Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: space – Page 970

BRUSSELS NATO plans to spend 3 billion euros ($3.24 billion) to upgrade its satellite and computer technology over the next three years as the Western military alliance adapts to new threats, a senior official said.

Seeking to deter hackers, and other threats including Iranian missiles, the investments underscore NATO’s recognition that conflicts are increasingly fought on computer networks as well as in the air, on land and at sea.

A senior official at the NATO Communications and Information Agency said the plans include a 1.7-billion-euro investment in satellite communications to better support troops and ships deployed across the alliance, as well as aiding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

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The first of my major #Libertarian policy articles for my California gubernatorial run, which broadens the foundational “non-aggression principle” to so-called negative natural phenomena. “In my opinion, and to most #transhumanist libertarians, death and aging are enemies of the people and of liberty (perhaps the greatest ones), similar to foreign invaders running up our shores.” A coordinated defense agianst them is philosophically warranted.

Many societies and social movements operate under a foundational philosophy that often can be summed up in a few words. Most famously, in much of the Western world, is the Golden Rule: Do onto others as you want them to do to you. In libertarianism, the backbone of the political philosophy is the non-aggression principle (NAP). It argues it’s immoral for anyone to use force against another person or their property except in cases of self-defense.

A challenge has recently been posed to the non-aggression principle. The thorny question libertarian transhumanists are increasingly asking in the 21st century is: Are so-called natural acts or occurrences immoral if they cause people to suffer? After all, taken to a logical philosophical extreme, cancer, aging, and giant asteroids arbitrarily crashing into the planet are all aggressive, forceful acts that harm the lives of humans.

Traditional libertarians throw these issues aside, citing natural phenomena as unable to be morally forceful. This thinking is supported by most people in Western culture, many of whom are religious and fundamentally believe only God is aware and in total control of the universe. However, transhumanists —many who are secular like myself—don’t care about religious metaphysics and whether the universe is moral. (It might be, with or without an almighty God.) What transhumanists really care about are ways for our parents to age less, to make sure our kids don’t die from leukemia, and to save the thousands of species that vanish from Earth every year due to rising temperatures and the human-induced forces.

An impasse has developed among philosophers, and questions once thought absurd, now bear the cold bearing of reality. For example, automation, robots, and software may challenge if not obliterate capitalism as we know it before the 21st century is out. Should libertarians stand against it and develop tenets and safeguards to protect their livelihoods? I have argued, yes, a universal basic income of some sort to guarantee a suitable livelihood is in philosophical line with the non-aggression principle.

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Humanity’s first church on another world could be a dome perched on the rim of a huge crater near the moon’s south pole.

European Space Agency (ESA) artist-in-residence Jorge Mañes Rubio has drawn up plans for a “moon temple” that would help meet the spiritual, social and psychological needs of lunar settlers.

Those needs will likely be considerable, given that the pioneers will be isolated from the rest of humanity on a world hostile to life as we know it, Rubio said. [Visit the Moon Temple: Jorge Mañes Rubio’s Lunar Art in Pictures].

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Ten of the most promising new regional aerospace start-up companies descended on El Segundo on Tuesday to pitch their futuristic concepts for the next wave of industry advancement, from orbiting cell towers in space to drones that communicate with each other.

The event, organized by new-tech business support company Starburst Accelerator, was held at The Aerospace Corp., the research and development arm of the adjacent Los Angeles Air Force Base.

Such meetings between legacy aerospace companies and energetic up-and-comers are becoming commonplace, as the industry works to keep up with a flood of technological advancements propelling the commercialization of low-Earth orbit.

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