Tag Archives: New York TImes

Humanity’s Survival Hinges Not on Outer Space, But on ‘Our Space’

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Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor had a piece in the Guardian recently* regarding the obsession among our Billionaire Boys Club with shipping humans off to colonize outer space. The same trend toward maximal manspreading came up a few days later in a NY Times piece by Michelle Goldberg**.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be part of something as ground-breaking as off-planet settlement would be. No shame either, in pining to experience a greater extent of our universe than our earthly perch affords – who wouldn’t love to have taken that “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” (even if one imagines improving the wording just a touch)?

But really, not many sapiens are ever going to voluntarily commit to open-ended confinement in a tight cannister with the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos. Crewed, in all likelihood, by the same sort of self-infatuated ketaminers who staffed-up Mr. Musk’s short-lived Doge blow-out… All for the privilege of living regimented lives in close quarters designed, by necessity, for maximum functionality with minimum resources.

Those hardy souls who are interested in signing on would do well to seriously ponder Fermi’s Paradox, which goes something like this: given that current scientific knowledge allows us to calculate the truly astronomical number of galaxies, star systems and orbiting bodies which are out there, and that earth sciences continue to expand the range of hostile conditions under which earthly life can exist, there must surely be innumerable opportunities for life to have developed on other worlds, so why is it we’ve still never encountered any evidence of it other than here on our own little blue ball?

The best answer I’ve encountered lies at the heart of Kim Stanley Robinson’s marvelous novel Aurora*** when his narrator considers how intimately and perilously the intelligent life we do know of is suited to exactly that environment in which it evolved. Robinson’s short answer to Fermi’s question is that by the time a species gets clever and knowledgeable enough to try living elsewhere, it is also clever and knowledgeable enough to realize it is better off staying home.

Which brings us to what really struck me in reading those Guardian and Times opinion pieces: when was the last time we heard any of today’s tech titans or AI impregnators voice appreciation for the glory of our natural world? Given more than enough resources to spend their lives in Earth’s most awe-inspiring environments, environments which would be impossible to recreate with even their absurd resources, it seems our over-lords choose instead to cocoon themselves in nine-figure superyachts, carbon-spewing private jets, high-rise apartments or gated acreage hermetically sealed off from the noxious byproducts of their own industries.

It’s enough to make one pine for the days of Teddy Roosevelt – a wealthy elitist with plenty of faults but who at least retained the innocence to appreciate the wonders all around him. Or anyone else with sufficient wisdom to recognize that billions of years of growth and change have modelled us humans to succeed brilliantly in this particular and unique habitat, and the humility to realize we must care for that habitat, in something like the natural state to which our organism is so fatally suited, if we are to have any hope of saving ourselves or our descendants.

Space exploration is a worthwhile endeavor which pays many dividends, but in no way should it be a substitute for, or impediment to, preserving our current star base so it may continue to nurture all our billions of heirs, not just the very privileged few who will ever have the opportunity to head out toward other stars.

*’The end times fascists are plotting their escape from our world. Our mission is clear’, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, The Guardian, 2026-09-13

**’Why Tech Oligarchs Are Willing to Risk Apocalypse,’ Michelle Goldberg, New York Times, 2026-09-12

***Aurora, a novel, by Kim Stanley Robinson, copyright 2015 by Kim Stanley Robinson – ideas paraphrased here, in respect of copyright – seek out the original and read it, it’s better!

P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way in which our current leaders’ obsessive pursuit of wealth and power may bring an end to the U. S. A., and what sort of world might arise in its wake.

With a thrilling plot driven by politics and economics (as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith) the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

We don’t need no stinking election!

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Where this administration – and our nation – may be headed.

Thomas B. Edsall has a column in today’s N Y Times titled ‘When you think of it, We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’ – a direct quote from a recent Reuters interview of Mr. Trump.  The piece goes on to summarize all the ways in which Mr. Trump and his enablers in the Executive branch, Congress and the highest courts are working to either swing the upcoming elections their way or, if that is not successful, to justify invalidating the results so that they may hold onto power indefinitely. 

Scary stuff that, and very credible to anyone whose been following the news. Our aspiring monarch, it seems, will stop at nothing to protect his power and secure himself a place atop Mt. Rushmore. All the more reason for every patriot to vote this November for candidates of any party with the courage to stand up to demagoguery and reestablish the role of Congress in making law, policy and appropriations of the public’s funds.*

P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way such subversion might lead to the end of the U. S. A. as we know it, and what sort of a world might take its place.  With a thrilling plot driven by politics and economics as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith, the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

*for one more small step each of us can take to resist polarization, see also: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/11/change-your-party-change-the-future/

On ‘We Aren’t in Vegas Anymore’

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Ross Douthat of the NYT had an interesting column this AM, ostensibly about the value of taking social policies only to some rational balancing point of benefits and risks, rather than insisting upon one extreme ( total prohibition) or the other ( total laissez-faire permission). While his argument made great sense, it deserves to be expanded, particularly in relation to some of the issues often associated with what is lumped together as the political ‘right.’

What Douthat says about the inevitability of some gambling always existing, and therefor the preferability of reasonable limits and regulation rather than either total prohibition or complete lack of regulation – bet anywhere, anytime, on anything, at any stakes – is well taken. He neglected, though, the logical extension of this argument to some very comparable similar issues; prostitution, for example, or abortion, both of which have been around at least since biblical times despite every effort to universalize their prohibition.

Even positive issues such as freedom of speech are most-effectively handled by a society and legality which do not permit their most extreme expressions (yelling fire in a football stadium being the classic one; intentional libel for financial gain another, or defending one’s castle with a bank of automated machine-gun emplacements). Yet another salient reference would be to freedom of religion, where the reasonable desire to worship without persecution has been stretched into the supposed-right to run businesses and corporations in ways that discriminate and limit the freedom of their employees or their customers. The Citizens United campaign finance decision suggests this list could go on, and on.

What Mr. Douthat was actually – and correctly – warning of is the danger of fundamentalism in any realm.

Whether coming from the supposed ‘left’ (permitting pornography, legalizing marijuana) or the ‘right’ (striking down Roe v. Wade, refusing to put a same-sex statuette on top of a wedding cake), taking any social proposition to its logical extreme is never a good way to make law or public policy, especially in an aspiring democracy which aims to cultivate internal peace and comity.