getting less valued then men's. Now the thing is, it also occured to me that this same process, had happened, and still is happening across "races" (I believe there is only the human race), cultures and classes. Now the thing is that for survival, this particular problem should end up severely reduced if not eliminated, since everyone's work will be necessary for the survival of any colony against the vacuum. But thinking about it nonetheless, my gf did have a valuable point. Even if those who go out are still the best and brightest, they still may on occasion, fall to subtle prejudices they were raised with, and theoretically, they could come in in some form and start festering in a colony.

So, here's my suggestion as one way to start curbing that. For doing some prototype research, we are obviously going to have to make biodomes here on earth before trying them in space. So, let's have a section of one or more such test domes, populated by sociologists or theorists, working out new systems of thought for equality between genders and cultures. Hopefully, they can put their theories to practical testing inside a biodome type environment, and we can work out viable social systems, while researching the technical aspects. This way, when we actually do colonize the asteroid belt, those who are doing so, will hopefully have even a bit more enlightened guidelines for social organization while they start up the colonies, and will learn then how the tentative guidelines can be properly adapted once we're in space. But at least this way, we will have a tentative system worked out to avoid the social problems that our current society seems to be rife with. Alot of people I have talked to when telling them about the Cosmocratic movement have said that we need to clean up our own act before going into space. If they mean socially, perhaps they have a point, and hopefully this could be a start. Btw, I would like comments especially to this post. The more opinions and ideas we have about organizing stuff, the more information we can sift through to find the first tentative social organizational plan for space colonies. As for the rest of cleaning up our act however, we're already too short on resources, and too far into technology to do any real improvement on resource management right now. Once we get Cosmocracy moving, we might have a better shot at it. In the meantime, I hope this has been some food for thought, and remember, comments are always welcome. The more debate and thought that we can get on this issue, hopefully, the better, and in the end, the more concrete ideas we can bring to the powers that be to come up with viable solutions for our society's survival. God be with you all until next time, and keep up the struggle to the stars.

Sincerely,

Guthrie Prentice.

Another Cosmocrat, my father, who saw my blog recently emailed me and said that my description of Cosmocracy was a little too offensive and not specific or reasoned enough. So, I am putting in an essay he wrote, including the declaration of interdependence, for your viewing pleasure, and better enlightening as to what Cosmocracy is. Hopefully this will help, and please do print off any of the documents here and spread them around should you see fit. There is a bibliography included for further research, and I believe that covers it. Enjoy. Guthrie Prentice.

COSMOCRACY:
AN ATTEMPT TO DERIVE
APPROPRIATE,
PRO-SURVIVAL
POLITICAL
AGENDA
For the
21st century

BY
DOUG PRENTICE

(Picture from internet, copyright unknown, website info lost)

COSMOCRACY? WHAT’S THAT?

Cosmocracy and Cosmocratic were two terms coined by science fiction writers in the 1940’s and 1950’s, to explore the question ‘How does technological advancement, particularly the possibility of space exploration and colonization, compel us to redefine our political philosophies? Have they rendered old categories, such as Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, and Republican obsolete?’ They were most visibly used in E.E. “Doc” Smith’s novels “First Lensman” and “Subspace Explorers”. Robert A. Heinlein, in his novel, “Double Star”, described “The Expansionist Party”, to look at the same question.

In the novels, the (fictitious) “Cosmocratic” (In Heinlein, Expansionist.) party represented a perception that human economic and social growth could not be maintained without expansion, first, into the solar system, and, ultimately, into The Galaxy. The party began as nothing more than a vague belief in the “Manifest Destiny” of Humanity, to expand and colonize outward from our Mother and Cradle, the Earth.

As expansion and colonization progressed, parties split over questions of how Humanity should behave in space.(and on Earth) Those who believed that the mistakes Europeans made while colonizing the rest of the Earth, (seizing resources without compensating owners, political interference in indigenous cultures, unequal treaties enforced by strong-arm tactics, racism, slavery, etc, etc) must never be repeated, retained the term Cosmocrat (or Expansionist) to define themselves, and insisted that the Rule of Law, and democracy, must extend to the edges of the Universe, and that all Intelligent life Forms,( defined as language users) are no different from humans, and the term “human rights” is meaningless, if not extended to cover non-human intelligence. (Interestingly, recent research into the languages (and linguistic capabilities) of Elephants, Orangutans, Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and various species of Whales and Dolphins, seems to indicate that the Universality of Sentient Rights may need to be discussed here on Earth.)

