Matus1976 - Philosophy, Science, Politics,Art

In my pursuit of gradually converting my V-STROM into a long distance touring vehicle, I’ve recently made some good upgrades to it. One is simply a larger windscreen, and the other is a Tablet PC converted to a GPS Tracking module and mounted on a Tank Bag!

Before these modifications – I used the bungee spider web neeting as a convenient way to quickly hold things, such as maps.

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On my last trip, my printed google map blew off my bike in mid ride in a place I had no maps for. Frustrated with that, and realizing how much I’ve spent on maps, I decided to get a GPS Module. However, motorcycle GPS modules are quite pricey. I realized that I keep my tablet PC with me anyway, and that GPS receivers alone only cost $20 - $40. So the result was getting a tank bag and map bag and mounting my laptop to the tank bag with the GPS module so it becomes a real time full screen electronic map! The results were a rousing success!

1st though, the new GIVI Windscreen.

Before -

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After

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Very nice, wind noise was reduced drastically and I feel no turbulence on my helmet at all now. The Givi screen is taller and wider, but among all the after market screens I think it has the best style too it, keeping the curve and feel of the V-Strom.

On to the GPS setup.

After researching tank bags I settled on the strap mount Tourmaster T-12, moderate sized and stylish. For mounting the laptop, I needed a larger bag that the laptop would fit, and came across TourRiggs large map bag, at 16"x12"

First modifcations are to the Map bag, these bags usually seal up tight and have a vinyl cover to protect the map. The Wacom tablet pens used on tablet PC’s are very cool in that they used inductive loops so don’t need to actually touch the screen of the laptop and work perfectly fine through the vinyl cover.

Here is the map bag with holes cut out of it’s backing for ventilation for the laptop.

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Flipping it over, I want to add spacers so that it ‘floats’ above the tank bag leaving plenty of room for air to swirl around under the laptop.

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To hold the spacers I used some light nylon sewn into a long hollow rectangle.

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Here the spacers are inserted into the nylon sock

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sewn closed in front of and behind foam spacers

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both spacers now sewn onto the back of the Map bag

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They were able to move side to side to much, so I added small adhesive Velcro to both the spacer and the bottom side of the back of the map bag to keep them in place.

Here I added a side strap and a zipper attachment for connecting to the tank bag. You can also see how much the spacers are able to move side to side

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The laptop now nice and cozy inside the bag

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closer view of the underside with the foam spacers and the holes cut out for ventilation

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the other side of the map bag also has spacers so the laptop floats above the backing of the map bag, again to help increase airflow.

I opted for the strap mounted tank bag, unfortunately these allowed for a great deal of side to side movement no matter how tight I made the straps. The map bag came with power full rare earth magnet mounts which just stick to your metal gas tank. I decided to sew those onto the tank bag to give it laterally stiffness, so the tank bag is now both strap and magnetic mounted.

Here you can see the map bag, now laptop bag, without the laptop. You can clearly see the ventilation holes and the spacers on the laptop side of the base.

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The tank bag slides down easily revealing the gas cap by just disconnecting the front two strap latches. The magnetic flaps keep it in place quite well. http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010895.JPG

Here is the underside of the map bag, now the laptop bag, you can see the spacers, the front and side nylon Velcro straps, and the zipper which keeps it attached. This is a separating sport zipper to it separates completely.

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The Velcro side strap holds the bag down nice and tight. Here you can see the magnetic flaps that were added protruding down as well. http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010890.JPG

At the front is another Velcro strap, 3 points of connection should keep the laptop nice and stiff. http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010891.JPG

Pics of the the whole assembly mounted. http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010889.JPG

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Now it’s on to powering the unit. Here are the gizmos for powering it. On the left is the Powerlet plug, these are like cigarette lighter plugs but better and smaller. In the middle is an adapter which converts from Powerlet to a regular automotive type cigarette lighter plug, because the converters needed to power the laptop AC unit only come with those connectors. Next to the right is the power block, this plugs into your battery positive terminal and has six attachments points for later accessories and each has it’s own slot for fuses. It wasn’t necessary for this, but when I add more components it will be. Last on the right is the main relay switch and fuse, this is actually what directly connects to your battery and the power block attaches to it. The relay opens up the 30A from the battery to your accessories but uses a small current to actually throw that switch. Relays basically use small switches to close big switches making the whole setup more reliable and safer.

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The instructions say to find a suitable place to mount your power block, I removed the seat and found plenty of secure shielded room there. The seems to be exactly where virtually everyone finds to mount power blocks like these. On the left with the large red rubber cap is the battery, just to the right of that is the fuse for my accessory device, to the right of that is the relay, and then to the right of that is the power block. Above center is my grounding block, made from Ultra High Molecular Weight polyethylene (the coolest stuff ever – used for medical implants and as lighter than water bullet proof armor!) In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have my grounding block so close to my positive power block, I’ll move it.

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At this point the relay switch needs to be connected to something that turns on when you turn your key on. Most people connect this to your rear taillight which is always on in motorcycles. Lacking any easily accessible screws or mounts, I used a T crimping terminal which you just clamp around an insulated wire, it cuts through the insulation and makes contact with the wire, then you can just plug another connector to that.

Here is the rear tail light assembly removed, I had to remove my Givi side case mounting bars to get this off.

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I confirmed which wire was the constant on wire using a multimeter - it’s the solid grey one. The red probe from the multimeter is sticking into the wire nut on the right.

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Purple T crimp is clamped onto the grey wire, in my hand is the plug which connects to that, now creating a new circuit.

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After that, I reconnected the ground, added the fuses, and tested it out. Here is the multimeter showing power in my Powerlet plug

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I drilled a mounting hole for the powerlett plug.

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Plug installed! http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010910.JPG

Wiring added. Obviously that little 6" plug was not enough to get to my tank bag, so I wound my own and gave it Velcro attatching points to the frame. Wrapping the adhesive Velcro around the wire, making quick and easy cabling which can be removed possible. http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010912.JPG

The wire goes under the tank bag base and comes out on the right. Now, everything’s ready! http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010911.JPG

Power up and running off the motorcycle’s electrical system! Woo hoo!!! http://www.matus1976.com/public/pictures/25_05_09/P1010914.JPG

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Problems, Complications, Modifications

It’s rather ridiculous to take the 12V DC from the Powerlet plug and through an inverter change it to 120V AC only to use the laptop adapter to convert it back to 12V DC! With some more electronics knowledge I think a simple box that accomplishes this would be reasonable.

The Laptop + Battery are too big for the map bag, I have to disconnect the battery to use it, which is annoying. However I have the long life battery I think the normal battery would fit just fine.

The screen is hard to see in bright sunlight even at it’s brightest setting.

These new Wacom tablets are supposed to work just as a touch screen without needing the pen tablet. I have not been able to get that to work yet though.

Power wise, I need to devise some sort of quick connect system so the tank bag can be disconnected quickly.

The DeLorme Streets and Trips program is buggy, at the tall resolution of the tablet, the zoom out button is off screen.

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Day two of Italy and Greece started out with the vatican City. Prior to that, however, was one of the low points of the trips, the miserable event that Italians apparently call ‘breakfast’, which, at this hotel, consisted entirely of bread. Where’s my eggs? Bacon? Protein? MEAT? Yikes. Every morning it was what variety of stale cold bread would you like to call ‘breakfast’ Everyone on the trip was heartily disappointed, and even the tour director said it was unusual. Across the hall a large Japanese tour group routinely enjoyed eggs and bacon. To be fare to our Italian hosts, apparently it was EF that skimped us on our ‘continental’ breakfast. Maybe I’m just an annoying American…but bread only?

We took the Metro and got off at the vatican Museum stop, walked a few blocks to the entrance to the walled vatican City. This grayed off section from this Google maps screen shot shows the outline of vatican city.

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The satellite perspective of the Google maps view doesn’t give a good appreciation of the scale of the wall surrounding this vatican City, though this image comes close. Notice the cars in the right hand side.

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Another google street view image helps appreciate the scale of this wall.

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The vatican city is a sovereign city-state with a population of about 900 on a 110 acre complex that is completely landlocked. It represents the smallest country in the world. Brought into it’s present form by treaty in 1929, it was a refuge for Christianity during the middle ages and the home of Emperor Nero’s circus (in ancient Rome, the circus was a loop in a stadium which chariots would race around) A great fire erupted in Rome under the reign of Nero, which some historians suggest he started, and others stories report he sat joyfully playing his liar on a rooftop while watching the city burn. Nero blamed Christians, a minority cult at that time, for the fire, and many were persecuted in this square. Tradition holds that Saint Peter was crucified in that circus, upside down at his request to be distinguished from his lord. Near the circus was a cemetery which Saint Peter was buried in and today St. Peters Basilica sits on top of his likely burial site.

We entered in the Northern part, near the museum. This Google street view shows the entrance we came upon and the medieval wall surrounding the whole vatican City.

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This impressive doorway was the old entrance to the vatican city and Museum. That is some of our group passing in front of me. (on to my pictures now)

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We didn’t get to go in that cool door though, and instead went into this one, the ‘new’ entrance.

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Passing quickly through the museum, some of us hit the ATM’s and others the Bathrooms, then we passed into this courtyard inside the city.

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The adjacent building had fantastic renaissance styling.

