🚀 go-pugleaf

hmmm. Does sci.astro belong in the Newsgroups line? 
[sci.astro cut from follow-ups]

Elliott Oti (e.oti@stud.warande.ruu.nl) wrote:

:                             ??
: I know I'm butting in someone else's argument, but is this thread about
: reduction in consumption levels or more equal redistribution of
: resources?

No. It is about using present-day science and technology to ensure that 
all of humanity can live in ...a human condition. 

Example: if any of the big European car-makers (Ford, GM, Fiat, PSA, 
Renault, Volkswagen) suddenly would close, we would not even feel the 
lack of cars, exept in the lack of 'choice'. Similar over-capacity exists 
in all kinds of production, from grain-mountains and wine-lakes, to 
construcion or the amount of doctors. 

It is also about directing the existing science and technology to ends we 
may see as beneficial, instead of say, producing B-2 bombers. You can 
make a lot of lives more bearable for a half-billion dollars. On the site 
of the World Game Institute you can find a lot of the things we can 
_easily do. 

[Abe, Mary and John economics (there is that word again) snipped]

: Given the average American mid-class WASP's antipathy towards welfare

And how does that antipathy come about? Anyway, their are more people in 
the USA than just mid-class WASP's. 

: (admittedly not without reason) and anything that remotely smells of
: socialism or subsidy, I can imagine the second alternative may not
: attract too many cheers from that quarter. It means a drop in their
: consumption level. Higher taxes, work-more-keep-less, thou shalt give a

So? There is a difference with measuring the well-being of a bunch of 
humanity with their consumption-level. 

: tenth unto the poor and all that, you know. Not neccessarily a drop in
: production. 

: I was under the impression, though, that the thread begun as a
: consequence of the philosophical (did someone mumble "moral"?)
: standpoint that the good from saving 75,000 people from starvation daily
: supercedes even the frightful horrors that result from welfare,
: handouts, subsidies, tax increases, and other satanic practices. And
                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Heh. 

: that maybe
: a closer look into how wealth, opportunities and resources can be better
: distributed while minimising the negative effects of dependency, is
: called for. After all, the status quo isn't perfect, is it? And with the
: obvious preponderance of first class minds that the Usenet has, it
: should be a piece of cake to create a world utopia.

Well, you gotta start *somewhere* :-) 

--
Filip De Vos                  The idea that space travel is inherently      
                              enormously expensive is fraudulent. 
FilipPC.DeVos@rug.ac.be                    John S. Lewis