Those who would argue, “We have the Power, therefore only we matter, and may do as we please!” were labeled “Nationalists” and/or “The Party of Freedom and Liberty” by Smith, and were dubbed “The Humanity Party” by Heinlein. These fictitious parties made great use of Lincoln’s “Government of the People, By the People, For the People Shall not Perish from the Earth.” quote, to the point of people believing it original with Nationalist, Free-Lib, or Humanity leaders, but the true agenda of both parties could be more accurately described, as Heinlein’s classic Cosmocratic/Expansionist leader, John Joseph Bonforte said, “Government of all Races Everywhere, by Humanity Alone, For the Benefit of a Privileged Few!” Truly a platform more suited to imperialists, slavers, and the worst sort of piratical profiteers[1] than to anyone who desires universal democracy, universal adoption of sentient rights, and the rule of law. One might even call it kleptocracy. (government of the people, by the thieves, for the thieves.)

SCI-FI TO REALITY?

Cosmocracy was an idea from the science fiction community of the mid-twentieth century.

What has happened since?

A lot of science fiction has become science fact! On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Landed on the Moon. It was my 8th birthday, and I’d thought they’d done it for me! In a sense, they had. They left a plaque behind, engraved with “We came in Peace, for All Mankind”.

In the ‘70’s, Professor Gerard K. O’niell, and his physics graduate students worked out the basic technical problems of colonizing the inner solar system. They concluded that, if the four inner planets were ignored until a moon and asteroid based colonial-industrial infrastructure was in place, space colonization could be had for approximately 5% of the contemporary US military budgets, and would contribute significant profit in techno-economic spin-offs to the supporting societies during the build-up years. (Historically, the economic benefit of spin-offs and direct space activity has considerably exceeded the sum of all moneys spent by the public and private sector on space.) Within ten years, the trade in artifacts and energy between the colonies and earth would exceed the ongoing transportation costs, and, within twenty years, such a program could, not only cover the operating expenses, but generate exponential economic growth orders of magnitude larger than the initial investment in technology !

Between the moon landings and today, it has become clear that (as David Suzuki and others have observed) Earth-based technological society is fundamentally broken. The linked problems of resource scarcity, accelerating consumption, the lack of closed techno-ecological cycles, poverty, economic and social justice, and sustainability are all being exacerbated by rapid population growth in the third world, and by rapid consumption growth in the first. Who was the idiot from marketing who thought up those three pieces of techno-ecological tomfoolery, the SUV, the 200-foot motor yacht, and the private jet? Such wasteful luxury cannot be afforded (or tolerated) until the issues of technological, ecological, and societal sustainability have been solved. Well, that’s what you get when the worship of “the great god Status, whose symbols are many”[2] is exalted above all other religious, spiritual, ethical, and moral thought, word, or deed.

While we’re on the subject, what drives the relentless consumerism of our planetary culture? Could it be that advertising, marketing, spin-doctoring, and adversarial rhetoric, have created a state of mental and spiritual pollution as bad as any tainted water? These approaches to debate and public discourse (based on the proposition that distorting facts to serve the point of view of a particular interest group is, not only ethical, but a valid method of discovering the best general and objective truth achieve only distortion, confusion, and total detachment from anything resembling objective reality. A few, however, find such approaches obscenely profitable. (At least, in the short term) Who can possibly claim that they are right (and someone else is wrong) simply because they have the money to saturate our common discourse with distortions. Loud voices rarely, if ever, speak truth. Also, one must question the judgment, wisdom, and integrity, of anyone who would sacrifice his/her, and his/her offspring’s, long term interest for momentary advantage.

On the plus side, environmentalists, social justice proponents, advocates of sustainable energy, and many other progressive individuals and groups are beginning to find common ground, and set up alliances, to lever society toward a more sustainable and equitable future. A recent explosion of documents, all labeled as, the Declaration of Interdependence, (or some variation on the theme) (A particularly good one is circulated by the David Suzuki foundation, at http://www.davidsuzuki.org/About_us/Declaration_of_Interdependence.asp.) demonstrates a dawning realization that we’re all in this together, and we will either survive, or die, as a species, by how efficiently we cooperate.