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a close up of the work

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Looking south down the courtyard off the balcony were the gardens, which were not open to the public, and in the distance, looming large and hazy, was the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the most fantastic buildings in the world. From this view the basilica is about 1,300 feet away.
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We turned around and started toward this round building, another impressive piece of renaissance architecture.

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We went back inside and passed one building’s width away

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And emerged into the ‘pinecone’ courtyard into this view

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A close up
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The pinecone in the center was a symbol of fertility and life to Romans, and is a bronze from the 1st century AD, originally part of a Roman fountain. A nice view of the building surrounding the pinecone and the niche which emphasizes it.

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Most of this courtyard was constructed in the high renaissance period. The first two stories of this was designed and built by the Italian architect Bramante. The design came from scholarly reconstructions of the Roman temple Fortuna Primigenia.

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Dying before it’s completion, the third story and the vast half dome, an interesting piece of negative space, was built forming the largest niche that had been built since antiquity.

In the center of the courtyard was a large metal sphere, broken and rotating.

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The broken and fragmented sphere, according to the tour guide, represented the fracturing in the world that came from the protestant reformation going on at the time the basilica was constructed. The sphere, ugly, out of place, and non objective, was obviously a recent addition as only ‘modern’ artists would call it art. Though obviously requiring technical mastery and a very unique complex piece of work, it’s theme and manner of achieving it are hardly more than a Roarsarch test and stand in ugly stark contrast to the romantic realism of classical art that fills the courtyard and the vatican city.

According to the tour guide, the spherical work of art is the same size of the sphere that adorns the top of the dome of St. Peters Basilica. In this shot I tried to capture both to help get that sense of scale.

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An interesting façade and building in the courtyard, St. Peters again looms in the distance.

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the courtyard was adorned with Roman artifacts and artwork. I love this stuff, can’t get enough of it.

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A good view of the courtyard pinecone and niche

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After that, we headed inside through some of the elaborate galleries and hallways.

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It was popular during the renaissance era for wealthy people to collect roman artifacts, and the pope, being the wealthiest, of course had the best collection. We were rushed through this hallway with hundreds of artifacts which I could have spent days in alone, I tried to grab some of the best picutres. This sarcophagas is made of an extremely rare red marble.

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Turning the corner, more elaborate halls and stairs.

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More Roman Artwork
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I wonder what that toe or finger was to?

More elaborate halls

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What a great piece this is, Roman art, as we’ll see more of in Pompeii, celebrated existence. Here great art celebrates the intellect, the thinking man.

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I want a sarcophagus like this

Some of the halls had elaborate decorations such as these adorning the curved cielings.

Taking a close look though, almost ubelievably, these are painted to appear 3 dimensional, the surface is perfectly smooth. These guys who painted these are masters.

After passing, or, getting shoved through, the great hall of Roman artwork, we entered a hall of tapestries, which was quite impressive.

These tapestries, as this picture shows, were huge. The smallest was probably 15 x 15, the largest had to be 50 or 60 feet on it’s longest dimension. And these were woven

After the tapestries, we entered a hall of maps.

This was meant to be a center of information regarding the territories governed by the Pope that he could peruse down as sort of a giant reference hall. Pretty impressive. In this case, the ceiling was actually adorned with sculptures, and not just painted to look 3D. The elaborate nature of it struck everyone with awe.

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I resolve to have a similar hall of maps to appreciate my empire with

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The paintings though not geographically accurate were represenationally accurate

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More of the incredible Ceiling in the hall of maps

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This map, labeled ETRvRIA was a region of northern italia where the Etruscan’s, predecessors to the Roman’s, hailed from.

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Some fantastic artwork adorning an entrance.

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A damn cool hall way. I don’t feel important enough to walk such a hallway.
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These long building gracing the sides of the courtyard housed the halls of maps, tapestries, and roman artwork.

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After the halls, we emerged into an outside area impressive of it’s own right.

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I think this was the courtyard we emerged into

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Through the arch, looking up, heading outside

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Emerging into St. Peter’s square

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We take a quick right, avoiding the square and staying under a large elaborate portico

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The important people’s door

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Look at those capitals, how long does it take to carve something like that?

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We swing out of the portico into the square to get in a line. The portico was the entrance to St. Peters Basilica so we’re getting ready to enter. In this shot, the renaissance architecture of the lower building is captivating, along with the elaborate statues adorning it’s top. Our tour guide tells us the rustic 2 story-ish building at an oblique angle to the sandstone colored lower one is the home of the Pope, and the window at the far right is the one he emerges from to wave at the people.

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Googling the “Pope’s Window” I think it was one building off. These two pictures give a good idea of the building the window is a part of.

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And this image you can see both windows in the same view. That building was hidden behind this one from this perspective, but probably just barely, so perhaps from the tour guide’s point of view the ‘Pope’s Window’ was visible.

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The other side of the courtyard, while we are still in line

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Turning around the façade to St. Peter’s Basilica utterly overwhelms you

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That was all we got to see of the facade for now, we turned and headed toward the door, we are about to enter.

And inside…Wow!

Incredible

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The design beliegh’s the scale. Look at the size of the people near the columns to be reminded of it
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Incredible ceiling

Me in the basilica (front lower left)

A little history and architecture. As Christianity rose to dominance in the Roman Empire, the empire split into an east and west region. For various reasons which have been debated for centuries, from a change in the philosophical attitude of the people due to Christianity to weather changes, the western Roman empire fell, while the east remained with it’s capital at Constantinople for some centuries before it too fell. Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of Rome and made Constantinople the center of the eastern roman empire, and commenced construction of Byzantium Basilicas to replace the Roman Temples of the pagan days. The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) is the oldest and greatest of these Byzantium Basilicas.

Byzantian Basilicas were typically Greek crosses (a plus sign, not a t) and were characterized in the Roman era by Roman arches, large domes at the crossing and mosaic or fresco artwork. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of medieval Christendom, the Basilica gave way to the Cathedral, characterized by gothic arches (tall pointed arches) the Latin cross, stained glass instead of mosaics and frescos, and spires as bell towers, often asymmetric, at the entrance (think of Notre Dame).

Lacking the cement and mortar the Romans had, gothic cathedrals had to be self supporting and self stabilizing, making domes much harder to construct. The dome of the cross gave way to the height of the spires and the flying buttresses used to provide a counter force to the arches on arches used to achieve the incredible heights of cathedrals. The floor plan of the basic basilica was an even legged Greek cross, with St. Peters basilica, we saw an architectural revival of the Basilica (this was, after all, centuries after the height of gothic cathedral architecture) with the dome getting revived as the crown of the cross but retaining the Latin cross. This renaissance and reformation embroiled era of Christianity sought to distinguish itself from the Gothic era by, in part, reviving the basilica and dome.

I think to fully appreciate these pictures of St. Peter’s, it’s useful to know the structure and layout, to get a full sense of the monumental nature of the work. The earliest plan for the new Basilica was proposed by Bramante, and was a standard Greek Cross

St. Peters was a venerated site with a vast sacred earky Christian basilica built originally by Emperor Constantine. But by the renaisance era it was crumbling and in disarray, famously during once mass a wall crumbled and killed dozens of people. The Pope felt it was time to tear the old church down and build a better one.

Here is the first famous design of the new Basilica, by the famous artist Bramante. Though a great artist, he was a terrible engineer. The thin walls could never support the dome intended.

The famous renaissance artist Rapheal took Bramante’s plan and changed it to a latin cross, but seemed to have cluttered it with numourous colums and pilasters.

And subsequently Michaelengo further refined the design, reverting back to the greek cross, but extended the nave and finalizing the outer walls. The plan was returned to a latin cross, but otherwise retained all of Michaelengo’s contributions, by a later architect. The new dome was started in 1506, not completed until 1626. Michaelengelo spent the last 17 years of his life as the supreme architect on the project, over 30,000 drawings governed it’s construction.

Michaelangelo’s plan, with walls now able to handle the weight of the large dome, but with the disproportionately large facade from a later architect added

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In my pictures above, we stand at the base of the long leg of the cross. Some more interior pictures.

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These statues are 12 – 16 feet tall

heading over to michaelengo’s la pieta

This was one of the works I was most interested to see, part of the spark of the renaissance, it raised the bar on all art and necessarily technical mastery. More than that, it’s a powerful work. But you couldn’t get anywhere near enough to it to actually appreciate it, very dissapointing.

Now were starting to walk toward the center of the cross, under the dome, but were still in the long leg of it.

A view I liked

Now we start to reach the dome, looking up.

It’s impossible for your mind to wrap around the sheer scale of this structure, it never looks as big as it actually is. Obviously pictures do it little justice, but even being there it was like one grand optical illusion. I don’t think we evolved with the ability to conceptualize scales like this, since we rarely would come across them, and most important to our survival would be scales around our own immediate size.

Here is a shot with the incredibly elaborate Altar that the Pope occupies

I wish I had done a little bit of video here, just of walking, so you could see the parallax shift (or lack there of) that helps give the sense of scale.

Closeup of the alter

More of the Dome, I’m still staring up, captivated

looking down the cross toward the apse

Elaborate work at the end of the apse

One of my favorite shots

Another one like it

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This wide angle panoramic shot hosted on wikipedia is worth a look, though it takes some time to download, it helps capture the elaborate beauty and scale of the interior
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Ok, just to try to appreciate the scale of this structure, take a close look at this picture

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Zooming in, you can actually see the people on the balcony in the dome.

