lclough wrote:
wrote:

Otherwise, why would embittered clowns like yourself have to spend
so
many hours trying to refute the obvious?





Historically, there are only three engines that drive
exploration.

False, and laughably so. The human motivations involved can hardly be
reduced to three.

The prospect of material wealth (gold, oil, whale
blubber, a quarter section of prairie) is far and away the most
popular.

That motivation and others are *not* mutually exclusive. Many pioneers
have been motivated by the prospect of material wealth *and* the
prospect of adventure, for example.

Another very common motivation in the past is
nationalism -- we must get to the Moon, Antarctica, the New
World, before those awful Communists, Norwegians, or Portugese
do it.

Do you think the Apollo missions were motivated *solely* by
nationalism, to the exclusion of the sense of wonder, exploration,
fascination with the unknown, etc.? If so, you are completely out of
touch with reality.

Religious reasons come in third, and supply a handy
cloak to cover the naked ambition of the first two motives. We
want to convert the heathens to Christianity, or teach the
natives about Islam.

Again, this hardly excludes other motivations.


For these three goals, people and governments are willing to
spend money. Any other motives -- science, the love of the
unknown, and so on -- may be bruited merrily about, but they
don't open wallets.

Obviously false. You really shouldn't say something so silly, because
it damages your credibility. If people weren't fascinated with the
unknown, you'd see *far* less support for the space program. Why do you
think they even showed the moon landing on television? People were
fascinated with our unchartered, faraway moon being explored for the
first time. Are you really dense enough to believe that fascination
doesn't enter the picture? Many people saw it as a "great leap for
mankind," not just for Americans.

By the way, why do you think people even *open wallets* to buy your
sci-fi novels, if not fascination with the unknown? And yet here you
are, denying that such fascination exists at all. Are you so dead
inside that you can see no wonder in exploring new worlds? Why do you
write scifi then? Solely to make money? I'm puzzled. Aren't there
easier and more obvious career paths for someone who so completely
lacks a sense of wonder?


Are there any solid examples in history of major exploration
driven by a goal other than the big three? The only one I can
think of is, possibly, Alexander the Great. Who had enough
money, after conquering Persia, and enough empire, to keep
anybody happy, and the Greeks were not really evangelizers -- so
what drove him to try and conquer India? But then Alexander did
not really have to consult with others.

You seem to be changing your argument now and backing off from your
original premise. Yes, I would say that Alexander was driven in part by
a sense of adventure and heroism. But this is nothing that exceptional.
I would say that a vast number of expeditions throughout history have
been motivated in part by a sense of wonder, adventure, and desire to
explore the unknown. To deny this is to deny something essential to
humanity. When a child sneaks out of bed to find out what lurks in some
forbidden room, that is the drive to explore manifest. To pretend this
drive has never motivated exploration is simply absurd. It happens *all
the time*. Hell, people vicariously explore other worlds through
science fiction because of this drive. Being an apparent scifi author,
you should be the *last* person not to know that.