You’ll notice that fallacies can only ever be found in your thinking, never in the thinking of those who thrive on pointing them out. It could be because they’re as good at avoiding fallacies as they are at identifying when others use them, but it’s not. They’re just intellectually dishonest.
Jedediah Thoreson
Author: T.L. James
Thoreson on the Right Side of History
Anyone who claims to be ‘on the right side of history’ should be assumed to be a moral monster and treated accordingly. If you believe yourself to be ‘on the right side of history’, you can justify anything you find necessary to do to those who stand in the way of its realization – or who merely disagree with you. That justification is in fact the primary reason for their believing history has a ‘right’ side, and that they’re on it.
– Jedediah Thoreson
It’s a Zoo
Obligatory excuse-making: I’ve been finishing up a project at work (now completed) and trying to get done the Tile Job From Hell (not completed).
In the meantime, I’ve finished Parallel Lives, The Aeneid, Pilgrim’s Progress (Part 1, like Dante’s trilogy, I couldn’t make myself do the rest), and am halfway through Arabian Nights, and most of the way through The Moulding of Communists.
Parallel Lives was interesting, in part for the history it covers. I thought I knew a good bit about Roman history in the transition period from Republic to Empire, but nope – there was way more to it than I had previously learned, and Plutarch crams a whole lot of it into a short piece. The other interesting part was how obviously it was a primary source for several of Shakespeare’s plays (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, specifically).
The Aeneid was slow going, and as I’ve discovered is typical for classic epics and dramas, was poorly structured and edited by modern standards. It was like a story told by a five-year-old: this happened then this happened then this happened for ten thousand lines of dactylic hexameter. But like Parallel Lives, it was an engaging overview of Roman pre-history (albeit heavily mythologized and not exactly reliable), or at least how Romans of the early Empire wished to see their history.
It also portrayed the Trojans as the heroes of the Trojan War and the Achaeans as the bad guys, which amused me at first and which I attributed to the pro-Roman slant of the poem. Then I looked it up. Yeah. Even by Homer’s pro-Greek account, the Greeks were dicks.
Pilgrim’s Progress wasn’t bad, but it was overly-long and by the end seemed like a treacly Anglican reduction of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Arabian Nights is not what I expected at all. I knew it was a series of stories, but the framing device and its nesting/recursion of stories is handled quite well (in contrast to the chaotic structurelessness of The Aeneid), with the stories fairly short and to the point. They remind me very strongly of the stories in Idries Shah’s books, although it’s not entirely clear that they’re intended that way (some do appear have an obvious moral or underlying meaning, but that could simply be me reading things into the story out of habit from reading Shah).
Finally, The Moulding of Communists has been somewhat of a slog up to the current chapter, but it’s turning into an insightful look at how communists were recruited into the Party back in the day, and after recruitment, selected and formed into “cadre” members. The resemblances to cult practices are remarkable, so much so that I repeatedly wonder whether the cults of the 1960s-1980s weren’t actually following the same playbook (and in turn, it makes me wonder how Soviet communists managed to figure all that out, systematize it, and successfully spread it globally such that it was already commonplace by the mid-1930s in the US).
Space Billionaires – Or What?
One occasionally sees opinion pieces or activist rants about how “space billionaires” – guys like Musk, Branson, Bezos, or Bigelow – are somehow ‘ruining space’ by commercializing access or turning it into a tourism destination or filling the ‘space lanes’ with megaconstellations.
And that’s bad, oh so bad.
I would ask, how else do you think expanding civilization into space or sending humans to colonize Mars or the like is going to happen? Who do you think is actually going to get it done?
Civil space programs have had fifty-plus years to do it. Civil space agencies have demonstrated that they can’t create the technology and self-sustaining, large-scale space infrastructure necessary for permanent presence in space. Civil programs “spend that money right here on Earth”, where it lines the pockets of contractors and Congressmen and constituents while slowly accomplishing nothing useful towards actual space settlement. These agencies have also shown that they won’t do it, demonstrating through mission selection, technology development, etc. a bias towards space as a sort of nature preserve where civil servants and academics pursue Science(tm) – not a frontier where mere hoi polloi pursue their own interests (or worse: profits).