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Those letters surrounding the dome must be 12′ tall, the large round paintings in the pendantives must be 50 or 60 feet in diameter!

The overall dimensions of the basilica are 730 feet long, 500 feet wide, and 452 feet tall. The dome of the Basilica is indeed the tallest dome in the world, and as famously called, the greatest dome in all of christendom! 452 feet tall is roughly 45 stories. By contrast, the Statue of liberty, INCLUDING its base, is 305 feet tall, and could indeed stand, on it’s pedestal, INSIDE the dome. I would say this dome and the original façade of the basilica are properly considered to be the culmination of Michelangelo’s architectural genius.

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Though not known as much for his architecture and engineering as he was for sculpting and painting, Michaelangelo’s Architecture has had a much more direct influence on all architecture since than his sculpture has for artist.

Here is a plan shaded view of the dome with standard 10’ stories present for reference. Again, the scale of this structure is tremendous and completely escapes grasping it in these pictures, and pretty much even while you are there inside it.

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The World Trade Center, at 110 Stories, was a little more than twice the height of St. Peters Basilica! Note that this dome was completed in 1626. One of the reasons that it is so difficult to ascertain scale on these structures was the common renaissance practice to make things look, intentionally, like fewer stories than they actually were. From the horizontal articulation and window plans, one might guess from a quick glance that the Basilica is about 6 stories tall, since we assume a window equals one story. But each of the windows in the façade of the basilica alone are probably 6 stories tall!

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If you were to actually articulate the external walls with conventional window spacing, the scale is more apparent.

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Finally, Me, in front of the Basilica, from the courtyard.

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Well, that’s it for part 1 of day 2

Off to Italy and Greece! We met at a parking lot in Mystic, jumped on a bus and headed to JFK. We had 35 people in the group, from high schoolers to retirees. The trip and boarding was uneventful. I spent a good amount of time getting to know others in the group as we had a few hours before take off at JFK. After a 7 hour flight over the Atlantic, were almost there! Just after departing at the layover in Frankfurt. With Lufthansa, I was expecting one of the new EU Airbus’s, but this was a Boeing 747. On our way to Rome, we passed over the Alps and the Appenine Ridge. I love passing mountain ranges from jet flights, but pictures never do it justice. About to Land in Rome! I was a little confused, I must have been on the wrong side of the plane, because this didn’t look like a big city at all. Turns out we landed about an hour outside of Rome in some beautiful Italian country side. We checked into our hotel, on the outskirts of the city. I was roomed with the father of one of the younger women on the trip, and not the person I was worried about rooming with. My friend from Illianos revealed to me I was originally roomed with him, and she’s been on the trips before and insisted to the organizer to not condemn me to that, knowing what this guy was like. Stories of him walking around in his underwear and toothpaste covered bathroom walls were floated about. I thanked her profusely! confessed my undying gratitude, and told her I’d buy her a drink at every meal. I knew none of the stories, just had the feeling he was those guys you know is going to be weird. Very nice guy, but definately weird. Decent view from our hotel room, but the Hotel was not at all impressive. As our tour host joked, it was a four star hotel but two of it’s stars were out. Apparently the EF Tours usually come up with much better stays. Floors 1 - 5 were electronic and accessible by elevators, floor 6 was stair access only and had old fashioned manual key locks. You were given one key per room, and asked to drop it off at the desk each time you left. We unpacked, relaxed for a bit, changed, showered, the all met for dinner. Here are some Random shots in Rome. After dinner, we made our way to the famous Spanish Steps, a popular meeting place in Rome which had a spectacular Ambience. I think if I lived here, I’d hang out here frequently. At the top was an old Egyptian obelisk From the very top, you could see the lighted dome of St. Peters Basilica, probably about 4 miles away. Looking down the steps to the street and fountain Me at the steps The fountain at the base was beautiful, the public fountains in Italy all have continuously fed clean water and are allegedly drinkable, though none of us tested the claim. We walked on, I found it odd there was an American Federal style building deep in Rome. This style was popular with the rise of American Federalism after the Revolutionary war, where American style was trying to distance itself from colonial and classical revival. And another one, attractively lit Walking the streets of Rome we came across a random church that was quite intriguing. Then it was one to the famous Trevi Fountain. Rounding a corner, the elaborate façade comes into view. Me in front of the Trevi Fountain. Closer detail of the elaborate marble carvings I liked this view And this one A close up of the center of the fountain This church sat behind the Trevi Fountain The elaborate Corinthian capitals were impressive A close up The front of the church was gated, and had all these small locks on it. I asked the Tour guide what the deal with that was. Lovers, he said, would come and put the locks on the gate together, supposedly their love would last forever, or as long as the lock remained. He said periodically the city comes and cuts them all off. So much for symbolism. We all enjoyed some Gelatio (Ice Cream) at the fountain. Seeking out Gelatio became a popular sport during our stay in Italy. A Random statue at the corner of a random building I spied an ancient looking temple façade down a side street, turns out we’d see it later though. We headed to a random church on reports about the interior of it from someone in the group Note the size of the pedestrians about to enter The inside was indeed incredible There was a service going on, so we quietly looked around. The pictures don’t do it justice. That’s a small choir all the way at the end, to help give a sense of scale. The walls are elaborate marble columns supporting giant Roman arches and the whole ceiling was elaborately painted. This was a random ‘small’ church in Rome, and was impressive and awe inspiring. Throughout the trip, these churches would inspire mixed emotions in me. While their technical skill and achievement is amazing and worthy of worship on their own, like a skilled artist choosing a bad theme, what they were made in the name of, and how the resources were acquired to make them, bothered me as much as the admiration of achievements required to make them inspired reverence in me. Off to the side was this interesting model. Someone asked at another church if this model represented something that someone wanted to actually build. I doubt it, given the sheer scale of it, but the tour guide said it was.

That dome would have exceeded by 10 fold anything built up until then, and probably exceeded anything ever built. The temples surrounding the outside looked to be replicas of existing famous temples. If these are to scale, the size of this structure would be almost beyond comprehension. Off to the side was this incredible structure And this one beside it A closer look reveals amazing sculptures Next to those, another just as impressive We quietly left the church, and a few blocks later was the Roman Pantheon!!! The sheer scale of it is hard to capture. Here I am standing in front of it The columns alone are a good 5 stories tall, and made of single pieces of granite. Probably 8 feet in diameter at the base. How the Romans even moved these, let alone put them into a standing position without breaking them is perplexing. I’m not sure what the inscription reads, but the Pantheon was built on top of the ruins of a previous temple to a Roman general, called Agrippa, so it looks to be something in honor of that. It was closed at night, but we would be returning the next day, and the inside was far more amazing. Next we passed the same ancient temple façade that was visible earlier. A few blocks away, we visited Hadrean’s Column. Built in the first century AD, by the famed Roman architect Appollodorus. After that, it was back to the metro and about a half hour ride and half hour walk to the hotel Some thoughts on Rome and Italy. One thing that immediately jumped out was the vast prevalence of motorcyclists and scooters. Lane splitting was almost a requirement, quiet a contrast to the states where only California allows lane splitting. Scooters and bikes could go and park pretty much anywhere they could fit. This area of Italy, at least, must have 10 or 20 times the motorcycle ridership that the states had. The weather and narrow roads surely is partly responsible for that, the terrain was full of small hills and charming alluring twisty roads, but the absurdly high gas prices was no doubt the primary reason. Geologically most of the land and stone outcroppings were a light sandstone, and the houses all had dark red terracotta roofs, contrasted with the lush green of the landscape they all made for a rich and very different landscape.

Objectivists consider Life as the objective standard of morality, the basis of ethical judgment.  Anything which harms life is evil, anything which is beneficial to life is good.  Now by “Life” objectivists do not mean the mere mechanical perpetuation of existence, but a particular kind of life, a fulfilling Aristotlean Eudaemonic life proper to rational beings living in the real world in voluntary co-operation with other rational beings.  Those beings must have goals, values, and engage in a productive course in life to achieve that which they value and not be co-dependant or exploitative.  Someone who values their mechanical existence over their ‘good life’ will find himself quickly betraying those things that make life enjoyable for the sake of things that allow him to exist, leading in a perpetual spiral toward a less meaningful existence.  Rand clarifies this as ‘Life qua Man’ that is, the thing’s proper to life in the context of an individual’s values and Man’s nature.  

 

Nihilistic skeptics, atheists, and philosophers throughout the ages have insisted that there is no such thing as an ‘objective’ morality.  Theists will make a claim that the word of god handed down as moral commandments are in fact an ‘objective’ basis for morality, and in their case they use ‘objective’ to mean something like ‘absolute’ and ‘irrefutable’ in this their use of the term objective has infiltrated the skeptical philosophers, like Michael Shermer, using the religious definition of objective also insists there is no ‘objective’ basis for morality and justifies this by saying how can you say this or that is right or wrong, according to what?  Shermer misunderstands ‘objective morality’ when he uses this a criticism of Objectivism, as if Objectivism has identified through revelation the one true morality, instead of identifying the only one proper to rational beings in the real world.  

