When Its Time To Pet Your Cat

When it’s time to pet your cat

This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…

i’ve had this in the drafts for a while, so here. have a thing. a terrible awful audio thing. enjoy your cha-cha schlormp.

OH I NEED THIS!!!

I think if you enjoy my show, you’d enjoy this. It’s a small, free game that facilitates collaborative storytelling.

https://t.co/wF6Fk7IYtq

itch.io

A Very Small Life on the Mountainside by inkhat

A cozy, easy ttrpg set in a world of adventure

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I’ve noticed this thing that happens whenever the learnéd armchair academic types talk about resource-based reasons to go live on the moon or Mars or wherever else in space. They always make a big deal about “oh it’s not really worth all the trouble when there’s more accessible and cheaper alternatives.”

Let’s use Helium-3 as an example.

He3 is the miracle fuel. Using it in a nuclear fusion reactor with hydrogen will get you loads of useful energy with negligible beta radiation and no radioactive byproducts. The only problem is that it’s rare as shit on Earth, to the point where the vast majority of it available at the present time has to be synthesized in difficult and highly radioactive deuterium-lithium reactions.

Most relevant studies indicate that the surface of the moon is loaded with He3, at least compared to Earth, because it has no atmosphere to intercept the solar wind. But of course, economists and aerospace nerds alike hem and haw about if it’s reeeeally worth it to go all the way to the moon for He3.

Okay, sure, you have to get off the surface of the Earth, which takes a lot of energy, then burn more energy getting to the moon, then burn even MORE energy getting OFF the moon and back to Earth orbit, and then a little bit more energy to get it safely to the surface of Earth. But I fucking guarantee you that if there was oil on the moon, the United States would have invaded it by now. That’s not a joke, it’s just stating the fact that oil barons have the money to get what they want whenever they fucking want it, regardless of how “practical” it is. It’s a matter of how broken our civilization’s value system is.

This extends to Mars (and beyond), because in the course of my researches I keep seeing people saying “there’s no useful resources on Mars we can’t get on Earth and living on Mars is hard to do so there’s no real reason to settle it.”

Do you know why Edmund Hillary climbed Everest?

In his own exact words: “because it was there.”

“Because it’s there” is the approach we should have to developing space exploration and expanding our civilization beyond Earth’s gravity well. Besides the scientific value (which is always superior to resources), actually living on other worlds is worth all the challenges.

Why?

Why not?

We as a species are prone to doing things just because we can, or because we think we can. We like to solve problems just so we can feel clever. Why live in hollowed out asteroids? Why live on Mars? Because we fucking can, dude, because it’s cool as shit and it’s a thing that we can do if we solve enough problems.

I was reading a Reddit thread earlier (bear with me) about what economic resources a Mars colony could provide. You know what the best answer was?

Art.

The most valuable thing future Martians will have to offer the rest of humanity would be their culture. Their new, exciting, melting pot culture. I think that’s 100% correct, and also the best thing I’ve read all year.

Once we get into space and start mining asteroids and gas giants, or hopefully long before that, our value system will have to change dramatically. Because metals and gases and water and carbon are abundant in the universe, but you know what isn’t?

Creativity.

Imagination. Art. Music. Literature. Dancing. Films and books and songs and a million other ways that humans express themselves. Imagination is the human spirit; art is love made manifest. That’s rarer than life itself, but it’s what makes life worth living for us human beings. For such small creatures as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.