Smiles and nods. Right now, our understanding of EM phenomenon greatly outstrips our understanding of mass/gravity by multiple orders of magnitude. All of our understanding of gravity is phenomenology.

Can we wait till the math improves? :-)

I will simply comment that we don't actually know how opiates work either. We have a few consistent guesses, but we don't know a lot more than we do know. When I think about miracles, I think about Dr. Szilard and 10% chances.

Whatcha gonna breathe and eat and no more fish on friday. What do ya do for energy when you go interstellar. We could send robots except they aren't smart enough.

Please google the term "Aldrin Cycler" if you prefer it in sci-fi, The Last Dance by Martin Shoemaker.

Edit: I'm suggesting this because of current economics. We are a way off from the 1G continuous acceleration being feasible.

But it might Inside a star....?

Larry Niven talks about a galactic/universe distributed being that coalesces every once in a while to share and think about the collected data. One of the Draco Tavern collections.

If it helps, then that's absolutely beautiful. The fact that you are looking at the art of old light and it speaks to calm you makes me feel good. So I thank you for sharing! The thought occurred to me that you may also enjoy music. If you do, then maybe there is deeper peace to be found by adding music to light?

Well, I figured getting to space, for Humanity, is really going to be an everybody effort. Study Ernest Callenbach, current state of the art in post scarcity, and build that game that slowly gets people ready for a world wide effort.

You aren't actually reading what I've said to you, or you keep missing the points. I am disengaging. If you think blowing up the planet isn't capable of ruining post scarcity, I don't think we need further discussion. You don't seem to have a problem with risky stuff. I do.

Why do ya think I brought it up?? We handle amounts of energy now that can catastrophically affect this planet. We have an aggressive society, lots of unhappy unhealthy people and enough bombs to literally crack the planet. Je suis fin. Bon soir.

I'm s firm believer in Murphy, since engineering was my thing. We now control enough energy to affect climate the slow way. We also control enough energy to really" affect the environment a lot more significantly and faster. We are an armed, aggressive, warlike species. Shrugs. I've been thinking about EMP and fobs and l5 since the early 70s. I'll lay any money someone has tungsten rods in orbit right now.

No humanity won't decide. Not educated enough, kept artificially divided, kept artificially poor. Nope. Not without significant and probably violent change. So as to the very original question....

Edit: Not gonna be a lot of space travel except military, science and industrial concerns.

I invite you to look at what this discussion devolved into, and factor in pollution, global warming, decling biodiversity, etc. It's not like we have a lot of time. At this rate, the more interesting question is who drowns or bakes first. We're generating enough heat to actually delay what should be an encroaching ice age, according to the science we think we know.

I think you're an optimist. Shrugs.

Untill we blow the planet up sure. But we're being pretty irresponsible down here and I don't see you having survivability out there for a while without the stuff earth currently provides. We spend a lot more on military than we do on space. Between planetary warming and social violence and capitalism, the pot is boiling. Shrugs

Yeah. I'm really not. You're the captain of the titanic, looking at the very tip of the iceberg, never seeing the size of the thing. Go look up the estimate sizes of the market women and children being trafficed. It's an industry. A rather large one. Do you think the cops do a good job at ferreting this stuff out? You sir, are the delusional one. GO FORTH AND ACTUALLY LOOK. Try it for real. Or stay deluded.

Edit:' being discussed in r/futurology rught now, in fact.

Okay. You're saying what we have is good enough to take into space. I think you're insane, but it's your life. Um, your number 3 is really really inaccurate. You just don't hear about it in western society as much. Because we're supposed to be above it. Don't believe all you don't get to hear.

Also, the manosphere is actually worse. Go snd actually look at whats being said out there. Think Nazis and dehumanization. There's a reason this is the loneliest generation ever. For instance, the mild thing I saw today was "women shouldn't go on dates if they aren't expecting to have sex." That was mild. Take s look i to that piece of the Internet snd tell me we're ready for the cold equations. :-)

And now we have the manosphere, religious political conflict in America, misogyny across the world, political torture, scientology, rednecks. Brexits...

Go away LoL. We have plenty of atrocity today. I'm a 61-year-old man, and the idea of you telling me that we're much more civilized now is just whistling in the effing dark. We still do bread and circuses, and that was coined in Roman times. Stop making me laugh, it hurts too much. Sheesh.

I wish I agreed with you. Untill humans stop all the short-term thinking, we're fucked. I expect it will take war or a significant die back for the wakeup call.

Meanwhile, you are overestimating our technical capabilities. Reagan fucked up. And thus the space age is now instead of 30 years ago. But unless the sociology changes, the only thing we are going to export out of the atmosphere is war. Shrugs. I'm busy dying. I have zero stake in this anymore. I'm just telling you what I see. It won't be up to me. :-)

Technology development yes. Social development? Take a good hard look around. I have faith in the tech and the science. I have no faith in the human component. We haven't kept pace with our technical development.

EDIT

Just consider. There are about 2500 billionaires in the world. About 1 million millionaires. And then there 9 billion of the rest of us. Does this seem sensible to you from the macro perspective? Is this a sensible allocation of human wealth?

They colonized by using disease and war. You think war in the most inimical environment around is gonna be cheap?

In my personal opinion, we won't be able to get off this planet in any significant way, until humanity develops a social structure different and a bit more politically advanced. We just don't have the culture yet to support more than small projects, and the big projects won't get off the ground until the species decides to stop fighting so much.

ATM, I see nothing more than small stuff in the inner planets. Mostly military buildup over Terra and lots of science. Maybe a billionaire hotel somewhere pretty.

And right after the war, maybe we grow up. That's my hope. I don't think the war gets avoided unless we start drowning first. After either, we move forward.

Not what I said. i said it will take 40 years from whenever we start Willingly, no not yet. But in 5 10 years when we start diieing back from global warming, as China and USA have huge demographics problems, yeah, it starts becoming feasible. Eventually it gets bad enough, we either war ot drown. Humans may start becoming reasonable.

Yah, I think all the short term thinking is coming due soon now. :-) The next let them eat cake moment approaches, and then yup, we might be ready to cooperate.

Now you want to talk bgp and egp? What pray tell is an imaginary internet point. Teach me.

I'm not interested in metaphors, or similes, or analogies, or euphemism. I am discussing the state of the art in a number of current technologies, and how they apply to the real world around us. At the same time, I'm also talking about a broken sociology, based on nothing but old stupidity. Just because you think drudging for a living is the natural state of human beings, does not mean that the rest of us have to agree with you. Edit

Is there a reason I should listen to a troll with no karma? :-)

I'm looking at 40 years as the total timetable. Ideally, in about 5 years from the stsrt of acceptance. Edit. It's mostly a mindset thing in terms of adjusting. We've built the tools already.