 

But when theists use ‘objective’ morality they hijack the concept of truth and deliberation through reason and usurp it with revealed dogma.  To them, ‘objective’ morality is something that demands obedience no matter what and achieves it only through an omniscient omnipotent being as revealed through an elite aristocratic few only possible to those few.  But skeptics are wrong to use this as the idea for ‘objective’ morality.  We do not say that the ‘objective’ mass of 1 cubic centimeter of water is 1 g because it is announced by the fabric of space-time or decreed by an omniscient being and revealed through divination.  They are ‘objective’ because they are the product of reason, logic, and observation.  Objective in the context of science is something that is strived for that is removed from subjective interpretation and bias.  An “Objective” morality is not something ingrained into the fabric of the universe in the sense that it can be deduced through Newton’s laws of motion or quantum mechanics, as skeptics seem to think is a requirement for morality to be objective, (in doing so rendering the very concept of objective pointless) but it is objective in the sense that it is removed from subjective interpretation or bias, it is objective because it is the natural logical consequence of the laws of physics and the nature of rational beings that exist in a real universe.  

 

Liberals are still confused about this, theists have it easy, they look it up in their book, argue a little about interpretation, then decree something as ‘objectively’ immoral.  But nothing that only an elite few have access to who provide official interpretations is ‘objective’, it is not something discernable by any person using their mind, reason, and observation - as anything that is called ‘objective’ should by definition be.  Liberals aren’t sure where to go, they know that, for instance, killing someone is wrong, but not sure if it is right to say someone in another country is wrong to kill someone else when their culture makes it ok, such as ‘honor killing’, the inhumane treatment of the ‘untouchables’ in India, etc.  Richard Dawkins wrestles with this contradiction in ‘the God Delusion’ where he associates religious indoctrination with child abuse, but then is a little confused about what that demands of him morally, if one is witnessing child abuse, expending a reasonable amount of energy to stop it is moral to him, so if a country is indoctrinating children with a hate filled ideology, abusing them essentially, it should be morally defensible to remove from power the tyrants of that nation.  But this get’s in the way of the moral relativism, ‘tolerance’ and ‘multi-culturalism’ liberals profess so strongly (but rarely extend to inhabitants of their own nation who hold different opinions!)

 

Some Liberals though, I realized, do have an objective basis for morality, which they seemingly adopt whole heartedly, that of environmentalism.  In the way that Life qua Man is the objective standard of morality to Objectivists, some vague platonic ideal abstraction of a pure and pristine environment is the objective standard of morality to liberal environmentalists.  Whatever nation, culture, or creed, regardless of multi-culturalism and ‘tolerance’, if you’re burning down trees, killing cuddly animals, or dumping trash in rivers, all that bottled up moral rage and condemnation that liberals have been holding comes billowing forth.  Now, you could be killing people because of their ethnicity, holding the people in your nation as literal hostages and running it like a prison camp, etc, but moral condemnation is sparse.  They just say “who are we to say they are wrong” or “That’s just their culture”  But if you’re burning coal, forget it!  You are the incarnate of all that is evil!

 

This falls right into line with the growing criticism that environmentalism is just filling the psychological void of religious thought that secularism in the west has left gaping wide open.  It has their garden of Eden – “Sustainability”, the fall of man from that where everyone lived in blissful harmony with nature (and not the painful disgusting short brutish lives they actually lived), it’s emotional disregard for facts, it’s original sin, and now, it’s ‘objective’ basis for morality.  

 

One might try to argue that environmental degradation affects everyone and that’s why it’s morally objectionable to everyone everywhere, but this argument fails for two reasons. First it implies that unless something directly affects ME then I make no moral judgment on it, so what if you’re raping my next door neighbor!  In fact an assault on any person on the planet is an assault on everyone’s rights because leaving it alone promulgates a world where that kind of thing is ok, where rights in general are not respected.  It is always in your best interest to oppose the assault and infringement on rights any where in the world, because when you do not it will always, eventually, come back to bite you.  Which leads to the second, the harm which comes from the promulgation of murderous tyranny, which is so often ignored because of ‘multi-culturalism’ and things like ‘self determination’ (as if a small group of thugs getting hundreds of billions in weapons from an expansionistic murderous tyranny like the Soviet Union and using that to enslave and force to war an entire nation, such as was the case of Vietnam, was anything remotely like ‘self determination’) is far more detrimental to your average person’s well being than coal power is.  While it is true that these kinds of nations, the most unjust when life is your standard of morality, are also the worst polluters, it is also very true that they are the source and primary fuel for aggression, democide, famines, wars, terrorism, and pandemics.  

 

At the end of WWI, Winston Churchill insisted that British Troops assist the Czars in defending themselves against the revolution which brought Lenin and communism to power, but the war weary west labeled him a war monger.  Less than a thousand troops took the Czars with little resistance.  It is said that in the making of a movie some years later glorifying the revolution more people were injured than in the actual revolution itself.  A little opposition may have gone a long way, but instead what rose to power was the most murderous tyranny in the history of humanity.   At the end of WWII, Winston Churchill again warned that we should move on the Soviet Union, while it is now at it’s weakest, and they again called him a war monger, and so we were thrust into an existential prisoners dilemma game with a murderous expansionistic tyranny that brought the entire world to the brink of complete nuclear annihilation.  

 

It was not the Soviet Union’s dirty coal plants or poorly designed nuclear power plants that killed 60 million people this century (more than twice as many as were killed in World War II) and motivated the invasion of 1/3^rd of the nations on the planet, thrusting dozens into civil wars and perpetual slavery.  It was not the emissions of the crematoriums in Auschwitz that did not meet EPA guidelines that enabled Hitler to kill 20 million Jews, Gypsies, ‘unfits’ and homosexuals (incidentally, Stalin killed more Jews than Hitler did, but he just killed them along with other people, so it was not ‘genocide’ in the eyes of the semantically obsessed morally confused west)  It was not raping the earth for steel that started the most dreadful war in all of humanity, it was the alliance of two militaristic tyrannical xenophobic megalomaniacal cultures and one merely power hungry expansionist culture.  It was appeasement, indifference, moral relativism, isolationism, and utopian wishful thinking that ignored these murderous tyrannies and every reasonable warning sign until too late that wreaked this havoc upon humanity and the inhabitants of the world, and it will be those same characteristics that will wreak havoc upon humanity and indeed all life on earth in the future. 

What is fusion? What elements are involved in this reaction in the sun?
(Another YahooAnswer of mine to a good question)

Fusion is the name of the nuclear reaction where one or more nucleons (a proton or a neutron) combine to form a larger atomic nuclei.

The smallest and simplest atom is Hydrogen, with a single proton making up it’s nucleus. When two protons are brought close enough together so that they almost touch, a force called the ’strong nuclear force’ pulls them together tightly, and in the process releases energy in the form of light, kinetic energy, and a positron (the anti-matter equivalent of an electron).

The new atom however is not made up of two protons, one of the protons decays into a neutron by releasing a positron (that is how it loses it’s electrical charge) This new atom, made up of a proton and a neutron, is still a form of Hydrogen, but it is an isotope called deuterium. So when two protons fuse, they create deuterium, this is the start of the major reactions in stars the mass of our sun or less, called the Proton-Proton Chain.

The protons have an electrostatic positive charge so they repel each other. It is the heat and gravitational pressure of the sun that get individual protons close enough together so that the strong nuclear force exceeds the electrostatic repulsive force. It turns out that the equivalent of over 100 pounds of force need to be applied to each individual proton to overcome the electrostatic repulsion. And even in a large star like our sun, the mass and heat are actually still not enough to make two protons fuse together.

Before the era of quantum mechanics this was a big mystery. But it was soon realized that sub atomic particles like protons can undergo an effect called ‘quantum tunneling’ which enables it to pass through barriers that classical physics would not allow. The smaller the energy barrier the more likely the particle will tunnel through it. The large energy barrier still preventing proton-proton fusion in the sun makes the tunneling a rare event, but there are so many protons that enough are tunneling at any moment to fuse and start the fusion chain in the sun.

This is a very important reaction in the sun and all stars with long lives because it essentially limits the rate at which the star can consume it’s fuel. It takes about 10 billion years for two proton to get close enough to each from quantum tunneling to fuse in a star like our sun.

Once two protons have been brought close enough together through random quantum mechanical fluctuations enabling a fusion reaction, a steady supply of deuterium is created. As soon as there is any deuterium in the sun the heat and gravitational pressure are enough to cause fusion reactions. At this point, there are many different reactions which take place, in some a proton fuses with a deuterium atom, in other cases two deuterium will fuse to create helium. Helium can then fuse with either individual protons, deuterium, or another helium to make larger elements. The types of available reactions increase rapidly and other elements like Boron, Beryllium, and Lithium are produced and also take place in still more reactions. Three helium nuclei can fuse to create a carbon atom.

In this way larger and larger atoms are created, but the dominant energy in stars the size of our sun come from the proton-proton chain reaction. In large stars, the Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen cycle dominates.

Very large stars can burn through there fuel very quickly, and some stars after they consume their fuel and lose the outward pressure from the fusion reaction that balances their inward gravitational pressure, suddenly collapse initiating a runaway series of nuclear reactions, like a nuclear bomb the size of a star. These are supernovae explosions and for a few minutes can create more light and energy than entire galaxies. It is these explosions that fuse smaller elements like carbon into larger ones like iron, aluminum, and uranium. These explosions throw these heavy elements out into space, and those elements later collect and form rocks, then asteroids, then planets, and all the things that live on the planets. That is why, in the immortal words of the famous scientist Carl Sagan, we are all made of ‘Star Stuff’

Further Reading:

The Proton - Proton chain
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hba…

Quantum Tunneling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tun…

Proton Proton fusion in the sun
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hba…

The CNO Cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle

Supernova
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova

Why does fusion create more energy than fission?

