Posthuman Blues

A few posts ago I said my laptop was running Windows NT. I was mistaken; it's running Windows XP. I have no absolutely no idea what this means.

Planetary chauvinism

In most science fiction dealing with space exploration, space colonists leave Earth to find reasonably Earth-like planets to settle. In actuality, I think this will be quite rare: what do planets offer settlers? They're subject to extinction level events, nasty plate tectonics, uncontrolled mutation, and the caprices of climate.

It's more likely that future colonists will construct space stations. In space, construction is infinitely easier since nothing weighs anything. Tweaking our genes to support a spaceborne existence is likely to be easier than "terraforming" an alien world. Want gravity? A space station can be rotated to produce whatever amount of gravity you want (or, of course, none at all). Planets might be fun places to visit, but only eccentrics will choose to live there for any length of time.

Of course, while writing this, I realized I could argue persuasively for the other side of the argument... The important thing to remember is that futurism is less prediction than stream-of-consciousness. Who's to say with authority that we won't perfect gravity control (i.e., "antigravity")? Who says we already haven't...? The scenario above seems to make sense from our perspective right now. But "right now" has an interesting way of going away really quickly. Colonists might prefer to use antigravity selectively while living on a planetary surface, or use an artificial gravity field while in a microgravity environment. It's simply not a matter of one or the other. Attempts to pin down the future will invariably fail -- but hopefully in intriguing ways.

Antigravity totally upsets quaint ideas of rotating space stations. A few hundred years from now, film enthusiasts might watch the revolving, spoked space station in "2001" with the same kind of mirth we experience when watching cheesy movies of astronauts fending off giant spiders on Mars.

The multiverse continues to branch into alternate incarnations, all equally valid.

Self-"expression"

I think it's profoundly disappointing that so many people can only "express" themselves through clip-on "designer" cell-phone faceplates, bumper stickers, and obnoxious clothes. Compulsary corporate schooling has churned out a plague of mentally deficient cogs with no other means of self-expression. Of course, the trends they latch onto aren't "expressive" at all. It's just the best they can do given limited resources.