the unquestioned presupposition that the colonies will live in misery
I agree that that’s weird and probably wrong, but it’s not clear to me what it tells us about Lalartu’s politics.
it seems to assume that Earthers can do no wrong.
I don’t see that it even assumes that Earthers won’t be responsible for the (alleged) misery of the (hypothetical) colonies. You may well be right about where Lalartu’s coming from, and that may well be because you’ve picked up reliable signals of right-wing-ness in what he wrote, but if so I think they are subtler signals than you are describing.
Having nuclear capability for self-sustenance does not equal having capability to build nuclear bombs.
That is wrong. Society able to build a reactor can build bombs, political limitations aside.
I see still less reason to think they could nuke Earth hard enough to cause anything like extinction.
How many nukes do you think is enough? Will 1 million be? Modern USA can build that in few years if they want so. Do you think colony (with some future technology) will definitely be unable?
distinctly right-wing
That is true, but I don’t see why it is relevant.
I don’t see why we should expect any colony’s existence to be miserable
Because Mars, Moon, rotating space habitats and so on are just terrible places to live.
Spanish colonies did fight a war against the Spanish Empire
I don’t think it is a meaningful comparison. Inhabitants of Cayenna penal colony will go better.
I don’t see any good reason to expect that the colony—especially if it’s struggling to survive—would >want to nuke Earth
Because Earth is responsible for their miserable lives (assuming that primary offenders, first-generation colonists are mostly (or completely) dead at that point).
The risk of pushing our colonies to nuke us out of spite vs. the risk of destroying ourselves at home >before we’ve even reached the stars weighs strongly in favor of launching as many rockets as we >physically can.
How many nukes do you think is enough? Will 1 million be? Modern USA can build that in few years if they want so. Do you think colony (with some future technology) will definitely be unable?
How did you get that idea? Quick search for the cost of a single bomb is $20 million. That means you are looking at a cost of 20 trillion$. Given that the amount of cheaply minable uranium isn’t infinitive the cost is likely more.
That means you are looking at a cost of 20 trillion$.
So? Obviously this means war-time economy and devoting industry to making nukes. Point is that it can be done in principle. Also, major part of nuke’s cost is plutonium, and it’s production is strongly affected by economies of scale. 5 trillion$ would be more reasonable estimate.
Given that the amount of cheaply minable uranium isn’t infinitive the cost is likely more.
Cost of mining uranium is really small compared to cost of building and maintaining reactors.
I agree that that’s weird and probably wrong, but it’s not clear to me what it tells us about Lalartu’s politics.
I don’t see that it even assumes that Earthers won’t be responsible for the (alleged) misery of the (hypothetical) colonies. You may well be right about where Lalartu’s coming from, and that may well be because you’ve picked up reliable signals of right-wing-ness in what he wrote, but if so I think they are subtler signals than you are describing.
That is wrong. Society able to build a reactor can build bombs, political limitations aside.
How many nukes do you think is enough? Will 1 million be? Modern USA can build that in few years if they want so. Do you think colony (with some future technology) will definitely be unable?
That is true, but I don’t see why it is relevant.
Because Mars, Moon, rotating space habitats and so on are just terrible places to live.
I don’t think it is a meaningful comparison. Inhabitants of Cayenna penal colony will go better.
Because Earth is responsible for their miserable lives (assuming that primary offenders, first-generation colonists are mostly (or completely) dead at that point).
That is a sure way to extinction.
How did you get that idea? Quick search for the cost of a single bomb is $20 million. That means you are looking at a cost of 20 trillion$. Given that the amount of cheaply minable uranium isn’t infinitive the cost is likely more.
So? Obviously this means war-time economy and devoting industry to making nukes. Point is that it can be done in principle. Also, major part of nuke’s cost is plutonium, and it’s production is strongly affected by economies of scale. 5 trillion$ would be more reasonable estimate.
Cost of mining uranium is really small compared to cost of building and maintaining reactors.