On the Human Response
Ah, but humans can risk, long-term investments gambled for eventual pay-off. All
the resources of earth piled on to make space flight feasible, to mine the asteroids,
to terra-form Mars, to colonize orbital settlements, to create self-sustaining habitats,
hydroponics, self-contained ecosystems ...
"If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss; ..."
From If, by Rudyard Kipling
If the driving force is not mere dilettantism but the longest-range survivability
of the species, and if we draw back to look at the largest context, the longest view,
it becomes evident that evolution itself has been an iterative process, a jitterbug
of Max's pyramidal elements, an emerging efficacy of matter and energy that, dare
we assume, culminates presently in human rationality.
Mr. Walker rightly faults the notion of instant omniscience and totalitarian perfection
at inception. It has its parallel in the unfounded smugness of those who would equate
a Jackson Pollock with a Michelangelo, or embrace a concept as absurd as "creation
science".
Thank you for listening. Please forgive the long-windedness. This puzzle has many
pieces. Your thoughtful comments have irresistibly stimulated this confluence of concepts.
I may not have said anything original, but I do hope to have put it together in a
new and different way.
Kate Jones
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On
Government and Private Enterprise