Emigration

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I can really understand why people were willing to risk months of traveling across the open sea in fragile sailing ships to travel from the Old World to the New World. I so hope to see the day when, if it should ever be, that rotational colonies will be built in space and perhaps artificial habitations may be built on the moon and on Mars. Even if life is difficult and the risks are high and the travel time is longer than people nowadays have the patience to wait through, it still would be worth it.

Has nobody else felt this way so as to understand the desire to leave one's nation of birth and start a new life with as few other people as possible? Does anyone else hate living in population dense areas where the supply of people is so great that they are each devalued in the perception of each other?

Let those who wish to voyage in space pay for their vessels and their passage.

ruveyn

Definitely. Why would anyone want to have any claims of debt to anyone on this blasted planet after they leave?

The entire history of the United States seems to be built on a pattern of departure.

Pilgrims left the religious pluralism of England in order to estabish a religiously homogenous community in the New World.

Pioneers left the industrial regieme of the Eastern seaboard to settle the West.

And now that there's nowhere left on the planet to exit to, Americans (and it is overwhelmingly Americans) talk of escaping to colonize other worlds.

Your entire national culture seems to be built on the premise that if you don't like the government here, pack your bags and move somewhere where there is no government.

Hmm.... As for space colonies I've wondered if it would be possible to ever capture a large Asteroid in Earth orbit and then build upon it. I mean some of them out there could be as big as a state. Lots of floating real estate to carve out a colony on with plenty of room.

Just think it would be a way to establish a living space like that instead of cramming people into a capsule like a sardine can. Also with that much room I wonder if it could be a self sustaining biodome.

Then someday it could kick out of orbit and drift off toward the outer planets.

I doubt the exceeding generality of your statement since, even within your own list of examples, you mention people departing from the American eastern seaboard, and yet there were loads of Americans who remained there because of either lack of finances or due to preference for living in cities or the fear of the unknown or the fear of known difficulties in traveling across vast and barren terrain. Either way, more people stayed in the crowded East than had left for the West. But even assuming the veracity of your premise, what is there wrong with desiring to spread out and colonize new lands? That eventually the lands will again be filled and we'll need to move on from there to yet other lands? Is that really so abhorrent to ever bring life and order to locations which are destitute and rudimentary?

You got it backwards. Our history is built on arrivals. Look at what a diverse society we have. People from all over the world have come to the U.S. to live and work.

Compare how many leave to the number which arrive.

ruveyn

Perhaps the first real space colony could be named Rotor in honor of Isaac Asimov.

The gravity would be so low one would have to line IN the asteroid, rather than ON the asteroid.

ruveyn

Of course. The escape velocity of most asteroids would make surface construction nearly impossible anyway. Tunneling throughout them one could make their volume useful, unlike the majority volume of the Earth which is too high a temperature to be useful.

But those are the ones who are romanticized. What are the American romantic ideals? The Pilgrims, the "Founding Fathers," the Pioneers, the Cowboy. All examples of people seeking to escape.



I never said it was wrong. It's just an observation.

Are those the only ones? Also, for whom are they ideals of Americans? On shows like Scrapheap challenge I've seen the hosts talk and act as if Americans are like cowboys or somesuch. Not as an insult, but as a real statement as if it were something they seemed to really believe. What of movies like The Godfather or shows like The Fresh Prince Of Bell Air and CSI or JAG? There are idealizations of Americans appearing there too, of gangsters and spoiled wannabe gangsters, of detective scientists and investigators. Those are not people who seek to leave but those who thrive in an urban environment....



Ah, I thought you might be trying to make an implied statement instead of merely an observation, sorry.