The term cosmocracy has also appeared outside science fiction, in various academic and internet discussion circle, over the last decade. It is usually linked with the internet, and Civil Society, and seems to refer to some sort of transnational democracy of World citizens. How that could work in practice, with half, or more, of the World’s nation-states practicing various forms and degrees of tyranny, and the most powerful entities on the planet, the big transnational corporations, functioning as actively oligarchic, antidemocratic institutions, is anybody’s guess. Perhaps we need to mix pacifist civil disobedience (of the sort Gandhi advocated.), with Patrick Henry’s observation that the Tree of Liberty survives only as long as it is regularly fertilized by the blood of patriots. (Since, individually, we own our own bodies and lives, I can advocate dying for a cause, but I have trouble advocating killing for one.) Has the time come again, when freedom, liberty, and justice demand the total commitment of Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honour? If so, it had better be to a cause worthy of such sacrifice. One that actually has a chance of refuting the right’s argument, that justice, freedom, ecological responsibility, and sustainability are “Too expensive”.

The obvious counter-argument is, compared to what? Fixing our civilization is obviously cheaper than the cost of allowing the Four Horsemen to ride, the way they will if our civilization falls. And, since the resources, of materials and energy, in the solar system are many orders of magnitude bigger than the present total consumption of the human species, a serious effort to colonize and exploit the final frontier would, not only pay for itself, but generate sufficient new resources to allow us to solve all of our terrestrial problems. It is, please pardon the pun, a Down-to-Earth solution.

[ “The formula for the surface area of a sphere is 4pi*r^2. The great thing about this equation is that it allows us to calculate the sun’s power output from knowledge of the solar flux and our mean distance from the sun and we find that it is an enormous number.”
[ “The formula for the lateral area of a cylinder is 2pi*rh. This equation allows us to calculate how much of that solar energy might be available to large power satellites in geostationary orbit.”
[ “So from these two nice equations it’s possible to see that we have, if we’re clever, a great energy future in space. The energy output of the sun is about 3 times 10 ^14 terawatts so you can see there’s plenty of energy to power a much expanded human population provided we go where the energy is. The energy falling on a 15 km wide band of geostationary orbit is about 2500 terawatts. That is a much smaller number but still very large compared to our present rate of energy use. World energy consumption last year was 11 terawatts. We would need only 20 terawatts to give everyone living in 2050 the current US per capita energy consumption”
(SOURCE: http://ssi.org/?page_id=2)
(AUTHOR: Dr. Lee Valentine, DIRECTOR, SSI)

Space colonies would also have to recycle everything, or die, so learning how to build them teaches us what we need to do to survive here on Earth. Note, however, that outside the life support infrastructure of the colonies, there is no environment, and, therefore, environmental pollution is, in space, almost a null concept. The only hazard waste poses is to navigation. That hazard is sufficiently significant that the best solution to wastes, in a colony, is to store them outside, in vacuum, until you can come up with a way to recycle them. The really nice part of such an approach is your dump can’t fill up, like an Earth-bound landfill. You have plenty of space.

I could go on for pages about the advantages that colonizing the solar system could bring us, but others, far more eloquent than I, have done so, at length, elsewhere. (Please, if you can spare the time, explore the bibliography.) I would, however, like to address one argument made by free market enthusiasts, who say that the development of space colonization will come, inevitably, as the rising costs of non-renewable energy and industrial resources rise. The problem with this bit of wishful thinking is that the costs of non-renewable resources and energy are the foundation costs of all human endeavour, and, therefore drive the costs of everything else, including the non-trivial undertaking of totally transforming our civilization into a sustainable, space-faring one. Bluntly, a once, in the history of the world, window of opportunity to build a sustainable, open- ended civilization opened on July 20, 1969. We can’t say when the window will close, as there are way too many factors to allow detailed analysis, but it is obvious that it is closing, and once it has closed, it has closed FOREVER!! (NO MORE NON-RENEWABLES, NO MORE MACHINES, therefore, NO SECOND CHANCE, GET IT??) It follows, of course, that it will never be cheaper to develop space colonies than it is right now, and, if we wait till the window closes, the earth will be in such sorry shape, that a 90% dieback in the human race is an OPTIMISTIC prediction! Anyone up for a game of Russian Roulette, with 5 chambers loaded?