Military space programs have not led to settlement, either, but they have distinctly different priorities and make no claims otherwise. These priorities may, eventually, lead to an expanded human presence in space (through manned platforms or technological breakthroughs or the like), but given the nature of military applications and national security protections it’s unlikely that this will happen soon, or quickly, or develop in a direction that makes it self-sustaining. While developments helpful to space settlement could emerge from military programs, they’re not the purpose or end goal of those programs and so their appearance (or availability to civilians) can’t be depended on.
Which leaves the people who are want space settlement to do it for themselves somehow. Which is what has been happening over the past twenty years with the emergence of a truly commercial space industry – one which is systematically developing the pieces necessary for future space settlement.
What has proven essential in this is the combination of adequate capital and motivation. And this has appeared in the form of a few billionaires – Musk, in particular – having the money to invest in building the technology and sustain the effort until it becomes profitable, and deep personal interest in space settlement as a goal. And their undertakings – Musk’s, in particular – have created new millionaires with motivation who are in turn building new space startups of their own, building on the technologies and infrastructure established by these pioneers. This is gradually expanding the depth and breadth of the commercial space industry, which will gradually lead to self-sustainment.
Could space settlement have emerged without “Space Billionaires”? Possibly, eventually. Breakthroughs in (say) manufacturing technology or AI-assisted physics/engineering research or the like might someday have brought down the cost of space activities, enabling the far-more-numerous individuals having the same degree of motivation but lacking the resources to follow a “mom-and-pop” business approach. The “D.D. Harriman” strategy leapfrogs that long evolution and makes the “mom-and-pop” environment emerge sooner than it would have on its own.
Which is a long way of saying: you don’t actually want space settlement if you’re bitching about “Space Billionaires” leading the charge, because nobody else was going to get it going any time soon.
Improving on a “Classic”
How a mediocre episode of Star Trek might be improved:
Bele is taken to Lokai, and the two begin to argue about the history of their two distinct peoples. Kirk is puzzled by the animosity between the two, who appear to him to be of the same race.
When Bele explains that Lokai is evil because his people are black on the left and white on the right, Lokai interjects that the opposite is true: Bele’s people are evil because they are black on the right and white on the left.
Kirk, in an attempt to be clever, responds that he’s white on the top and black on the bottom – which, given he is clothed, they have to take his word on. “What does that make me?”
The two Cheronians howl in instinctive horror, Kirk’s snarky question having triggered the racial memory of another Cheronian people exterminated many millennia earlier. The two aliens immediately put aside their differences and unite in a campaign of annihilation against humanity, who they now perceive as either white-top-black-bottom (Kirk) or black-top-white-bottom (Uhura) members of the feared and loathed third Cheronians.
After a decade-long campaign of genocide across the Federation, Kirk is brought before War Admirals Bele and Lokai in the ruins of Starbase 1, the final survivor of the human race. When the tatters of his uniform reveal that humans are not, in fact, different colors top and bottom, the Cheronians belatedly realize that they’ve made a terrible mistake.
“Um. So sorry about that.”
“Yes, yes. We really should have checked.”
Kirk, spared execution at the last moment, sighs with relief tinged with grief and regret. Looking out a nearby viewport at the scorched and ruined Earth passing below, he says wistfully, “If only I’d joked that we were colored front-to-back, instead.”
At which the two Cheronians scream in uncontrollable terror at the racial memory of a fourth, much older and more fearsome Cheronian people, and transport themselves into the blessed escape of the void.
Spock arrives to rescue Kirk as the wreckage of the station begins to enter Earth’s upper atmosphere. A trite moral lesson is presented, and the credits roll. In the following episode, everything is back to normal and none of these events is acknowledged to have happened.
Why I Quit the Mars Society
Having fisked Bob Zubrin’s statement on the election, I think it’s relevant here to tell the story of why I quit the Mars Society: it’s because of the same kind of political B.S. I pointed out in that post.
I was one of the founding members of the Louisiana chapter of the Mars Society, and its president for a couple of years before I moved from NOLA to Denver in 2004. When I moved, I looked forward to getting more involved, given how close I would be to the Mars Society mothership. (As it happened, I lived about ten miles from Bob Zubrin himself, and used to see him at county Republican events.)
In July, about a month after moving, I finally had the time to contact the Colorado chapter and arrange to attend one of their meetings. On the day, I took off early from work and drove an hour up to CU Boulder – not then knowing the school’s reputation.
