one description of what nuclear physics is about:

You have never seen a piano.

Someone pushes one down the steps in the dark, and you listen to the sounds it makes as it is destroyed.

You listen and think and - try to come up with what a piano might look like.

So I'd guess that, before we start trying to 'terraform' (or destroy 'unstable planets' a la Dark Star) we might first demonstrate that we can keep the rain forests and a fair number of species - alive on This one. (Beyond the next fiscal quarter, that is.)

And maybe find some ways to get permission from the Revealed Truths engraved in stone - to find a way for significant numbers of bi-pedal carbon units to.. keep it in the pants, before our social structure necessarily emulates that of the other humongous populations: the ants.

Already we are emulating the sheep and.. packs of wolves. Mainly what we do is: shop. Can ants be far behind?

But I guess this stuff keeps folks off the streets..


A.