The time has come to expand our minds, think big, and devise a Cosmocratic philosophy big enough to include, feed, clothe, shelter, and free every human being alive today, and in generations to come, to heal our planet, to bud off additional biospheres, (as lifeboats and insurance policies, as well as sources of new wealth) and to enjoy free and full lives, in the service of Life, to the boundaries of the Solar System, and beyond. It’s time to take Cosmocracy out of science fiction, and share it for what it is: the common property of ALL humanity.

To this end, some friends and I have formulated a Cosmocratic Declaration of Interdependence, to stimulate the debate, and, hopefully, to sow the seeds of a world-wide Cosmocratic movement, one worthy of the dedication of Our Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honour.

By the way, the future is not for wimps. Cosmocracy will be built by those with minds as open, vision as clear and hearts as big as SPACE ITSELF. As was said of another frontier, “The cowards never started, and the weak died on the way.”

Fig 1. This plot shows the Inner solar system, to the orbit of mars, and a bit beyond. The blue squares represent comets, the red dots show asteroids whose orbits intersect the Earth’s, (easier to get to, lower delta V to enter the appropriate transfer orbit.), the green dots show main belt asteroids, and the circles inscribed with crosses show major planets. The yellow star indicates the sun. (One of the red dots is named Eros, and the folks at the Eros Project estimate the resources in that one chunk of rock are worth a minimum of 15.84 Trillion Dollars. (source:http://www.erosproject.com/ )
(source: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/InnerPlot.html?source=ErosProject)
Figure 2. This plot shows the solar system, to beyond the orbit of Jupiter. The same symbols are used. Blue dots represent the locations of Jupiter’s family of Trojan asteroids.
Source: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/InnerPlot.html?source=ErosProject

Sincerely, sustainably, and Survivably, yours,

Doug Prentice, a Cosmocrat.
P.S. Business, as usual, is a suicide pact.
BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND USEFUL SOURCE MATERIAL

BOOKS

[ Gerard K. O’Niell, The High Frontier,(Apogee Books Space Series)
[ Various works, both fiction and non-fiction, by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Azimov, E. E. Smith (SUBSPACE EXPLORERS, FIRST LENSMAN, AND OTHER TITLES), Robert A. Heinlein (DOUBLE STAR, CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, AND OTHER TITLES, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Poul Anderson, Dr. Robert L Forward, H. Beam Piper, Peter F. Hamilton, Michael Flynn, and others. (various publishers)
[ A variety of astronomy and astrophysics textbooks and journals
[ A selection of other textbooks and journals (in physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, aerospace, etc.)

INTERNET

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/About_us/Declaration_of_Interdependence.asp
http://www.erosproject.com/
http://www.l5news.org/L5news/L5news7509.pdf
http://www.l5news.org/
http://www.nss.org/
http://www.oregonl5.org/
http://www.permanent.com/intro.htm
http://www.space-frontier.org/
http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/CoEvolutionBook/
http://www.tucsonspacesociety.org/
http://www.lunar-reclamation.org/mmm_samples/mmm164_APR2003.pdf
http://spacesettlement.org/
http://www.space-access.org/
http://www.prospace.org/tiki-index.php
http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/RLV/2005/RTTM-VI.html
http://www.future25.org/
http://thespacereview.com/article/317/1
http://thespacereview.com/
http://www.moonminer.com/
http://ssi.org/

APPENDIX: THE (COSMOCRATIC) DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE

WHEREAS:
1. In a technological civilization, the life of every person is dependant on a multitude of properly working machines and an equal multitude of people doing a multitude of jobs competently, with high productivity.

2. We, the human species, are headed towards a technological and ecological catastrophe, call it “crunch” that will kill 90% of us and condemn the rest to nasty, brutish, and short lives, on an impoverished planet, because our technological society is fundamentally flawed.

