Nader Elhefnawy has a sort-of interesting, but ultimately confused and confusing piece about the political inclinations of space activists over at The Space Review today.
I’ll have more to say about this later (it really needs a longer essay than Elhefnawy’s itself), but I’m too busy with a deadline to respond immediately. It’s confusing because he uses the terms “liberal” and “conservative” as though there is some common consensus on what these words mean, despite the fact that he shows examples where they are the opposite of conventional thinking (e.g., post-modernists as pre-modern “conservatives” and “nineteenth-century” (which I would call classical) liberals). Also, as I note in comments over there, there can hardly be more of an oxymoron (excluding the obvious ones like jumbo shrimp and congressional intelligence) than “left-libertarian.”
Also, I wonder if he is aware that it was H. G. Wells himself who coined the phrase “liberal fascism”?
There is also some (perhaps inadvertent, and again, confused) slander of the community as well. But go read for yourself, and I’ll try to tackle it later.
[Update in the afternoon]
At least with regard to the straw men and blatant misrepresentation of the views of the alternate space community, Clark Lindsey has responded:
The broad consensus certainly does not predict anything as ridiculous as “Earth-to-low orbit costs being slashed to $100 a pound by 2012”. The expectation is in fact that low transport costs will be achieved over time via incremental development of reusable systems of increasing robustness and reliability. The incremental approach keeps development costs down while robustness provides for low operations costs. The time scale for this process will depend on the parallel growth of markets like space tourism to pay for the hardware development and to drive flight rates higher.
Elhefnawy implies that all the “experts” hold to his views on these matters. However, I can easily point to people with decades of experience and solid records of accomplishment in the space industry who are now participating in NewSpace companies and who believe that large cuts in the cost of space access are achievable. There are, in fact, a number of examples of projects already, such as the Bigelow habitats, the Surrey Satellite GIOVE-A, the SS1, etc., that were accomplished for costs dramatically below what they would have been if carried out by a government agency or a conventional aerospace industry firm.
Apparently Professor Elhefnawy has a pretty restricted circle of “experts.” Perhaps he should attend Space Access in a couple weeks and broaden both his technical and political horizons.
I couldn’t puzzle out what specifically the author was trying to say, the article was bouncing all over the place. I gathered the general ideas was about what the political/philosophical trend is for the space enthusiast population.
…But I can’t be certain – I fell asleep once, where he brought in the editorial policy of the space review (which may be served well by including a refusal for incoherent articles in the future). My brain tends to shut off after a bit when it is subjected to uninteresting and scattered rambling.
I couldn’t figure out what the point was either. I spend my day reading regulations, which are by comparison a model of clarity.
Nader implicity asks us space advocates to justify our space develoment advocacy and investment.
“the burden of proof would really seem to be on the advocates of space development to show that space can generate really workable solutions to the problems with which they are concerned.”
The only proper response to this drivel is to ignore him and to quote the great “Tom Rogers.” regarding private investment in space development.
“None of your XXX damned business!”
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Certainly a productive additude to take whether talking to an investment banker or a US Senator. (not)
The coalition that forms the left wing of the American political spectrum is not very libertarian on economic issues. The coalition that forms the right wing of the same spectrum is not very libertarian on private sexual behavior, private consumption of drugs that aren’t alcohol, tobacco or regulated pharmaceuticals, and ethical beliefs that don’t fall within a certain subset of Christianity.
I don’t think left-libertarian is more oxymoronic than right-libertarian, or the default assumption that most libertarians should fall into the right wing of the American political spectrum unless they declare to contrary.
I don’t think left-libertarian is more oxymoronic than right-libertarian, or the default assumption that most libertarians should fall into the right wing of the American political spectrum unless they declare to contrary.
That depends on how you define “right” and “left” (something that on which there is no consensus, though many like to pretend there is). But I would say that left is definitely collectivism, so if right is its opposite, it should be individualism (much of the left calls libertarians part of the “right wing”). Even if it’s not, clearly left-libertarian is nonsensical.
Reading for comprehension: “Regarding private investment…” – and if it’s not that specific banker, then it’s not his business.
Rand writes:
“That depends on how you define “right” and “left” (something that on which there is no consensus, though many like to pretend there is). But I would say that left is definitely collectivism, so if right is its opposite, it should be individualism (much of the left calls libertarians part of the “right wing”). Even if it’s not, clearly left-libertarian is nonsensical.”
Those may be your definitions, but, as you say, there’s no consensus, and words can legitimately have more than one meaning. In practice the right and left, to the extent they are willing to apply those labels to themselves or that contemporaries find the labels meaningful, have always been a collection of beliefs flying in loose formation, with the aggregate changing from time to time and place to place.
The Left has been at different times and places the side that most strongly opposed state support for religion and inherited privilege, and supported equal rights and the liberty of private sexual behavior. At which times the Right was on the other side.
Collectivist impulses have often been a a big part of the left coalition, but the same is true of the right when it subordinates the individual to nationalism or religion.
On particular collectivism/individualism issues, the left/right preference seems to have been highly contingent on who was in the coalition at the time. Conscription would be one example.