If you feel that "Greece" must be punished for fiscal irresponsibility with chaos and starvation, then while we're still bundling people into convenient country packages, why shouldn't "the USA" be bombed and occupied?
Oh, those wars and massacres weren't your decisions? Then, you think the average Greek took those Eurozone loans and bailouts themselves?
Actually the way the American world looks, is one in which no major world powers have gone to war since WW2 ended, with America maintaining the peace and protecting Western Europe from the Soviet Union.
Global poverty and global violence - in fact, nearly every major negative measurement has plunged in the last 70 years during which America has reigned. The global median income and standard of living keeps rising. The world has never had it so good, as it has during the time in which America has been the leading superpower.
Endless war among major nations for centuries. America becomes the global superpower, not a single major war between major nations in 70 years.
Two world wars in 25 years. Zero world wars - despite vast global military armament, including two aggressive communist powers that murdered a hundred million of their own people combined - in 70 years. America has been the sole thing holding it all in check.
Global wealth - at an all time high. Global charity - at an all time high. Global median income - at an all time high. Global median standard of living - at an all time high. Child death rates, at all time lows. Science, space, manufacturing, global trade, innovation, opportunity, education, pick a topic - the world has never been better off than it has been the last 70 years on average, and especially since the collapse of the USSR and old-line Communist China, both of which occurred on America's watch.
Here is another way: global period of prosperity in which a world superpower has (momentarily?) solved the problem of maintaining its supremacy (mainly economic, but also military and political) by leeching the rest of the world using various mechanisms: dollar as reserve country, military occupation of resource rich countries - sometimes by tacit alliances with repressive regimes - international intellectual property agreements skewed to favor the home economy, rigged international financial markets ...
Which is fine, but here is the problem: it is not that America has chosen the "peace-americana", it is that the "peace-americana" is working in its favor. As soon as it does not work anymore, the US will very willingly fight other major powers, in a race to the bottom.
All this, of course, discounting the fact that during the "peace-americana" the US has killed millions of people (most of whom are innocent bystanders), while at the same time suffering the loss of a couple of thousand people. Every person killed is a big loss, and that means the millions of people killed are a very big loss, even if you do not care.
So, what is the grudge we in the rest of the world have with the US? Speaking for myself, just the fact that you are not using the chance that this period of prosperity is giving the world to engage in a permanent and objective international state of affairs, which is not just a way for you to control us and maintain your supremacy.
You are just a bully, which is to be expected: everybody would do exactly the same thing in your situation. Just don't try to sell it as something that it is not.
And let me tell you one more thing: even if it is in your short-term interest to act as you are doing, long-term it is just stupid. Instead of fostering collaboration you are creating enemies (Russia, China, some parts of south america, now even Europe); in the long run, your supremacy will be eroded and you will fall, like all empires fall. The question is if another empire will come, or an international cosmopolitan establishment will be created to regulate the relations among people on Earth (hopefully not country-based anymore). You could have lead this path, but my impression (based on the status of the world and particularly the US economy, as related to the upcoming powers) is that that chance has already passed.
Don't conflate the mindset and vision of the sociopaths in charge of the United States with the mindset and vision of the people trapped within their grasp.
I find this dogma of "Eventually we will conquer space and make it accessible to all mankind" dangerous in the extreme to the actual, all-too-present predicaments we have here on real Earth such as climate change, environment devastation, fossil fuels/minerals/water depletion and the accelerating destruction of the web of life that makes possible your even being able to breathe.
You are all prey to the "religion of progress".
Your dogma is that space travel is not only possible, but a given, something the universe has put somewhere for us to find and make ours.
Except that, basic hard laws such as the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. say NO. And it's only your religious thinking that allows you to handwave all that with a "we always find a way".
For all we know, in this universe it may be impossible to bypass or even bend those laws. Yet, you're betting the future of the species on old Star Trek fantasies.
As you said, the conditions and difficulty for modern space travel are in the extreme and pushing all of our sciences to their limits. And for what? just to get to... the moon. I don't want to scare you, but if that seems far to you, see how much bigger the distance to anything else in the solar system is, nevermind anything outside it.
> basic hard laws such as the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. say NO
This is not true. For travel within the solar system the speed of light is no more than a nuisance delaying communication. The laws of thermodynamics don't stop space travel. No one is saying "we always find a way" to do the impossible. We are saying "we always find a way" to do that thing that we already know how to do and have demonstrated lots of times, only this time we need to make it cheaper.
a) Travel within the solar system? where do you want to go live, Mercury, Venus? Mars is almost as worthless too, its gravity is 1/3 Earth's. Can't live there for long.
b) We just need to make it cheaper? how, exactly, are you going to get up there except by burning obscene quantities of solid (fossil) fuel, as we do now?
That's where the thermodynamics things comes in play: you have to pay the energy cost, there's no elegant "oh, we're just going to fold space" or some such bs. And fossil fuels are finite by definition, need I remind you.
It's not "we just need to make it cheaper". It's coming up with new breakthroughs in physics that no one can assure even exist.
a) Mars.Your notion that humans cannot survive for long in 1/3 gravity is interesting. While it has not been proven that we can live long and healthy lives in 1/3 G, many very intelligent and informed people believe we can. Do you have a particular reason to believe we cannot?
b) You have to pay the energy cost but that is not the hard part. Fossil fuels are finite, but we don't need to use fossil fuels and even if we did setting up a civilization on mars would take a tiny portion of earth's fossil fuels. We are not going to run out of hydrogen as long as we have the energy to split water and plenty of energy hits the earth in the form of sunlight every day, not to mention fission or fusion.
So no, the laws of thermodynamics are not the problem. We "just" need to make it cheaper.
Someone has to point out that you have fallen into dogmatic thinking when it comes to our "space future". There is nothing promised, nothing that can be taken for granted, nothing shown to be possible (beyond the current limits of our physics which are: getting to the moon at enormous fuel expense, and 1-way ticket to die in Mars)
I live in Tokyo right now. Everyone is very busy, yet it's obligatory to be polite at all times and with all people (at work). Don't know how it compares to NY though, never been there.
Oh, those wars and massacres weren't your decisions? Then, you think the average Greek took those Eurozone loans and bailouts themselves?