3. This flaw is open techno/ecological cycles and over consumption of resources. Business as usual involves the massive consumption of resources, and the generation of obscene quantities of waste, with obvious, terrifying, and accelerating, destruction of the World ecosystem. A properly designed technological system would convert these wastes into inputs/resources for other processes, creating CLOSED cycles. The increase in energy budget required to wean ourselves from the worst open cycle, our fossil fuel addiction (hi I’m Bob and I drive an SUV), and all the other open cycles, is not small.

4.The solar system contains sufficient wealth, in both energy and materials, not only to solve the techno/ecological crisis, but heal the damage already done, and make us all well-off. Developing the techniques of space colonisation will give us practical ecological knowledge for use here on Earth, (and working closed eco-technological demonstrations, to convince the sceptical) but the effort to open the High Frontier is also not small.

5. Point 1 implies that points 3 and 4 have a common solution. Since technology is interdependent, so are the problems of technology. To wit: solving the problems of space colonisation, particularly the life support problem, has obvious links to techno/ecological problems on Earth.

6. Consider games theory, which describes all endeavours as “games” with 3 possible outcomes. Positive sum games have a higher sum of winnings, and winners, than losses, and losers. Zero sum games have equal winnings and losses. Negative sum games are characterised by larger losses than winnings, AND BY THE FACT THAT SOME OF THE PLAYERS (in many cases, a majority) ARE NOT PLAYING BY FREE TRUTHFULLY INFORMED CHOICE. The majority of the participants in a negative sum game feel cheated, resent it, and seek revenge, thus condemning themselves and their children to yet another cycle of negative sum games, the worst of which is WAR. Even the so-called winners of a negative sum game are losers, as they have earned a huge amount of hatred, and they must spend a significant portion of “their winnings” defending themselves, and their loot, All positive sum games have more winners than losers, the best ones have NO LOSERS AT ALL, and all are about FAIR PLAY.Finding ways to play positive sum games takes a LOT of imagination. Willingness to lose, occasionally, a positive sum game is a PARTIAL WIN. WINNERS in positive sum games are, invariably, GENEROUS and MAGNANIMOUS. You can recognise a POSITIVE SUM GAME by HOW PEOPLE ARE PLAYING IT, and by the fact that all players are playing, more or less, WILLINGLY.

7. Dealing with our addiction to negative sum games and encouraging people to give positive sum games a fair trial, gives us a better chance of SUCCESS and SURVIVAL.

8. Failure is not an acceptable option (see point 2) and TIME IS AGAINST US. The sooner we start and the harder we work, the better the chance we bring the space resources on stream before the “crunch” comes.

9. This is the highest priority issue of our age, as the project buys a future for humanity. (The traditional argument, that space colonization is “Too Expensive”, can be rebutted, “…compared to what? The time, and effort, that humanity puts into war? The fall of civilization, cited in point 2?”)

10. The high frontier will be ours, only if our minds are as open, our vision as clear, and our hearts as big as SPACE itself.

11.This is humanity’s final exam, and both our intelligence and our moral capacity are being tested. By (insert your belief system here), let’s pass it TOGETHER.

12. If we fail, we DESERVE extinction, for we will have brought it on ourselves.

THEREFORE:

13. We, who sign this document, will, by our personal actions and conduct, establish a new movement, pledged to fair dealing here on Earth, a common maximum effort to open the high frontier, and pledge to share the fruits of the effort among all humanity.

We name the movement Cosmocracy, because, without wide distribution of the wealth of space, there can be no universal, or even sustainable, democracy, and to the cooperative struggle required, as much against our own fossilised thinking, as against any external obstacle, “WE MUTUALLY PLEDGE TO EACH OTHER OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES, AND OUR SACRED HONOUR.” (As did a previous, and famous, group of dissatisfied people.)

“We Came in Peace, for all Mankind”
Left on a plaque on the Moon by:
Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin
“It is assured, that if we do not hang together, we shall all hang separately.”
Benjamin Franklin
“The prospect of being hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully”
Samuel Johnson
“Ask not what Humanity can do for you, but what you can do for Humanity.”
John F. Kennedy (slightly adapted)
“Business as usual is a suicide pact.”
Doug Prentice
“If not us, who? And, if not now, when?”
Rabbi Hillel, 1st century B.C.E.
(Shortened for Modern attention spans)
“The Buck Stops Here.”
Harry Truman
Love God with heart, mind, soul and strength
and love your neighbour as yourself!!!”
Jesus Christ (SHORTENED FOR MODERN
ATTENTION SPANS)


