What fraction of people believe humanity has a higher goal, a greater purpose, to populate the stars? How many of us even think about this, as a working goal for our nations and world, or as part of our personal life decisions?
Example: Fossil fuels are one-time boon, as a tool to boot-strap tech so we can master atomics; instead we drive F250s to the mall.
In our daily lives it's easy to get caught up with a heads-down focus on kids, work, mortgage, and the rest of daily life, but why do we look no further for national goals than interest rates, GDP, and employment rates? Why do engage in zero-sum global games, and petty power struggles between political parties here at home, without even having a discussion about larger goals? Why don't we publicly discuss & set specific plans for BFAGs (big f-, uh, fat, audacious goals) as national priorities?
In the last week I've seen "Yay! Fusion! Free power in 50 years!" and "Waste of money that could be spend on mining coal, or at least new roads", but really both takes miss the point.
With fusion research it's not technology for tech sake, or free power, or financial optimization, or any near-term need but as a strategic stepping stone that justifies the effort. Let's ask the question: What do we need to be a space-faring species?
- Mastery of huge energy sources and power levels
- Longer, healthier lives (heck, we spend 30+ years just to get a decent doctor, who then works as little as 20 years before a stress heart-attack retirement), so we get better return out of our education investments
- Conquering dementia, so we get more useful years from each educated brain
- Getting past wars and vast inequity, so all can contribute their brain-power effectively
- Managing population and resources as a balance, so we can maximize brain-years over the long term
- Not boiling our planet to death as we go, so we can be around to make progress
Here's the thing: we've got brains built for hunter-gatherer existence, still adapting to city life and vast populations. We're surely not adapted yet to a techno civilization, even industrialized with mass communications, let alone computerized with vast interactive social networks. We're still working with Dunbar's Number brains, and figuring out how to go from small collective groups to city-states. We did tribes for 200K years, farming for 10K, cities for a few K, books for 500, and technology for 200. Now we've recently had mass communications for 100, and social media interactive comes for 10.
Therefore, we should expect massive upheaval and strife, at every level of society, as we adapt our brain-training for this new environment. How can we navigate this, if not focusing on where we want to go, and looking forward and not back?
We need to be a lot more intentional and deliberate as a nation and as individuals. Every new F250 is a missed opportunity, as the same money could have put solar panels on a house for diffuse, distributed, safe, climate-friendly power for many decades, instead of burning limited high-density power for a few years before scrapping the invested energy/money/knowledge. Every war destroys massive machinery that could have been used to ferry materials to low-earth orbit or start a moon colony, or an L5 science station, or to figure out cosmic-ray protection in open space. Every $B spent on election politicking represents money not spent on longer, smarter, lives, filled with better education, to lift us further and faster. Every $ spent on hedonist billionaire yachts is an AI supercomputer not built or an Alzheimer's drug not tested.
As we head into 2023, instead of arguing for another year about masks and vaccines, how about we all resolve to spend our time, attention, dollars, and energy a bit more deliberately, pushing for a better, higher, kinder, safer, healthier, smarter future? Can we agree that even if we won't reach the stars in our lifetimes, it's a better goal for our children's children to pursue than determine who can best maximize income from NFTs or crypto, or grow followers on Twitter or TikTok, or push their personal faith into morality laws for all?
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