The answer lies in the difference in energy of the nucleus of a small atom which would be fused, and a large atom which would be split. When two small elements are brought to together, each individual nucleon (proton or neutron) are much closer to the nucleons they fuse to. Since the strong nuclear force which holds nucleons together extends over a very short range, In a large element like Uranium (235 nucleons) any typical nucleon might only be bound to a few neighboring nucleons, while in a small element virtually all the nucleons are bound by the strong nuclear force to another nucleon. So the total amount of ‘binding’ energy in a larger atomic nucleus will be smaller than the binding energy in a small nucleus. As you bring more small nucleus atoms together the binding energy increases, but as the size of the atom increases more of the nucleons become further apart from the rest in the nucleus, and eventually the electrostatic repulsion force of the protons exceeds the strong nuclear attractive force and the binding energy levels off. As the atom gets larger, they become unstable and the binding energy decreases.

So when you fission a large element into two smaller, but still large elements, the binding energy of any particular nucleon is lower, and the number of nucleons effected with respect to the total number in the system is smaller. When you fuse smaller atoms, all of the nucleons feel the strong nuclear force to each, and they are all much closer to each other, so the binding energy is much higher. A shorter quick way to think of it might be the ‘binding density’ (binding energy per nucleon) in a large fissionable atom is much lower than the ‘binding density’ in a small fissionable atom.

More info
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/nucbin.htmlc1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_energy

Widowed and alone, suffering the grief of losing four of his six children and his wife, the great American mind Thomas Jefferson fell in love with the married and devout catholic Maria Cosway in France.  They spent a month together picnicking and traveling the French country side.  When she left, Jefferson was devastated.  He wrote a dialog attempting to make sense of it. 

Madam seated by my fireside solitary and sad, the following dialog took place between my head and my heart.

Head – well friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim

Heart – I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings, overwhelmed by grief

Head – This is one of the scrapes for which you are ever leading us, you must learn to look forward before taking a step which may interest our peace

Heart – let the gloomy monk sequestered from the world seek un-social pleasures in the bottom of his cell, had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives

Head – do not bite at the bait of pleasure until you know there is no hook beneath it, the art of life is the art of avoiding pain

Heart – leave me to decide when friends are to be contracted, we have no rose without it’s thorn, no pleasure without ally

Head - those which depend on ourselves are the only pleasures which a wise man may count on, for nothing is ours which another may deprive us of

Global Warming Primer, Solutions and Complications, and My Position.

I haven’t been too vocal on my opinions on Global Warming and the politics surrounding it but I’ve been watching some excellent videos from Berkeley professor Richard Muller on the topic and find them one of the best all around rational primers on the topic I’ve yet seen. A brilliant professor, Muller’s “Physics for Future Presidents” lectures have been skyrocketing in popularity even leading to the publication of a mainstream book. Those who are admirers of Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson, Isaac Asimov, or Carl Sagan would find a kindred spirit in Muller where his brilliant conceptual presentations of complex topics and routine reduction into concrete examples are on par with those great popularizes of science.

You can download his full course, which I highly recommend, at Berkeley’s web cast site http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978373

With my near lifelong affair with science, philosophy, and skepticism I think I’ve come to a peculiar opinion on Global Warming. Muller makes every explicit effort to avoid directing your conclusions or barraging you with appeals to authority and instead takes great pains in clearly showing the science and physics and allowing you to form your own informed opinions on the matter, exposing misconceptions and lies from both sides of the debate. Muller’s credentials are impeccable, and his explicit desire to weed through the vagarious interpretations and try to pull out the real, accurate understanding of exactly what’s going on in the world is admirable and precisely what resonates most with me.

I urge everyone to watch through Muller’s videos, which are recorded presentations from his Berkeley class. They are engaging, entertaining, and extremely informative and will give you a great deal of confidence when forming your judgments on such a complex topic.

Part 1 of 12 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyuKOtIryis

With that, there is a great deal of skewing on all sides of this issue. The stop global warming advocacy groups have committed their fair share of moral frauds. They have routinely exaggerated temperature increase as explicitly outlined by the IPCC reports and exaggerated the certainty of those reports. Activists routinely cherry pick data, selecting isolated data points that support their hypothesis but ignoring numerous ones that do not, a tactic not readily identifiable to non scientifically trained persons. Egregiously mainstream science has now more than ever come to accept anecdotal evidence in support of a tentative conclusion. We are routinely barraged with observations that there seem to be more armadillos this far north than ever before or there are fewer salmon then in the last 30 years as actual evidence proving drastic climatic consequences, even though the consensus agrees to only a 1 degree Fahrenheit temperature difference which is only discernable from exhaustive statistical studies. A definite publication bias has arisen exploiting the public concern about global warming, publishing a paper on the mating habits of ground squirrels is iffy, but link it to global warming and you get published. The original hockey stick graph which most modern concern about global warming was build on was not just flawed but fraudulent and has exposed the terrible weakness that reliance on computer models brought about. Too often models are used AS evidence, not as tools to find evidence in the real world, the height of hubris. Historically, CO2 increases tend to follow temperature increases, so the global correlation to CO2 and temperature rise is not so clear cut, even though CO2 is a green house gas, it also promotes plant growth and cloud formation, as the entire climate and life cycles are complex enough that centuries more of study will be required to understand it. The presumption that there is ‘state’ which the planet should be in as optimal temperature is ludicrous, and to think that we humans know and can choose what that state ought to be (especially given our terrible track record managing wildlife preserves) is frightening. Give someone a computer and a physics book and he thinks he has the entire world and every complex interaction in it all ready figured out.

Conversely though, the global warming skeptics or deniers (as a skeptic, which merely means a reliance on clear objective data before embracing an interpretation, I am hesitant to use it in this way) have had their fair share of disingenuous or fraudulent assertions. Suggesting that solar output is the sole mechanism for temperature changes is overly simplistic. Suggesting that methane is 25x more potent than co2 ignores the fact that methane cycles through the atmosphere in a few years before it is removed, while CO2 remains virtually indefinitely. Similarly, while ater vapor is some 100 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2, it cycles through the atmosphere in a few weeks and it is only an increase in average air temperatures that could sustain an increase in both H20 and Methane over the long run. The deniers asserting that change is natural and temperatures fluctuate all the time ignore the difference between fluctuations over geographical time scales (thousands of years) and fluctuations over human times scales, and whether it is ultimately a good idea to be creating such fluctuations over short time periods.

With that acknowledgement of issues on both sides (I am sure there are many more) I’d like to point to some of the complexities that arise.

There is a great deal of difficulty weeding out variables in science. The “factoring out variables” stage is complex and factoring has it’s own succession of controversy surrounding it. Consider as an example (there are thousands) that many temperature readings have come from population centers, and these suffer from a natural ‘heat island’ effect, where sunlight heats man made structures more so than the average surrounding area. Scientists try to make reasonable adjustments for these kinds of factors, making educated guesses about what the data would be if it could have been collected in a perfect setting. The problem with this is that even the degree to which variables should be factored out is highly contentious. In a situation like the heat island effect, because of the small real increase in temperatures, different interpretations of factoring can basically make that temperature change disappear and global warming a non-issue. Most papers and graphs presented have already has this ‘factoring’ done on it, a unfair representation at it’s onset.

When we start talking about ways to mitigate CO2 emissions, things are not clear cut at all. For example, most recycling is actually WORSE from a global warming perspective because recycling focuses on conserving material resources, NOT Energy. With the possible exception of aluminum (whose processing is extremely energy intensive) it usually takes more energy re collect material resources like paper and glass, re process them, and then redistribute them then it does to collect them from a centralized location and manufacture / process them in a large centralized plant. In manufacturing, scale typically associates with efficiency, the more you make of something the more efficiently each individual component was made. This is borne out in the fact that most recycling programs are huge money pits and must be subsidized. The utilization of material resources (other than fossil fuels) is an entirely different use than creating greenhouse gases yet they are routinely lumped together.

Further, building more dams for instance actually creates a very large short term increase in the green house effect, because submerged vegetation decays quickly into methane, the long term reduction in CO2 emissions from hydroelectric power might never offset the short term increase because of the methane emissions from decaying vegetation.

Counter intuitively, a large increase in coal burning plants will actually delay the increase in global warming in the near term because of the reflective and cloud precipitating nature of the particulate matter, possibly giving us a chance to implement newer better technologies before those particulates precipitate out. Some scientist have proposed seeding the upper atmosphere with harmless nano particles to precipitate more cloud cover to reflect more incoming lite which will stay suspended indefinitely, putting us on the road to literal climate control.

Environmental Scientists David Keith presents this in his TED Lecture “A surprising idea for "solving" climate change” - http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_keith_s_surprising_ideas_on_climate_change.html

The bigger question which arises is that if global warming is occurring and is anthropogenic, what should be done about it and how much should we spend doing it.

In that, a person I admire greatly Bjorn Lomborg (a gay atheist vegetarian and so certainly no right wing flunky) assembled a conference of economists to weight this question. Climatologists are appropriate people to appeal to when trying to ascertain a scientific understanding of the climate and where it’s going, but they are not the people who ought to decide how much is spent and on what. You can watch his presentation on the Copenhagen conference at TED here http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html where he asks us to rationally prioritize the threats to the world and what should be done about them, and even by the worst IPCC estimates, global warming will be inconvenient and expensive, but pales in comparison to the damage done by malaria or dysentery.

