Re: Fate of SF as World Slides Down Back Side of Hubbert's Curve?

>"IsaacKuo" <mechdan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:58419638-bd62-4da2-abc0-38b4eab2ec6d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>On Mar 25, 1:05 am, Girish <girishbhat6...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> On Mar 25, 10:52 am, Gene Ward Smith <g...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> > Girish <girishbhat6...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:368e1add-6ac8-4960-86d3-
>> > f853f6286...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> > > Kevin Cherkauer wrote:
>> > >> -- Humanity will never go to the stars (probably not even one
human
>> > >> will go to the stars)

>> > > Not in mine or your lifetime - maybe. But eventually, yes.

>> > How?

>> If we knew how, we would already be working on going there, no?

>We know several ways to do it using near to mid term technology.
>But not using near to mid term economy.  It's just too outrageously
>expensive to start on it yet.  We have difficulty scraping together
>the money for a simple manned mission to Mars.  A mission to
>Alpha Centauri?  Out of the question, for now.  We (almost) have
>the technology.  We're very very far away from having the resources.


Isaac,

That was more or less the underlying premise. We could speculate on
whether
the "yet" in your third sentence is valid, but my intent was not to turn
this into a peak oil discussion board. (Interestingly, I did not find a
Usenet group on that topic. If anyone knows of one, please post it!) From
the "written SF" pespective, I am indeed curious as to what would happen
to
SF-as-we-know-it *if* it became plainly evident that we will have less,
not
more, as time goes on. I am one of those people who does like to ask
myself,
"What if?" I thought I might find others here of that bent, and that the
topic in question was relevant.

(An aside: I have also long had the question as to why lots of s****ting
gear
comes with a color choice of teal, but *almost never* a choice of
turquoise -- especially because turquoise is OBVIOUSLY a much cooler color
(IMO), and really not all that different from teal. And I never thought I
would ever even find a way to ask this question, much less find out the
answer, if there really was one. But lo, in what may turn out to be the
all-time surprise of my life, I was at a party a few months ago, and at
that
party I met a woman who is a "colorist" for Nike -- and I asked her my
question AND SHE KNEW THE ANSWER! Wow, I didn't even know there was such a
job as a "colorist," meaning someone who guides the color selection toward
what they believe is the real "right" color or set of colors for that
piece
of gear, although in retrospect I suppose there basically has to be such a
job in some form or other, to some degree. And no, I won't hold out on you
all now who have read this far -- the answer is that turquoise dyes tend
not
to be very resistant to ultraviolet or to wa****ng, so what you typically
get
is a very faded-looking piece of gear in short order if you make it
turquoise instead of teal.)

Thanks,
Kevin