The meeting consisted of me, another new person, and 3-4 existing chapter members. Instead of discussions about advocating for manned missions to and settlement of Mars, the existing members spent the time ripping on George W. Bush and giggling about how stupid he was, as evidenced by whatever supposed solecism or blunder of his was then in the news.
On and on. With no recognition that the others in the room might have different opinions on the matter or might in fact have showed up expecting something other than shallow partisan political banter of no relevance to the purpose of the organization. The other new guy looked as annoyed as I felt.
A month later, I did it again. With the same result, but that the other new guy didn’t return. And after that, I didn’t return, either. Nor did I ever hear from anyone in the chapter. They didn’t seem any more interested in growing their organization than they did in serving the organization’s supposed purpose.
I attended two more conventions after that, but only because they were held in Boulder and I didn’t have to travel. None lived up to those I had attended in 2001 (which prompted me to start writing Mars fiction) and 2003 (which got me recruited by SpaceX). After 2008 or so, I just kinda forgot about the Mars Society. It seemed even then to be drifting into irrelevance.
When I point out the risk of a leader creating an unwelcoming environment in his organization by letting his personal political concerns intrude, I’m not doing so because I disagree with Mr. Zubrin’s particular political positions or his party affiliation, it’s because I’ve been on the receiving end of that unwelcoming environment – in his own organization.
Bob Zubrin on Trump and Mars – But Mostly Trump
Speaking of Bob Zubrin: Statement of Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin Concerning the Election of Donald Trump
Ooh. That’s grandiose. Sounds like an official communique from someone important. Let’s see what’s inside…
Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. The Mars Society is non-partisan and does not endorse any candidate. Many of our members and other space advocates supported Mr. Trump’s election, while many others opposed him. For reasons I have amply explained elsewhere, I have always been a member of the latter group.
The first two lines are neutral statements of fact, but already in the third there is a problem: the simplistic and dishonest division of the Mars Society membership into those who supported Trump and those who opposed him, when those are not the only two possible alternatives. What about those who supported Harris on her own merits, for example, or those who opposed her for same, or those who voted third-party, or those who sat out for whatever reason?
Mr. Zubrin’s monochromatic monomania about Donald Trump excludes those possibilities. It’s black and white: the election was about Mr. Trump, and Mr. Trump alone, and either you voted against him, or you voted for him. Kamala Harris who?
The fourth line is what gets me. It’s wholly unprofessional for the head of an organization having nothing to do with politics to insert his own political opinions into the organization’s official communications (however cleverly oblique he imagined he was being when he did it). I suspect his intent here was simply to signal his membership among the righteous, as he sees it.
I get it – I’ve been there. It jumps out at me because I’ve had to edit personal editorial statements like this out of my own organizational PR. As the head of an organization, when you speak in that role you are speaking as the organization, ex cathedra, and so you never say things that show condescension towards the membership over matters unrelated to the organization’s mission.
And if you expect to keep your organization viable and recruit new members, you don’t make half of those who are or could become members feel unwelcome by signaling to them that you consider them inferior. (This signal is more apparent when one reads those ‘explanations elsewhere’.)
That said, whatever we think of the various policies that Mr. Trump has put on offer, there is one that I and the vast majority of Mars Society members certainly support: his promise to initiate a program to send humans to the Red Planet. We will therefore support that initiative, not because we agree with Mr. Trump, but because on this issue, he agrees with us.
Having made it clear over the past few weeks that he did not see a potential humans to Mars policy as anywhere close to being an acceptable reason to support a second Trump presidency, this is an interesting about-face. I suppose it’s pragmatic – making lemonade from the orange he’s been given, so to speak – but it’s an odd willingness to cooperate with a man who Mr. Zubrin has been demonizing as Hitlerian for the past several months.
One would expect someone with such self-regard as a man of principle would regard cooperating with Mr. Trump on sending humans to Mars as just as unjustifiable as he did voting for the man to achieve the same end. While the former, coming after the fact, doesn’t assist Mr. Trump in getting elected, how can it not connote support for the new Trump administration – regardless of pious, self-serving disclaimers to the contrary?