Beyond that though, Lomborg and the Copenhagen conference stopped short of actually identifying existential threats to humanity, civilization, and indeed all life on Earth and instead focused on the general well fare of humanity.

For a summary of all the threats we face see Discover Magazine’s managing editor Stephen Petranek TED Conference presentation on “10 ways the world could end” http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stephen_petranek_counts_down_to_armageddon.html

Those of you familiar with me know I am intimately involved with the Lifeboat Foundation, as one of it’s earliest members and current staff member, I spoke on their behalf in front of the Navy War College’s Strategic Studies group. The Lifeboat Foundation seeks to identify, prioritize, and work to mitigate all the existential threats we face. Cumulatively, global warming, even if anthropogenic, barely makes the radar. Yet global warming is almost exclusively the existential threat people are concerned about, and virtually everything proposed to combat global warming will make mitigating all of the other existential threats we face fare more difficult, and expending tremendous resources combating a not so serious problem might very well doom us to a sudden catastrophe from something that was not political expedient to parade around and had no vice presidential candidate building his reputation on scaring people about it. It is my firm opinion that if you are not explicitly aware of the most commonly identified existential threats we face, and make a compelling case as to how they should be prioritized and mitigated; you have no business holding such a series of opinions about global warming.

With all that, my opinion on global warming is currently as follows:

I am no fan of ‘consensus’ science, historically, some of the worst things in the world have come from appeals to a consensus, science is not something which progresses by a popular vote or a consensus. Almost all great scientific and technological advancements have come specifically from disregarding the consensus. When an issue is complex enough that it requires appeals to consensus, then the data is not clear enough to make policy pronouncements on. Conversely, a reasonable scientific investigation does seem to suggest that the Earth has warmed, on average, globally, about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last 30 years. What’s not clear is that this is explicitly anthropogenic in nature, BUT, we certainly are producing a large quantity of CO2 from previously sequestered sources and CO2 IS a greenhouse gas, so it is reasonable to suspect that if such a warming is occurring, and a large quantity of a gas known to be responsible for a warming like that has been released, that they could be casually related. The reliance however on computer models, the lack of peer review of the data and the programs, and the track record of forgery from these within the advocates of anthropogenic global warming, are something that should cause concern in any rationally minded person and skepticism toward their results.

The solutions usually proposed to alleviate global warming and cut CO2 emissions almost always deal with a curtailment of industrial and economic growth. Global warming, even by it the worst estimates of the IPCC, does not pose a threat to life on earth or human civilization, but the expensive current solutions proposed to delay it (which ultimately will have little effect) might very well doom us to one of the other numerous existential threats we face, which most people are neither aware of nor care to learn about. That asteroid heading toward Earth ready to extinguish all life won’t give a damn what your ‘carbon footprint’ was.

My philosophy of science skepticism and libertarian streaks find many disturbing trends in the modern stop global warming advocacy groups. Global warming is simultaneously tapping into our penchant for original sin, environmentalist scare mongering and an almost religious indoctrination and devotion to some profound ‘purpose’ in life so many people strive for, (especially in the purpose vacuum of modern secular materialistic determinism) all in the name of the ‘greater good’ and for functionally promulgating the centralization of power. This original sin is the nagging guilt many people feel for existing on the planet and consuming resources. Moral parasites are drawn to this penchant ready to try to alleviate you of that guilt by convincing you to do things to ‘earn’ the right to exist, either by giving them money or working toward ‘their’ case, and people are all too ready to expend a little bit of effort in something someone has convinced them will make them feel really good. Often no care is paid to whether they actually DO any good, it is only the intention and attempt that matters. The scare mongering of environmentalist is simply atrocious, from banning effective safe pesticides like DDT, and scaring everyone about nuclear power, their atrocious track record should hang like an ominous black cloud over everything they say, far overshadowing the slight objective good that has come from environmentalism. People in rich western nations, especially ‘educated’ ones, have moved beyond the explicit recognition of classical religious doctrines they consider low brow, but still contain the strong psychological compulsion to adopt a religious form of thought which grants an easy moral righteousness to them, gives them a clear and easily understandable ‘purpose’ in life, promises a heaven for them (or their children - sustainability) and allows them to atone for the guilt of existing which comes from having no clear objective standard of assessing their own self worth. Those moral parasites are all too familiar with these and the modern environmentalism movement has gone through great pains to essentially establish itself as a modern religion filling that vacuum of the educated secular westerner.

The accumulation of power for the greater good that environmentalist so strongly advocate has historically killed almost ten times as many people this century as all wars this century combined. Everyone is well aware that Hitler killed 6 million Jews and probably about 10 – 12 million Germans total. Few know that Stalin intentionally starved to death more than 60 million people, almost 10 times the number of Jews that Hitler killed. The murderously disastrous policies of Mao in China killed nearly 35 million Chinese peasants, forcing most of them to work themselves to death, starving, on their own farms. Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos killed nearly 5 million people intentionally. All of these deaths came at the hands of government officials who had centralized power, removed the liberties of their subjects, and did so in the name of the ‘greater good’. Don’t appeal to global warming skeptics or deniers being stooges of the ‘big energy’ without acknowledging that politicians vying for controls and regulations will put hundreds of billions of dollars into the pockets of regulators and those politicians and pass arbitrary whims as laws which effect the livelihood, and lives, of untold millions. People who, like Ralph Nader, get to be rich and famous not from inventing great new power generating technologies or efficient safe transportations systems, but merely by attacking everything else productive and good and becoming famous by scaring everyone.

Any centralization of power is dangerous, centralizing control and regulation over all industry is just about the most dangerous thing we can do. The disastrous ethanol subsidies policies all ready fore shadow this in the US, where half of the worlds food supply is produced but industry is forced to use food as fuel which has subsequently raised global food prices and probably caused many hundreds of thousands of people to starve to death. The nations which are freest, both economically and politically, are the ones with the best environmental track records. Yet environmentalist and advocates for acting to stop global warming almost unanimously propose government intervention as the solution. Riding to power on scaring people and a superficial religious like moral certainty, for ‘their own good’ has never turned out well. Where there are those demanding sacrifice, there are always other standing by to collect the proceeds of that sacrifice, be it labor, wealth, or spiritual servitude. These people come off to me as fustrated social tyrants riding on the coat tails of environmentalism, the secular remnants of original sin, and the drive for purpose in all to stagger around clamoring for power any power they can reach.

If Global Warming is a problem, and if it is indeed caused by human activities, then it was caused by environmentalist scare mongering which hijacked that natural technological energy progression trend away from cleaner fuels and ultimately nuclear power and forced societies to rely on coal plants. Many prominent members of the environmental community are now major advocates of Nuclear Power. The only nation which produces less CO2 today than it did 30 years ago is France, and only because 80% of their power is generated by Nuclear Power. Global Warming debates have been hijacked for political purposes by people clamoring for control and power over other people under the most superficial guises. Worldwide focus on it has come only at the expense of ignorance of all other threats we face and solutions proposed for it put us in much more dangerous situations with regard to those threats.

Without an exhaustive study I can’t say for sure that the Earth’s temperature has increased 1 degree Fahrenheit and that this increase was caused by our industries burning fossil fuels but I do think it pretty likely to be the case. Ultimately, it may just have to be the price we pay for industrial civilization until wide scale nuclear or solar power is available. However, global warming is a minor issue on the list of existential threats to humanity and life on earth, and the irrational single minded focus on it at the expense off all other real threats is dangerous and misguided, the proposed solutions are borne not from deep rational investigation but appeals to feelings of guilt and fear in the cowardly populace, and will drive the wealth and power of the world into an ever smaller portion of people who ultimately have control over men’s lives and property and create a dangerous recipe for cataclysmic incompetence. The problem of global warming is best left to the greatest problem solver of all time, the free minds and free exchanges of free people.

www.matus1976.com - Philosophy, Science, Politics, Art
www.ergoslope.com - Ergonomic Add On Desktop
www.Lifeboat.com - Lifeboat Foundation - Safeguarding Humanity

For many years I have been an active and staff member of the Lifeboat Foundation, from the time it consisted of only a few members.  I have always had a strong affinity to technology and as the potential became more obvious of technologies like nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, computer technology, and biotechnology, to make the human condition better, I have since come to consider myself an extropian or transhumanist.   An Extropian embraces the opposite of entropy, which in physics term is the progression into useless disorder that any system without intelligent input tends toward, so the opposite, extropy, is a continual progression into new patterns, order, more information, and general growth and progress.   

 

The coming age of nanotechnology, AI, and biotechnology may prove to be little different than our current age, or it may prove to be so profoundly different that it is almost impossible for us to even conceptualize it (referred to as the ‘singularity’ by advocates)  The end of aging, disease, and possibly even death, and certainly starvation, war, and poverty, are all seemingly within the realm of the physical possible.  Introduced to the Extropy institute by Skeptic Magazine and always embroiled in scientific skepticism, I always kept in mind that it’s all too easy for a secular humanist and technophobe to extrapolate the possible benefits into actual with fervent certainty, based on merely wishful thinking, leading one to essentially have an attitude about life, death, and immortality with religious tones but disguised in techno babble.   Many members of these technophile groups seem guilty of this to me, often ready, like good theists, to sit back and wait for the salvation singularity to come and save us all.  The collapse of civilization into the Dark Ages demonstrates clearly enough to me that technological optimism is not guaranteed.  

