SMI²LE and Uplift Humanity

The paradigm of perpetual economic increase is as inevitable an outgrowth of our biological existence as population increase. We’ve been on the roller-coaster ride of the rise and fall of ‘civilization’ for millennia and each rise has taken us a little closer to maturity, closer to some of our species leaving the womb of the planet to explore other possibilities.

            Space travel can increase not only the time allotted to us on this inherently unstable planet in an inherently unstable section of the universe – it can allow us to ride the living pulse of growth and diversify our kind into utterly new lives we cannot easily imagine.

           Most mining can be removed from the Earth as extraterrestrial habitats are created from materials that don’t have to be lifted from our punishing gravity well. The technology has existed for decades for mining the moon and asteroids and delivering materials around the solar system in an economically and environmentally viable way.

Similarly, energy can be beamed to Earth from solar powered orbiting stations at little cost.

            There are at least two likely scenarios for this Uplift;

1 – Sporing. In this scenario humanity increases its technological growth at the expense of the environment and society, continuing as bands of tribes united under national warlords, perpetuating fossilised industrial and mythic ideas. All or most extraterrestrial colonies would be militarised and global civilization would decline in the face of new technological threats faced and caused by these competing regimes. New colonies are formed at the expense of the planet, which swiftly declines.

2 – Fractal Flowering. In this scenario humans achieve unity in diversity, forming an effective one world consensus. Freedom and growth go hand in hand and humanity flowers into a diversity of forms as wealth, health and happiness are increased for all. As Timothy Leary said, SMI²LE is a good formula for the future – space migration + intelligence increase + life extension = infinity. These three ways of increasing humanity’s potential go hand in hand and allow any who dare to achieve anything they can imagine.

In the late 1970s a band of visionary dreamers drew together to announce a plan to enact these Scenario 2 ideals and save the planet from being immersed into barbarism once again.

“…Back in the 1970s when space had the American imagination enthralled, figures like Gerard K. O'Neill and Buckminster Fuller began to imagine the next wave of Utopian experiments. Their remarks appear in an amazing book released by And/Or Press and the New Dimensions Foundation in 1978[11]. These experiments would be attempted with the realization that, if heaven could not be realized on earth, perhaps it should be put where it belongs: in the heavens. O'Neill talks about space colonies in precisely these ways, as places where new Utopian experiments in self-governance and economic life can be attempted; and in an interview, when asked what type of men would settle in these colonies, he makes analogies to the people who sailed with Colombus or came with the Pilgrims to the New World. If America created one world, for O'Neill settling in space will be a new way to create a thousand more, and discover others: our next confrontation with alterity will be with other races that, unlike the native peoples of America, may not even resemble us at all. O'Neill sees it as axiomatic that America will lead this march into space, recognizing that the Utopian imagination that created it never found the complete fulfillment within its shores, and thus turns to the next unconquered frontier…”

- Go to source: UTOPIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES    http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/utopo-amer.html

Life in space is not everyone's ideal, but those few that wanted to explore unknown frontiers would actually help the multitudes who stay at home.

The idea went around the world, eagerly promulgated by the global media of the day. It had its fifteen minutes of fame before being roundly quashed by disinformationist scare campaigns created by lobbyists for the fossil fuel industries – oil, coal, gas, uranium; the technology was ‘too expensive’, ‘too dangerous’ and ‘bad for the environment’. After months of global exposure, the ideas of these visionaries were still ahead of their time – then.

As we all know less than two generations later, we are all on a roller-coaster ride and we’re all in the same boat.

            Welcome to the Third Millennium. Do we dare to dream of paradise yet?

- R.A.

 Further Reading –

Exo-Psychology, By Timothy Leary, Peace Press, Los Angeles, 134 pp

The Eighth Tower, By John A. Keel, Signet, New York, 1977, 250 pp

Prolongevity, By Albert Rosenfeld, Knopf, New York, 1976; 250 pp.

The Immortalist, By Alan Harrington, Celestial Arts, Millbrae, 1977, 313 pp

http://hippy-stuff.com/resource/timothyleary/timothyleary.html

http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/SFR23.htm

http://au.geocities.com/elishamcmears/index.html

http://www.geocities.com/r_ayana/WhatIsTruth.html

www.hq.nasa.gov/.../ History/EP-177/ch5-4.html

images - http://images.google.com.au/images?svnum=50&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=gerald+o%27neill+space+colony

http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/settle86.GIF

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/.../ History/EP-177/ch5-4.html

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