Quote of the day

"I submit that we should think carefully before sending off [space] colonists to far-away places without ensuring that they’re capable of protecting the fundamental freedoms of their citizens, and not degenerating into the primitive tribes that humans seem automatically programmed to create in the absence of a checks-and-balances infrastructure."

Read the rest here. Clearly respect for human rights is more cultural than political, even though the preservation of rights should be the sole function of government. The film Serenity addresses the concept of a second collapse of empire quite deftly.

Reading this also lead us to his previous post, Overpopulation? Not a problem! Which leads us to lokeymassive.net (see the third, rather snarky comment). His page has some interesting MP3 files here and here.