 

After a long involvement in these organizations, coupled with my skeptical attitude, I became more concerned with the potential threat that some of these technologies could pose.  So I soon became an active early supporter, and later employee and staff member, of the Lifeboat Foundation.  Rising with the great benefits that may come are some obvious and ominous dangers.  Could a runaway self replicating nanotechnological device consume the Earths biosphere and destroy all life on Earth?  Could an extremely deadly virus be genetically engineered to target specific ethnic groups with equipment found in any university?  Many advocates of technological growth are absolute optimists, seeing no possible way any harm could come from any of these technologies.  Others are on the other end of the spectrum, luddites seeking an outright curtailment of all technological growth in these potentially harmful areas.  As I have seen the membership grow and hostility to the Lifeboat Foundation decline over the years by active members of these technophilic groups, (in my own small anecdotal assessment) I see a pattern of a more rational caution emerging.  While optimistic, it wouldn’t hurt to have a deep understanding of all the possible implementations of potentially harmful technology, and in some cases obvious and simple mechanisms may be put in place to mitigate the chances of any dangerous technology being either intentionally or accidentally released.  

 

As a corollary to this understanding of the risk that these technologies may pose, one can not help but come to an understanding of the entirely natural threats to civilization, and indeed all life on Earth, also face and the dire need to identify these and work to mitigate them.  Consider that the last time a caldera volcano erupted on Earth, it likely brought the entire adult human population on the planet down to about 1,000 individuals, the closest humanity has ever come to complete extinction.  Everyone is very familiar with asteroid or comet impacts, but little attention is actually paid to identifying these threats and working to mitigate them.  Other threats, like a nearby supernovae or a rogue planet or black hole pose very serious threats, as do both natural and unnatural radical climate change (if you think a few feet of water from global warming would be bad, consider over a mile of ice covering most of the cities on Earth)   A recent informal poll of Lifeboat Foundation supporters, which now includes over 500 accomplished scientists, authors, futurists, and leading thinkers in their fields, ranked the threat from global warming next to last, just above “Alien Invasion”.  Even by the worst estimates made, Global Warming simply is not a civilization killer.  Indeed, as far as I am concerned, you have no business holding an opinion about Global Warming and what ought to be done about it without a very clear understanding of ALL the existential threats humanity and life on Earth face and a cohesive prioritization of those threats.  The ‘consensus’ from these informed individuals experienced in all existential threats was that the greatest threat we face is a sudden and catastrophic pandemic which wipes our enough life to collapse industrial civilization, leading us into a new dark age which we may never recover from, not global warming. 

 

The most vocal advocates of catastrophic climate change from global warming are very similarly minded to the group I mentioned above, the luddites, which would essentially seek a curtailment of technological growth and ultimately industrial civilization, in order to prevent the threats which might come from new technologies.  But such a path of local sustainability and small global populations, while stopping global warming and possibly stopping the threat of new technologies (organizations in secret will still likely pursue these technologies though, but now without oversight)  will essentially sentence all life on Earth to certain death.  While the threats that new technologies may pose are still unclear, it is VERY clear that the natural environment, from the Earth to the solar system and local area of the galaxy, pose very serious threats which routinely wipe out huge portions of life on Earth (there have been a handful off mass extinctions which typically saw >60% of all species killed in a geological instant)  Stopping technological and industrial growth will mean that we can do essentially nothing in the face of the next great cosmic threat - that giant asteroid won’t give a damn what your carbon footprint it.  What we need is rapid, rational, industrial and technological growth across the globe, in order to afford and achieve the dispersement of intelligent life throughout the galaxy.  Technological optimists, including myself, envision a future in which humanity and intelligent life have spread (seriously reducing the threat that any particular risk poses) and the Earth is essentially cultivated as a giant national park always honored and revered homage as the birthplace of life in the galaxy.  

 

Three principles create much of my strong support the Lifeboat Foundation, you can read about how I argue the Fermi Paradox, Drake Equation and Doomsday curve relate to the Lifeboat Foundation in my post

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/137048/humanity_needs_an_insurance_policy.html

 

In recent years the Lifeboat Foundation has experienced tremendous growth and a strong momentum.  Where other organizations are tackling specific threats, such as the Singularity Institute (examining the threat that Artificial Intelligence may pose) or the Foresight Institute (to examine the threats that nanotechnology could pose)  we work in concert with them, where little attention is being paid to a particular threat, the LF seeks to develop an in depth understanding of those and in all cases work to mitigate the over all threats these things pose.  These mitigation strategies may be as simple as ensuring oversight by a free, representative organization over the use of particular technologies, may include manufacturing particular containment facilities to do some of the most dangerous work in, restricting critical information to only the scientists and technical staff that have a legitimate need for it, etc, or as complex as creating vast information archives, underground storage facilities, genetic repositories, or ultimately self contained self sustaining space stations which house an ‘emergency’ population.  Ultimately, simple dispersement, decentralization of critical life sustaining systems, and a general robustness (such as multiple independent colonies spread throughout the solar system) would create the most durable civilization possible and should be the ultimate long term goal of anyone concerned with life.  In the short term, rational mitigation strategies need to be identified and implemented in response to the threats we face.  The Lifeboat Foundation is the only organization with the explicit goal to identify all existential threats, natural or artificial, that humanity, civilization, and life on Earth face and work to mitigate those threats, as such it is one of the most important organizations anyone could support in their own long term rational self interest.  

 

The Lifeboat Foundation has recently sponsored it’s first conference, organized with the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, entitled “GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC RISKS: Building a Resilient Civilization” It will be hosted in Mountain View California on November 14^th.  We are looking to raise $2,500 to support this conference, which all ready includes a stellar lineup.  Consider supporting the Lifeboat Foundation.

 

Support the Lifeboat Foundation “Global Catastrophic Risks: Building a Resilient Civilization” conference

https://lifeboat.com/ex/global.catastrophic.risks

 

The Lifeboat Foundation – Safeguarding Humanity

http://lifeboat.com/ex/main

 

Official Conference Page

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/eventinfo/ieet20081114/

 

My previous post on Existential Threats

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&pop=1

 

www.matus1976.com - Philosophy, Science, Politics, Art, History

www.ergoslope.com - Ergonomic Add On Desktop

There are over 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy and the galaxy is over 10 billion years old.  If at any time in the last 1 billion years one single civilization arose in this galaxy and it took 10,000 years to spread to a mere 2 other star systems, and repeated the cycle, it would cover every star in the galaxy within 400,000 years.  This could have happened more than a million times all ready.  So where are they?  This is the Fermi Paradox, and the startling observation that no intelligent life seems to have spread throughout the galaxy in all this time could be a disturbing omen.  Is life so rare that it never arises and spreads? Or is it perhaps that life once it becomes intelligent almost always destroys itself?  We don’t know, but just as any rational person mitigates risk and takes out insurance policies, so should all humans adopt an insurance policy for humanity, and attempt to mitigate the ultimate existential threats posted by natural or man made catastrophes - many of which are well outside the realm of public consciousness. The Lifeboat Foundation seeks to raise awareness on these threats and develop strategies to mitigate, and ultimately eliminate, the threats they pose to humanity. Below are some of the commonly recognized possibly existential threats that Humanity, civilization, and life on Earth face.

Anthropogenic Global Warming  

Man made carbon dioxide and other green house gases are argued to be causing a run away greenhouse effect, ultimately disrupting the global climate and ecological balance to such a degree that massive extinctions and general disruption make human life impossible.  Could accelerating climate change in the 21st century become so severe that it leads to the end of human civilization?

Grey Goo or Ecophage

Scientists are just beginning to look seriously at a potential future risk caused by self-replicating nanotechnological devices, also known as nanites.  The machines, like mechanical cells, are built atom and by atom, and copy themselves like small factories by taking material and energy from the environment.  Is it feasible that within the next 100 years, biomass or sunlight-fueled autonomous nanites will be created, and their deliberate or accidental release could directly or indirectly result in destruction of the Earth’s biosphere and the end of civilization, and possibly life on Earth.  It is also possible that ‘wet wear’ is the only feasible manner to physically make a self replicating machine, thus limited the strength and potential of nanotechnological self replicating devices to ones similar of natural cells, and vulnerable to toxins and radiation.  

Global pandemic, either bio engineered or natural

The 1918 Spanish flu killed 2.5 – 5% of the human population in under a year, recently the US Government published the Genome for the Spanish Flu virus a mere year after the first complete artificial life form was assembled in a laboratory from component molecules.  The two could be combined to that a resourceful intelligent group could create from harmless chemicals their own supply of custom made deadly pathogens.  Mosquitoes have been estimated to be responsible for the deaths of approximately half of all humans who have ever lived as these self replicating flying used needles are the primary vector of 10 of the 12 worst diseases humans can contract.  Advances in biotechnology and materials science will soon allow scientists to create synthetic life forms based on chemistry foreign to traditional life.  In the modern age of globalization and transcontinental flights, could a pandemenic, natural or artificial, so severe arise that it kills the majority of the human population?

