Philosophy

Philosophy Chapter

May

2022

“A greater world is possible!”, the book, presented by the author, Adriano V. Autino

Monday 16 May 2022 Adriano Autino held a lecture, in the frame of the Space Renaissance Academy Webinar Series, conducted by the unparalleled Sabine Heinz.
The topic was his last book, a philosophical essay titled “A greater world is possible!”. Already in the subtitle we can understand what this book discusses: “The expansion of civilization beyond the limits of our home planet is the moral issue of our time”.

DISCLAIMER BY THE AUTHOR This book contains many highly infectious ideas. So read it at your own risk: you might come out with a completely changed perspective and view of the world, i.e. a hopeful one, and a fresh will to do semething in the good direction.
So, if you feel comfortable watching the desctruction of the civilization in tv, then don’t read this book, nor watch the lecture.During his presentation, Autino proposes a deep look into several concepts, as they are described in the book, connecting them to the nowadays situation. In a random way:

the long promised utopian future still not realized, and the gloomy future already foreseen during last 40 years by dystopian sci-fi already awfuly present.
the controversial relationship between humankind and the rest of nature, and the deep awareness that we are part of nature, and we cannot resign from our responsibilities, as the most intelligent and aware species
recrudescence of resource wars and anthropology devolution in the closed world
morals: humanist scheme of values vs. nihilist sov
Prometheus today: giving 100% reusable transportation vehicles to humans, to faciitate the imminent evolutionary step
to kick-off civilian space development before 2030, in order not to loose the “Launch window” (a comversation with Gregg Maryniak)
all of the 17 UN SDGs depend from the 8th: “Decent work and economic growth”, and that is possible only expanding into outer space
the indivisible knot among energy, pressure and evolution (Kardashev and more)
the metaphysical warming on planet Earth, and its byproducts
value of human life and patrimony, vs. de-growthist doctrines
Earth is part of a cosmic ecology, and not a separate special object
demography and human fertility decline
ideologies, utopias and other dangerours yet necessary tools
the hope: evolutionary factors and how to sustain them

The lecture can be vieved on the Space Renaissance Youtube Channel https://youtu.be/1HNyjLkfyAI
(don’t forget to subscribe to the channel: it is free, but very important, to raise our audience!)

The book can be purchased on Amazon, in ebook or paperback format

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Dec

2021

Webb, and Psyche

We just attended the launch of the James Webb Telescope, headed to the Earth-Sun Lagrange point 2 (L2), at 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. A very ambitious project, aimed to place a human eye in a location where it will be easier to investigate the origin and the meaningful life events of the universe, of our solar system and our mother planet.What raised some thoughts in my mind is one of the characteristics of this beautiful sample of human ingenuity and hunger for knowledge: the JWST mirror has been plated with gold, due to elements properties like a high reflection of infrared light and extreme un-reactivity. My aim is not to discuss this choice from the scientific point of view. It makes me rather think about the value of precious metals, that’s not only their beauty, nor the use we make of them to realize precious jewels.

While I was in space just with my mind, it was easy to go some more million kilometers further away, reaching to the 16 Psyche Asteroid. Psyche – an M-type asteroid, fragment of a proto-planet broken up during the birth of the solar system — dwells somewhere in the middle of the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter. The distance from Earth ranges from 252 million to 645 million kilometers.

Why Psyche owns such a great reputation, among the space expansionist community, and the space miners subassembly, in a more specific way? Its diameter is estimated not less than 227 km. Due to the gravitational perturbations it causes among other asteroids in its surroundings, Psyche is kind of under special surveillance, since long time. Such perturbations are due to high mass and density, and such properties raised further analysis, by means of ultraviolet light observation. To make short a long research story, Psyche is likely mainly composed by iron and nichel, and its global value is estimated around $10 quintillion, a figure even hard to imagine.

Continue reading →

Oct

2021

A Planet B strategy, taking care of Planet A!

This is the right time to embark on grand epochal projects, fit to change our world and our future.
The Green Transition may only be useful if accompanied by a powerful development plan.
The internet society and digital money may require much more energy, not less.
The Green Transition alone has a high cost, and may produce new social inequalities.
Capable sustainable development is “off our planet”: kick-off civilian space development.

With reference to our analysis of the status of Civilization[1], updated in the 3^rd SRI World Congress 2021, we propose that the issue of the Climate Change should be approached within a widescale and holistic view, also addressing all SDGs Sustainable Development Goals and identifying other interrelated threats to civilization: the Covid19 Pandemics, the global economic crisis, raw materials and energy crisis, water scarcity, the growth of conflicts and refugees, the pollution of the seas, the loss of biodiversity and, in more general terms, the enormous social effects of such Armageddon. Specifically, the Coronavirus pandemics have quickly demonstrated how eight billion citizens, constrained within the narrow spaces of our mother planet, may see dramatically decreasing freedom to move, socialize, work together, love and have children. What we need is a Global Sustainability Initiative and a Global Sustainability Agreement to identify both threats and opportunities what would allow the global community to accomplish these tasks.