The authors, and signers, of the declaration encourage inspirational quotation, and every other form of co-operative, non-violent, conversation and/or action that furthers the cause of COSMOCRACY. If your favourite COSMOCRATIC quote is not here, please feel free to insert it. Please, however, do not otherwise edit or alter this document. Fellow travellers, allies, and COSMOCRATS, FEEL FREE TO QUOTE, ABSTRACT, TRANSLATE, BORROW IN WHOLE OR IN PART ANY OR ALL OF IT FOR FURTHERANCE OF THE CAUSE. COSMOCRATS BELIEVE THIS DOCUMENT IS THE COMMON PROPERTY OF HUMANITY, AND WE ARE INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY RESPONSIBLE TO HUMANITY FOR ITS USE, OR MISUSE. MACHIAVELLI WAS WRONG. ENDS AND MEANS ARE CAUSALLY LINKED, AND ONE DICTATES THE OTHER!

For those who can, in good conscience, sign the DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE. Go ahead, sign, BUT, PLEASE, DON’T SIGN IF YOU DON’T MEAN IT AND WON’T FOLLOW THROUGH.



















For those who can’t, in good conscience, at this time, sign the declaration.

We, the undersigned, pledge to spend 1 hour this month, of OUR VALUABLE TIME to find out, FOR OURSELVES, whether or not the signers of the DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE are right.
















A FINAL THOUGHT:

• OUR LEADERS, (GOV’T, BUSINESS, ACADEMIC, ETC.) SAY; “TRUST US, WE’VE GOT IT COVERED.” CAN WE? HAVE YOU HEARD ANY OF THEM DISCUSSING THE ISSUES RAISED HERE, OR PRESENTING WORKABLE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS?
(PLEASE NOTE: I DID NOT SAY CREDIBLE.)
“THE TRUTH OF A PROPOSITION HAS NOTHING, WHATEVER, TO
DO WITH ITS CREDIBILITY AND VISE VERSA.”
L. Long (As recorded by: Robert A. Heinlein.)
• FELLOW COSMOCRATS, OUR LEADERS ARE, EITHER, UNINFORMED, UNCONVINCED, OR JUST DON’T CARE! WE CAN ONLY RELY ON OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER! I PRAY DAILY THAT COSMOCRATIC LEADERS WILL EMERGE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
• THE AUTHOR OF THIS DOCUMENT WISHES THAT OTHERS MAY COPY AND PRINT THIS DOCUMENT AND USE IT IN ANY OTHER FASHION THEY SEE FIT, AS LONG AS IT IS NOT USED FOR INDIVIDUAL PROFIT. PROCEEDS FROM ANY COMMERCIAL USE OF THIS OR ANY OTHER COSMOCRATIC DOCUMENT MUST GO TO THE FURTHERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COSMOCRATIC MOVEMENT AND/OR THE SPACE INDUSTRY TOWARDS COLONIZING THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
• IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE SOME MORE SLOGANS/MESSAGES TO CONDENSE THE COSMOCRATIC MESSAGE, HERE ARE A FEW:




YOUR PLANET, LOVE IT AND LEAVE IT!

SPACE COLONIES! A DOWN-TO-EARTH SOLUTION!

DEVELOP THE TECHNOLOGY! GET THE WEALTH! THEN SHARE IT!

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT AND SPACE COLONIZATION ARE HUMAN RIGHTS!

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY IS A SPACE TECHNOLOGY SPIN-OFF! SO IS ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE!

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT IS A HUMAN RIGHT!

THE WEALTH OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS THE COMMON INHERITANCE OF HUMANITY! DON’T SQUANDER IT!

CRAWL, WALK, RUN, DRIVE, FLY, ORBIT, DIG IN AND COLONIZE!

THE COWARDS WILL NEVER START; THE STUPID AND WEAKLINGS WILL DIE ON THE WAY. THE SURVIVING COLONISTS WILL BE FITTER!

2 MILLION ASTROIDS! ONE HUGE SUN! ENOUGH OF EVERYTHING! ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE!

TODAY, THE MOON! TOMORROW, THE ASTEROIDS!