Comet or Asteroid Impact

Asteroids with a diameter of 1km or larger hit the Earth a few times every million years, and mass extinctions appear to be routinely caused by asteroid impacts.  There is a serious chance that a major asteroid could hit the Earth directly or indirectly and resulting in the death of all life on earth.  Current estimates of the number and frequency of asteroid impacts are probably lower than reality because asteroids impacting the oceanic basin leave no evidence of their destruction, and the massive tsunamis that result are often more damaging than the impact itself, and in the modern age could easily destroy half the worlds major population centers, which
are almost always on coast lines, thrusting the rest of civilization into a new dark age through massive political and economic disruption.

Caldera Volcanic Eruption

About 70,000 years ago, a supervolcano in Sumatra, Indonesia erupted, releasing 2,800 cubic kilometers of magma and pyroclastic material.  Some scientists have argued that the entire human population was reduced to a mere 1,000 adults because of the resulting global climate changes and ash cover.  The supervolcanoes are not like typical volcanoes, where a small chimney of magma breaks through the Earths crust and builds a mountainous cone, but instead are actually bulges of huge sections of the Earths mantle into the crust. An eruption results when the mantle itself breaks through the crust, creating a devastating explosion Tens of thousands of times more powerful than convention volcanoes.  Yellowstone national park in the western United States is one of these supervolcanos as well, and has erupted, on average, every 600,000 years for the last 15 million years, leaving a pock marked path of scars across the north western United States as the continental crust drifts slowly over the volcanic spot in the mantle.  It is now 60,000 years over due, and no one is sure if it is settling down or warming up.  The last time it erupted Yellowstone covered almost the whole North American Continent under a meter of ash.  Such an eruption today would destroy America’s agriculture heart, which creates by many estimates half of the world’s food supply and most of the world’s grain supply.  Another such eruption could cause through global climate change and civilization collapses a new dark age.  When these volcanoes erupt in the oceanic basins, they leave no long lasting geological evidence, so again we are unsure of how common these kinds of volcanoes are and how often they erupt.

Other Cosmic threat (runaway star, black hole, gamma ray burst, massive solar flare)

Recent Astronomical evidence is suggesting that we face some existential threats from our Galactic neighborhood.  A rogue or runaway star could disrupt our planets orbit or even remove it from the orbit of our star.  A rogue black hole could tear apart the solar system, or a massive solar flare could wipe out a huge portion of the Earths population through radiation exposure.  These events could kill billions and lead to the extinction of the human population.

Runaway Ice Age

Life on earth exists in a precipitous razor’s edge balance between the frigid desert of airless Mars and the runaway greenhouse oven of Venus.  Numerous Ice Ages have been experienced in the past, with on particular era referred to as the "Snow Ball Earth" where it is suspected that the whole of the Earths surface was covered with ice, and the only refuge of life was near thermal volcanic vents.  While it is known that periodic cycles in the Earths orbit are the primary cause of ice ages, changes in cloud cover, general climate, or orbital disturbances could initiate another ice age with devastating consequences.

Terrorist attack

Launched by malevolent individuals or groups, any event having global economic or environmental consequences, for example a major coordinated attack or one utilizing nuclear, nano, or bio technology.  Such an attack could be a major threat to humanity through destroying most of the industrial infrastructure of modern civilization or causing an economic collapse leading to a new dark age which me may never recover from.  

Nuclear War

One of the only existential threats common in the popular mindset is that posed by a nuclear war, which scientists of the 70’s and 80’s argued would launch enough dust into the atmosphere to reflect enough sunlight to cause a winter spanning decades.  This also led many people to suspect that the growth of technology and the subsequent tendency for civilizations to destroy themselves as a possible answer to the Fermi Paradox.  Could the use of part of the huge stockpile of existing nuclear weapons ultimately lead to the end of civilization?

High Energy Particle Physics mishap

During the Manhattan project, physicist Edward Teller was charged with calculating whether the first nuclear blast would be strong enough to cause major damage to the planet.  At this time, it was unclear how much of an explosion would occur, once the fissionable fuel reached it’s critical mass, an immensely rapid exchange of neutrons instigating further fissioning ensued, but as this exchange and atomic splitting progressed, heat was added to the material physically expanding it, and reducing the exchange of protons.  Would the fissioning exceed the rate of expansion, cause an explosion a thousand or ten thousand times more powerful, or would the expansion from the heat cause the explosive wave to quickly fizzle?  The calculation was difficult, but ultimately Teller was confident of the rate which the explosive wave would diminish and predictions were reasonable accurate.  Today, particle physicist seek to make microscopic black holes in particle accelerators.  Physicists abate fears by pointing out that cosmic ray collisions in the upper atmosphere routinely occur with higher energies than our accelerators use.  Physicists, like Teller at the Manhattan project, calculated that these microscopic black holes also will instantly evaporate.  While we have every reason to be confident in rational scientific assessments like these, we must be careful to not let hubris cloud our judgment.  In all likelihood, calculations like this will be ever more common in high energy physics, so one can not help but ask if one time we might be wrong.  Particle accelerator mishaps including long lived microscopic black holes or the formation of a stable stranglet, may trigger cataclysmic chains of events which could destroy all life on Earth and even the planet itself.

Malicious AI

In science fiction, a takeover by artificially intelligent robots or computers is a common theme.  In The Matrix, humans were used as batteries by computers that did not understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics.  In the Terminator series, a super intelligent computer waged war with human kind.  But could it happen in the real world?  In the real world our computers become ever more complex and intelligent, robots ever more agile, and mankind ever more reliant on automated computer controlled systems – which might be a recipe for disaster.    Will a super intelligent and malicious Artificial Intelligence overpower humanity and wipe out humanity and civilization?  Advocates of extropianism and tranushumanists counter that human modification and enhancements will rival the capacities of computers, neither outpacing other to too much of an extent.  Technological progressions suggest that within a few decades single individual computers will surpass the intelligence of individual people.  A short time there after, they will surpass the intelligence of all humans.  Conversely, it may be that biological wet ware is the only way to achieve the complexity necessary for sentient life.

Nihilism / Mental Disorders

A significant threat that I think humanity faces which is barely on the register of people worried about significant threats, is the growth of a nihilistic attitude toward existence.  For 90,000 years humans lived short, difficult, busy lives, and never really had the time to fret about existence or ponder existential dilemmas while their families were perpetually on the verge of starvation.  Even through the growth of civilization, it was only the wealthiest that ever had free time enough to ponder these things. But in our modern age, this scenario has changed significantly, people, especially those in industrialized nations, have more free time than ever before and their lives longer and easier to live than ever before.  Coupled with the rise of secularism and later determinism, many people find themselves at a very subtle level wondering about the purpose of life, or through avenues like Buddhism or materialism removing any value in life whatsoever.  Today, mental illness such as depression are the leading cause of debilitation in people over 65 in the industrialized nations, while health professionals try to gain attention to this startling phenomena and try to treat it with medication, the overwhelming cause of this is probably the lack of a decent humanistic philosophical attitude.  Following these trends out, it can be expected that modern ‘western’ ideas of religious tolerance and even secularism will probably permeate educated people to the same degree it has in western nations, this will only seem to get worse.  Should future technological advances significantly extend the human life span, the problem might only be exasperated.  Today, without even facing these difficulties, a small minority of individuals think that all sentient life and human life is a blemish on the earth, as manifested through things like the Voluntary Human Extinction project and in more extreme forms through radical environmental terrorism or people like Ted Kaczysnki.  These groups see all humans, even themselves, as vile creatures.  As a corollary, a large portion of the modern western world also find little value in life and feels guilty for their own existence.  As this attitude grows in popularity because of the mentioned cultural / philosophical influences, it will pose a serious threat to humanity, as any civilization which no longer desires to exist has little future.

 
Humanity and civilization face a serious set of existential threats, including both man made technological threats and natural threats.  In man made threats, most people are familiar only with the possibility of anthropogenic global warming modifying the climate to such an extent that the planet is uninhabitable, other, probably more likely threats, are an out of control self replication machine which consumes all of the material surface of the planet, a terrorist attack causing a global economic collapse and new dark age, a nuclear war or winter rendering the world uninhabitable or causing another dark age, a high energy physics mishap, or a malicious artificial intelligence destroying humanity.  From nature we face the ominous perils of an asteroid or comet impact with resultant fires and floods, the eruption of a caldera supervolcano covering whole continents with ash and destroying world food supplies and economies, random cosmic events like rogue planets or massive solar flares.  We may face another ice age from unexpected climate change or a global pathogen which wipes out huge swaths of the population.  Lastly, humanity is facing an ever more obvious threat in it’s growing unwillingness to want to survive.

Because of all of these threats, Humanity needs an insurance policy.  The simple fact is that for intelligent sentient life to ultimately survive, humanity must spread out among the stars. This is something recognized by many prominent members of the scientific community, including most recently Stephen Hawking, Freeman Dyson, and Martin Rees.  To answer this need is the Lifeboat Foundation, which is an organization I am a strong supporter of and actively involved with.  In the long term the Lifeboat Foundation would like to actually see self-sustaining space stations created and built, with humanity spreading among our solar system and eventually to neighboring solar systems.  In the near term a strong focus on mitigation strategies such as bunkers, information archives and the necessary technological checks and balances on innovation related threats are being pursued.  Ultimately the fate of humanity and indeed all life on earth depends on this.  

www.lifeboat.com