Category Archives: General Science

To Mars Or Not To Mars?

That is the question at this Oxford debate this evening (in a couple hours, sorry about the short notice).

[Update toward the end of the debate]

As I’ve noted in the past, debates like this are pointless, because they are a false choice based on a false premise. We don’t have to choose between populating Mars and saving the planet; we have abundant resources for both. The false premise is that this is going to be a collective decision whose outcome will be determined by an Oxford debate. People who go to Mars will be doing so with their own money, so people on Earth who oppose it are going to have to make it illegal to prevent it. There is a word for people like that: jailers.

Schrödinger

…was a pedophile? Technically, twelve years old isn’t necessarily pedophilia, if she’s reached menarche. Pedophilia is attraction to children who are pre-pubescent. This is more like a Roy Moore thing.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems related. Epstein wasn’t wrong when he said “that criminalizing sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable.” It was acceptable for almost all of human history. Young women generally married as teenagers. But I don’t think that actual pedophilia has ever been acceptable in most cultures.