SPACE COLONIES AND GREEN TECHNOLOGY, A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN, AND ON EARTH!

IN SPACE, ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IS AN OXYMORON! HOW CAN YOU POLLUTE A NON-ENVIRONMENT?

BUSINESS AS USUAL IS A SUICIDE PACT!

COLONISE SPACE, WHILE WE STILL CAN!

ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND! BUT ONLY IF WE HAVE THE COURAGE TO LEAP!

BUILD THE FUTURE WE WANT, OR FACE THE FUTURE WE DESERVE!

NEIL ARMSTRONG HAD BALLS! DO YOU?

WHAT DO WE WANT? SPACE! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW?

SPACE COLONIES! THE SAFETY VALVE ON EARTH’S PRESSURE COOKER!

SPACE COLONIES! LIFEBOATS FOR SPACESHIP EARTH!

[1] (Please note: I do not use the term Capitalist with Piratical Profiteer, as I have noticed that the Capitalist class includes such visionaries as Bert Rutan, such careful and ethical stewards as George Soros and Warren Buffet and some outright pirates. The Corporate Leadership at ENRON, Conrad Black, and The Bush Administration spring to mind. One cannot generalize all capitalists as pirates, although some undoubtedly are.)
[2] Loosely quoted from H. Beam Piper, “Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen”

Probably the first question that enters your mind when seeing this blog is "What is Cosmocracy?"

Well, to answer this question, I'm going to ask you all three.

1. How do you suggest solving our environmental problems without severely
hampering the technology that keeps our society going?

2. How would you suggest solving our equity problems like
three quarters of the world starving and not being able to live with proper
food housing and a reasonable standard of living?

3. What do we do when the entire planet runs out of resources, which it most likely
will in the next few decades?

We are facing some radical problems right now. America and the West are living a rather comfy lifestyle, problem is, if we take a drastic reduction of living standard, we manage to bring up 3 of the remaining 5 billion who are living in poverty world wide. And then we still use up the fossil fuels, metals, and other necessities to make our society functional, and then where do we end up? We can't run a planet for 6 billion people on nothing.

So, that means then that if we can't recycle for ever, because we'd slowly lose resources (I don't care what people think, nothing is endless and there is no such thing as perpetual motion. In any system, you lose resources.)

And, if we pollute our planet to the point where global warming melts the polar ice caps far enough, alot of land will be flooded due to the melted polar caps, giving us even less places to live.

Then, when we run out of oil, which is inevitable in the next few decades, how are we going to get the food from farms to grocery stores for people to eat? (Cannabalism anyone? *Yuck*).

So, that means that we end up losing places to live, lose the transport for the food we eat, and lose the metals and resources to be able to keep our society going. Have I covered most of the major problems? I think so for now.

So what sort of solution can we use to solve all of these problems in one stroke? Or at least to greatly reduce them?

Well, this brings us back to the question of "What is Cosmocracy?" Well, Cosmos could imply a solution which solves all these problems, but it also is a solution which is alot farther reaching like that.

Let me put to you. We have a big orb of fire, which if a giant enough panel were put closer to it, could give us almost unlimited electricity for say, a few billion years? (I'll give you a hint. It takes 8 and a half minutes for light from it to reach us here on earth.) Also, we have a whole belt of heavenly bodies which could give us metals to continue construction of machinized society for another 50 000 years or so. (One of these bodies was a killer of the dinosaurs, and 80 percent of metals like Chromium, Zinc, and some Iron, all of which make up hard steel and that we have on earth came from the fall of these heavenly bodies.) Also, colonization of these bodies would give us a great amount of area to ship off large chunks of the population, and give us vital information about maintaining a viable ecosystem in a smaller environment which we could reapply here on earth. These are but a few of the benefits of this solution.

Ok. Now, I've given a couple of hints as to what Cosmocracy is. If I haven't gone over your head, (or dumbed it down too far for you), then you've probably guessed what Cosmocracy entails.

Quite simply, Cosmocracy is the policy of colonizing the solar system. And, it is the best, and only solution in the end, for humanity's survival.