The “Green Transition” as undertaken by several Countries, will be useful, in obtaining a grace period, and allowing the development of strategies to combat the multiple crisis and retake the path of growth and evolution. Yet this incidental process is exactly the point: the Green Transition, alone, in being focused mainly on passive actions, does not represent an active strategy. It can be helpful, but only if sided and supported by a powerful development plan. Continue reading →

Jul

2020

The Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme

Space Renaissance Academy announced its worldwide Mentorship Programme.

The Space Renaissance Academy kicked-off a very ambitious initiative: to build the greatest planetary mentorship programme.

The programme is made by two main parts:

Students have the possibility to choose their favorite themes for graduation theses or Ph.D works.
Mentors have the possibility to choose their favorite disciplines, on which they like to provide mentorship to students.

The SR Academy will take care of creating the link among students and mentors, for the different themes / disciplines.

We will also contact Universities, in order to coordinate this beautiful effort.

Why did Space Renaissance engage in this adventure?

In this page, the meaning, the contents and the goals of the programme are explained in more details.

Jun

2020

The Great Objection and its Confutation

(image: the recently discovered golden asteroid, worth $700 quintillion)

THE GREAT OBJECTION AND ITS CONFUTATION

— Why we cannot solve any problems on Earth before going to space —

The original version of this article was written in 2009, and reviewed by the author in May 2020

(from the old Technologies of the Frontier www.tdf.it website)

Before going to space, should we solve the problems here, on Earth?
The need for growth
The management of scarce resources is possible only by despotic regimes
The only way is space industrialization

Before going to space, should we solve the problems here, on Earth?

Whenever we speak about human presence in space to a general audience, and quite often when we talk with specialists as well, we have to hear the Great Objection: ”Before going to space, we have to solve our problems here, on the Earth”.

As soon as we reason about it we understand that the Objection is in fact a general dialectic scheme, which consists in changing the topic, pretending that the alternative is more important and urgent and so avoiding to reply to what the speaker has said. In short, it is a sort of quite-another-ism: “The problem is quite another, the cause is quite another…”.

But the Objection is Great, because too many people use it and take it for good, therefore we must face it at once and make people understand that the truth is exactly the opposite: if we don’t go to space and we don’t do it quickly, we are destined to a bad future here on the Earth. The reason is that the Earth has a finite size, to live all well we need economic growth and already now its resources are not enough, then we have to look for resources elsewhere – that is in the immense universe out there!

Continue reading →

May

2020

Is the surface of a planet really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?

by A. V. Autino

While recovering the materials of the old Technologies of the Frontier website (destroyed by hackers few years ago), I came across this document: an interview by Stewart Brand’s with Gerard O’Neill, made in July 1975. In fact, it is also online on the NASA’s website https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/CoEvolutionBook/Table_Of_Contents.HTML, and is linked from the NSS website as well.

However, reading Gerard O’Neill’s history of the development of his great idea gave me a big emotion, and I thought worth to propose it for further reflection and possible engagement today, while we are crossing our fingers, waiting for the first humans going to orbit on a private launch vehicle, the Space X Dragon Crew.

The document is now online on the SRI website, and I thought worth to include it among the space renaissance philosophy basic documents.

Here are some excerpts. Continue reading →

May

2020

SRI’S PROGRAM IS NOW URGENT, IN ORDER TO END THE POST-LOCKDOWN RECESSION

Abstract

This article discusses the urgency to start developing reusable passenger-carrying space-vehicles. Growth is necessary for quality of life, and no more growth will be possible without free space travel. Creation of new business activities is necessary, and lack of new industries is a permanent condition in advanced societies. The article also confutes the theory that economic growth is dangerous, and should be reverted, and discusses what new industries are candidates for creating tens of millions of new jobs, without destroying jobs in existing industries. The 7^th major transportation technology — space travel, based on rocket propulsion – is compared to the previous 6 ones: horse-carriages, sailing-ships, trains, propeller-driven ships, cars, trucks and buses, aircrafts. Collins brings powerful arguments to sustain the rapid development of a range of reusable passenger-carrying space-vehicles, followed by orbiting and lunar commercial and industrial infrastructures. Collins also explains why the SRI’s viewpoint has now become urgent due to the “Lockdown Recession”, arguing that even before the recent “lockdown” policies, economic growth was weak in the rich Countries. And, nowadays, the 7th transportation industry should be very attractive to governments. Collins ends by a strong confutation of the two major objections to civilian space development: 1) developing a luxury service like space travel was unnecessary and wasteful 2) de-industrialization was necessary to reduce humans’ environmental impact; and the clear indication that the development of space travel services should receive at least 1/1,000 of the budget that “green” policies receive, or about 1% of what space agencies receive for their activities. A severe judgment is then pronounced on those who advocate ending economic growth due to the “dwindling resources” of Earth: they are like a small child who still believes that the house where they live is the whole world. Continue reading →