Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Sat, 17 Feb 90 02:05:50 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 17 Feb 90 02:05:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #56 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 56 Today's Topics: Re: Why we would need a planet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Feb 90 05:55:11 GMT From: phoenix!elturner@princeton.edu (Edwin L Turner) Subject: Re: Why we would need a planet. In article <1990Feb15.204943.8621@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >In article <1990Feb15.195633.27342@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> noble@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Patrick Brewer) writes: >> We need planets just to get the resources for existence. > >In principle, this is wrong. There is no reason why a purely >space-based civilization could not exist, given reasonable future >technologies. Right in principle, but it may be legitimate to still wonder what will/would be true in practise. As you may have noticed, we are not a perfectly logical species. We (or most of us) may simply choose to live on planets because we want to for some poorly defined reasons. You can make a good case that it would be both possible and sensible for us to be devoting major resources toward living on/in/under the sea, but we are not to any important extent. We could, but so far we haven't. Japan (again) offers an even starker example. Almost the whole population crams itself into the minority of Japan's land area which is not mountainous. This results in amazingly severe crowding with profound social/economic/cultural consequences. Why don't the Japanese live in the mountains? Certainly, they could; apparently they just don't want to. Ed Turner "Uso ni chiru phoenix!elturner ha mo nashi yomo no kane no koe." or elturner@phoenix.Princeton.EDU - Chori 1778 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #56 *******************