3 thoughts on “Sandpit”

1. In the USA, the heads of departments are subjected to the confirmation hearings. There are many reasons for seeing this as a serious problem, for to be confirmed, you must impress the party in power of the confirmation process. In Australia, we used to rely on top public servant appointments being relatively free of political bias. Some of the recently published text messages of at least one of our public servants reveals they were clearly batting for one political side, rather than the more expansive view of the vast majority of public servants, I.e., to help the public with their sevice being politically agnostic.
   We now know that we are just like the American system, shafted by a group of ultra wealthy people and their collaborators, operating in direct opposition to the needs and essential interests of Australian citizens. we seriously need to examine the history of the decisions that these so called public servants made, especially in light of the fact they may have been focussed on a stellar rise in the ranks
   I won’t name names, for it can be looked up in the most recent news stories.
   Bluntly, I put the bulk of the blame on a certain lying rodent, as he was once characterised. Public service should be exactly that; to put contracted outcomes and bonuses as part of the senior ranks employment package not only encourages those staff to misbehave, it also influences their underlings to misbehave in their ambitions to secure that wonderful contact with the huge bonuses (for doing what the guv of the day wanted).

   Honestly, now that this has been in place for so long, I really don’t know how the rot can be cleansed from the public service. I just hope it can, for so many goodhearted people are a part of the public service, and they do not deserve to have political animals running their departments, and nor do their clients, I.e. the Australian people.

2. Here is the latest Redbridge polling on the Voice.
   https://redbridgegroup.com.au/voice-referendum-poll-13-21-september-2023/

3. I suppose this counts as idees fixes, following up on mentions of my doubts about Mars colonies in other threads.

   I was a teen when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon and had high expectations for human expansion into space. I still like Sci-fi – some of it – and I think colonies in space make good stories but I have come to seriously doubt that it is feasible, not just not feasible now but I suspect it may not be possible to achieve a functional economy that can sustain itself without the advantages and services this life rich planet provides. That is I think every colonist working to their full potential without let up will still fall short of what a colony in such extreme circumstances requires to sustain itself. It is not so much that proposed pathways don’t appear viable but that every proposed pathway appears unviable and picking any element of “proposals” being thrown around to critique will give that same answer.

   In some respects it is simple as I think colonies that can’t pay their way will fail to thrive – and space colonies can’t pay their way. It also seems self evident that it will take a comprehensively capable advanced industrial economy to be self reliant somewhere like Mars and whilst this appears to be more of an issue of how to get one established than whether colonies can persist after it makes a very high bar for self reliance that appears incompatible with any go there and improvise (bootstrapping) type path. Every task is made harder by the conditions, with high dependence on machinery and equipment that can’t be mere adaptations of what already exists but must be, initially, be both custom made and of exceptional quality and reliability, which makes it expensive even without the prohibitive transport costs.

   The versatility of human labour itself will be hard to take full advantage of, with physical tasks apart from simple lifting made more difficult. Outdoors needs better spacesuits than Apollo missions used and whilst I suppose it won’t cost the $ tens of millions an Apollo moon suit did a Mars suit will be an expensive high tech item and won’t be something colonists can knock together themselves easily. If digging a hole with a pick and shovel requires several million dollars of PPE that hampers physical movement and doubles or triples the time needed the productivity will be very low. If machines/robots are used instead then those add another level of complexity to support rather than reducing it. When pipelines require temperature controlled heating as well as insulation, when every external door needs to be a precision engineered construction, when a wheat field has to be a fully enclosed habitat with heating, lighting, plumbing just the most basic human needs become complex and expensive projects.

   I also find the popular comparisons to European ‘colonisation’ deeply misleading – the similarities are superficial whilst the differences are not. I’m not an historian but it seems like prosaic near term reasons were required – no-one was trying to ensure the long term survival of humanity or even establishing any NationB’s. Real resources of real economic value like gold, silver and slaves – which already existing shipping technologies could transport cost effectively and profitably. Denying yet to be discovered resources to rival nations was probably a factor as well as establishing safe, defensible harbors for their ships? A NSW colony was not a hugely expensive undertaking and failure of the colony to thrive was probably not considered a loss of great significance – and survivors could be repatriated.

   No-one had to invent ships first, because ordinary ships in regular use could already do it, they just needed accurate charts. Wasn’t there a group of Scottish migrants to Australia that made their way here in an open fishing boat? That is about as different to space colonizing as you could get.

   There seems a general absence of critique of the unrealistic expectations, with the desirability rarely questioned and technological progress bridging the gaps seen as an inevitability. But it is an inevitability that apparently requires a strong commitment to these goals in the present to be inevitable in the long run. I’m more inclined to think that a wealthy healthy planet Earth is the essential ingredient for ongoing technological progress, most of which will be undertaken for other reasons. If ever the technology that makes Mars colonies viable is developed we can revisit colony plans; I don’t see how failing to support Mars colonisation in the near term will prevent the necessary technological progress or deny the opportunities in the future. Longtermism may be ideology rather than religion but the levels of faith and fervor amongst enthusiasts – and sometimes intolerance for those lacking faith – can look very similar.

   Currently it is around or above US$1M per metric ton to get anything into low Earth Orbit but we can ship iron ore to the other side of the world for around $100 per ton. I think that makes transport costs are around 10,000 times too high for any kind of viable trade with Mars or moon. If SpaceX exceeds it’s goals it will still be about 1,000 times too high. Without viable trade any colony must begin with high levels of self reliance, without expectation of financial return to Earth’s investors.

   And if preserving the elites from serious Earthly catastrophes is the point then bunkers are their solution and those are already in place, not Mars colonies.

   I remain deeply pessimistic about Grand Space Dreams. Not opposed to them, just can’t sustain any faith in them.