Fathority is a funny thing. If you doubt this (and I'm sure we all
do), try this: laugh in its face. For instance, the next time your
favorite federal Senator shows up for a public meeting, ask him this
(or her, of course): "Doesn't the term 'consent of the governed' in
the Declaration of Independence mean that the Founding Fathers pretty
much just conceived of 'government' as being something to be submitted
to, rather than actively participated in? I mean, if the Founders had
expected or wanted town-hall type Athenian-type pure democracy,
wouldn't the phrase have been 'assent of the governed'?" A good
Senator would be able to weave this blatant non sequitur into the
fabric of the current Senatorial interests in national issues
affecting his (or, of course, her) audience and so forth so
effectively that you'd find yourself begging to be allowed to make a
campaign contribution on the spot. So be aware. Be very aware. But
more likely there would be a widening of the Senatorial eyes, a show
of Senatorial teeth, an erection of Senatorial head and shoulders, a
pause, a silence, and then a rustling uncertainty around his (or her)
immediate coterie as the air is sniffed for the ancient scents. (And
once you've acquired the focus of interest within such a context, the
best way to avoid any onus of self-fathority is to immediately smile,
raise your hands in the air and continue, "You've been great! Thank
you! Good night!" moving surely and quickly toward the nearest exit.
Keep smiling, and keep moving. And if anybody wants a name, just say
"Bob! Gotta run!" And probably it would be good to actually start
running at that point. Just a tip.) And (as you might recall)
fathority is a funny thing. Conceivably, your Congressperson could
start writing letters to *you.* I mean real letters, not subsidized
reelection mass-mailings. Questioning fathority isn't the same thing
as questioning authority, though, because the latter should always be
questioned, whereas the former must never be. Unless you're ready to
roll up in a ball and trust nobody really wants to damage your body.
And human beings love life. Or seem to. Or at least think enough of
"diversity" to make a show of revering its potential when there's no
immediate threat to human interests. Which brings us (easily,
naturally, and, it would seem, inevitably) to the Imaginary Alien Sea
Police at NASA. The following is a story of fathority in its most
pristine, disinterested state. There's an unmanned
planetary-exploration spacecraft called Galileo presently orbiting the
planet Jupiter, the culmination of the most ambitious American
planetary-orbital mission to date. It began with a relay of data from
a probe which entered the Jovian atmosphere, and since then has
returned detailed information about the physical profile of
near-Jupiter space, including detailed pictures and spectrographic
data of its moons. And, from this data, it seems somewhat likely that
one of its moons, Europa, may be partly or completely covered in
liquid water hundreds of miles deep, with a crust of ice only dozens
of miles thick, and perhaps much thinner in spots. Well, the
processes that would keep liquid water liquid at that distance from
the sun are also operating to ensure that the operational lifetime of
the Galileo spacecraft is limited. The interaction of the
gravitational fields of Jupiter and its close-in moons and the human
orbiter changes very quickly, and can be very drastic when the orbiter
is directed to pass closely to a moon. So the orbiter has to make
changes to its orbit, which involves using fuel, and it doesn't carry
an unlimited supply. Thus, eventually it won't be able to be
controlled anymore. Additionally, its present orbit is to some degree
locked to the orbits of the moons it's been studying. Thus, there
seems to be some chance that an uncontrolled orbit might be perturbed
into intersecting with one of them at some point in the future, rather
than simply beginning to orbit harmlessly in the frosty reaches of
space, a tiny museum of 20th century technology suitable for retrieval
and display in a 25th century museum. No, children. There are at
least two so-called "facts" that make an active decision necessary:
that spacecraft can't be controlled indefinitely, and when it can't be
controlled anymore, there's definitely a very slim chance that it will
crash on Europa. In addition to this, the magnetic field of Jupiter,
which *also* acts to heat the interiors of the Jovian moons, collects
charged particles and "radiation" like a pocket collects lint, and
"radiation" isn't good for the electronics and other systems on the
Galileo. It was conservatively, ruggedly designed for that
environment, but its human controllers are continually a little
surprised that it's still responding at all. And NASA always
understates the useful lifetime of its missions (not that it doesn't
have the fathority to do that). But the Galileo mission is definitely
nearing its end. Which brings us, by *more* easy stages, to the
Imaginary Alien Sea Police. How so, little Nemo? Shut up. The
Galileo might impact on Europa. Europa might have liquid water. It
might thus also presently have microbial life, or be able to support
microbial life. The physical structure of the Galileo might still
harbor viable microorganisms, even after preflight sterilization and
many years in the temperature extremes, energy-exposure, and vacuum of
deep space. Such microorganisms could conceivably survive and
multiply in the oceans of liquid water Europa may possess. But these
are imaginary alien seas: extraterrestrial liquid water even yet has
never been directly detected, only inferred. (Same thing happened
last year with Luna: American military fathorities mounted a
crash-mission to check out the possibility of cometary water-ice
existing in the permanent-shadow areas of the southern regions, with
equivocal results. Which means they probably found it. And oh, so
much more.) And now, its time for the weinie: the fathority of the
imaginary alien sea police thinks to interpret and enforce a certain
control over natural law by allowing consequences to come into
awareness while silently and unthinkingly dismissing any question of
its own bases. Will HumAntity knowingly spread the seeds of that
precious thing called "life" to a whole world (Europa: diameter 1563
thousand miles), perhaps destroying life already there (or records of
life: same thing)? Or will it simply be the unwitting instrument of
"infection"? That's fathority in a nutshell for you. The question is
easy, because a simple decision is required. And remember, easy
questions and simple answers go together in politics like a hand in a
bloody glove. Don't believe that the question of Europa isn't being
pondered far outside the context of the NASA mission. You've been
great! Thank you! Good night!
Original file name: rant1341-Imaginary Alien SeŠ
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