(And yet again, he can’t resist the urge to editorialize, in this instance couching this pragmatic direction in slanted language – a disingenuously “objective” framing that in fact reads as Even though all his other policies suck and it’s very important that you know that I don’t agree with any of them…)
But the cherry on top is the clichéd re-framing at the end. To the extent Mr. Trump is interested in sending humans to Mars, it’s a harmony of interests, a parallel, possibly indirectly influenced by the past quarter-century of advocacy by Mr. Zubrin and the Mars Society but not due to having been persuaded to accept his/their position, as implied. I’d be surprised if Mr. Trump even knows the Mars Society or Mr. Zubrin exist. (It’s far more likely that Elon Musk is the origin of any interest in Mars on the part of Mr. Trump.)
The point is significant. The age-old dream of endowing human minds and hands access to the cosmos does not belong to Donald Trump, nor should it be considered the exclusive possession of any particular political party. It belongs to humanity. It is essential that we make that clear, because the fortunes of political war are always changing. Should the Mars project come to be regarded as the mere hobby horse of a controversial politician, business leader, or partisan faction, it would surely face cancellation the next time the winds of power shift. We cannot let that happen. Precisely because we are not followers of Mr. Trump, we need to step up and help explain why all Americans, regardless of party, should support this initiative.
Yes, yes, okay, we get that you despise Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Mr. Zubrin. Everything in this paragraph could have been stated, and better, without scratching that insatiable itch to sneak in your disdain for them.
Indeed, the rest of the piece is decently written and free of this kind of editorializing. Unfortunately, the rah-rah effect of the statement is dampened by the preceding paragraphs…and the recognition that it was only written at all as a working out of the author’s disappointment at the election results.
We’ll See How Long That Lasts
One lion on a hill applies as much to Bob and Elon as to Elon and the BOM.
One expects that his support for any manned Mars mission will be contingent on how closely the mission plan resembles his own, and that his politics will drive him to be even less tolerant of deviations from his own ideas than otherwise.
Silas Hudson on Independent Thinking
It’s a puzzling thing, how often those who claim to think for themselves – to consider the facts and weigh different perspectives and thereby come to their own conclusions – hold views which just happen to be in lockstep conformity with the dominant narrative.
When the outcome of their intellectual labors is indistinguishable from a lazy regurgitation of the ‘official version’, it makes me wonder why they bothered.
— Silas Hudson
Better the Second Time Around
Creating an entirely new Mars-focused fictional universe has not been quite as difficult as I expected it to be.
I’d been toying with a few concepts for the past several months, and really started getting good ideas while on vacation – primarily about a “noodle incident” that creates the setting for the future history, a number of consequences in the fictional “present day”, and a few of the principal characters. So much came to me while hiking that I had to buy another notebook at Tesco to keep up.
I spent a few days after I got home working out a modified three-act structure that I think will make constructing the plots of the new novels a little easier. But rather than jumping right in to building the plots for a new trilogy, I got distracted by fleshing out the fictional infrastructure. The two play off of each other in interesting ways – I have three documents open at the moment, in which I’m capturing and integrating elements of the future history’s timeline, a large number of characters central to the trilogy (primary, secondary, and tag characters alike), and technological, social, historical, and other developments that happen between “now” (the point of departure) and then. It’s quite entertaining to see how each builds off of the others and suggests new ideas that might not have occurred to me had I tried building the plots first.
While I have a lot of pieces of plot, they haven’t snapped together yet. I can see it coming, though, and it’s got to be more efficient than putting a plot together and then doing the worldbuilding around it to make it work. The latter led to a lot of dead ends with the novel plots in the old project, requiring in some places some contrivances that would have stretched credulity.
In contrast, I hit on the idea of the “Dispatches” as a way to use and extend the worldbuilding that had been done already for the old project, letting the elements of the fictional universe suggest the stories. This worked very well, I think, as most of the Dispatches I outlined had plots with solid, organic endings from the outset.
The one thing that does chap my ass about this is all the things that I predicted in the old project’s future history that then materialized in the real world (browse the entries under the “Life Imitates Art” category for a small taste of these). Maybe I’m good at projecting trends and foreseeing innovations and their consequences – but maybe I’m not, and just got lucky the first time around.
As more comes together, I’ll start laying out here what that future history looks like, the key events and technological developments that shape the next forty years. I’ll also change the site name and update the layout once I decide what I want to call the new project.