I know it may sound like science fiction, but think about it. The predictions are that we're going to see the first major effects of global warming in 5 years. Now, thing is, the sun, (the great big firey orb I mentioned) is a burning constant source of energy, which can be converted into electricity. This has been proven because of the fact that solar panels have been built and are being used for homes, and in commercial use to some extent. Certain brands of calculators have them built in, and if you go down to your hardware store and ask about them, I'm pretty someone there will know what one is. Now think about this. If we, the human race, put a big, or a series of big, solar panels up in space, and then sent the radiation they collected back via free electron lazers, which give about 50-60 % energy efficiency (For those who've seen the James Bond movie Die Another Day, I am not talking about a Doomsday weapon. This would be just like any other solar panel with a lazer to transmit the radiation to power stations back on earth.), we would have a constant supply of electrical energy with which to power our massive computer servers, and all our other conveniences that we are accustomed to to our heart's content, with much reduced environmental damage AND it would provide this much needed electricity to the entire planet.

Now, for the problems of food shortage, and overpopulation. Well for one thing, colonies would have to grow food for themselves off earth. And the more people that were shipped out to colonize the moon and the asteroid belt, the more they'd be growing their own food, meaning the less people here on earth and the better chance of sharing what food we did have hear on earth. (Also, freer living space.)

As for the problems of shortage of Iron and other metals, there is a great amount in the asteroid belt. For example, we know that heavy industry, for example the automobile industry requires large amounts of steel. Well, spectral analysis of various asteroids such as Eros, shows high deposits of the various heavy metals required to make steel, and other resources including Pottassium, Silicon and Oxygen. Silicon of course, to continue building computer chips and continue our information age boom, and oxygen from Iron oxides could be chemically broken off and could be used to provide breathable air for a space colony on said asteroid. In general, Eros, is estimated to be at a value of $15.84 trillion. (This is all quoted from www.erosproject.com). This is not the only asteroid with value like this. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is chalk full of thousands of asteroids like these. All or most of which are brimming with resources to bring back to earth.

And let's not forget about fresh water too, both for colonies and earth. There is enough water in the comets to keep earth in fresh water for thousands of years. Tap Saturn's rings, and we have enough for millions.

As for whether or not this is possible to even get to, alot of math and preliminary research into alternative modes of space travel besides rocketry has been done, to help get it moving. Interplanetary spaceship drives have been calculated, in some cases scale models have been built in laboratories. For example, once we are out of the gravity well, an ion drive would be perfect for travelling between the earth and the asteroids. And a giant gause gun up the side of one of the Andes mountains in Brazil would be perfect for launching supplies and people into space (a gause gun is a type of gun which fires metal propellant using a series of magnets. These are used in laboratories to determine the effects of such phenomena as meteors crashing on the moon.)

So yes, this may seem like a science fiction option, and a little far fetched, but think about it. Do we squabble over diminishing resources here on earth, which we KNOW are going to run out sooner or later, (and do you really think corporations will do the research into alternative fuel ideas necessary before the fossil fuels run out? If you're comfortable, are you likely to get up to switch the TV channel when you can use the remote? Corporate heads are no different. If they know a good thing, they'll keep using it, afraid of change, and they won't move to change, like you to find the remote, unless they have to. And by then it will be too late) or do we attempt to reach for the pie in the sky, and possibly save our butts.

This is in the end the only option. Recently, the White House in the USA drafted a policy saying that they wanted noone to interfere with their actions in space, and they wanted to be able to interfere as well with the actions of others in space. This included weaponizing space. This policy is intended to set precedent for US policy for the next 150 years, and Bush in doing this may have killed us all. Now, do you want to be penned on the equivalent to the titanic? A slowly sinking ship, (which is what we are due to our depleting the earth of the necessary materials to keep our civilization going.) with no hope of getting off, or no lifeboats. Frankly, I'd rather be on my way to at least some chance of survival. So in conlcusion, Cosmocracy is the only solution for salvation of the human race, and involves us colonizing the rest of the solar system, and bringing the resources back to earth, so that our civilization may continue to prosper for several more thousand years, and that we may be able to hopefully learn from our mistakes, and strive to a brighter future.

Stay tuned for next post where I will print the Declaration of Interdependence, written by my father Doug Prentice, an Engineering Technologist, and in the meantime, post your comments, and tell me what you think about the whole idea. The more discussion on this issue we can get the better. Toodles. Guthrie Prentice. University Science Student, and Cosmocrat to the very end.