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Comment by fallingfrog | Hacker News Reader

So you went from saying I'm crazy for thinking we're going to militarize space, to saying that there's really no option but to militarize space, all in a single paragraph.

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No I went from your insane raving about the raping and enslaving of space rocks, to saying that space commercialization is an eventuality and it's part of the government's job to protect property rights.

We are going to have a space capable military, but that doesn't mean we are 'militarizing space'. We aren't putting nukes in geostationary orbit above China or building rail-guns on the moon.

In what possible universe is not wanting to put weapons in space enough to make me an insane raving lunatic? Take a step back man! The future is not written yet. We have a choice. We always have a choice. We can stop the militarization of space now, right now, before it even gets started. Do you honestly think that our current national governments can be trusted with the kind of power you get by having weapons in space? Are you familiar at all with the 20th century?

We already have weapons in space! You are misusing the term militarization of space. An ICBM can travel across the world and blow up a city on the other side of the planet. Whatever line you are afraid of crossing, we've already crossed it.

And we absolutely need to get rid of them right away. We don't need "American dominance in space". We need denuclearization now, and no further escalation.

In a sane world, all the worlds standing armies would be disbanded completely, leaving only local police forces, coast guards and the like. I don't see that happening during our lifetimes but that's the goal we need to keep in mind.

Not wanting to have a space war is sensible and fine. Your original post was pretentious and silly.

Not so. You have to understand how your enemy thinks. And trump thinks just like Francisco Pizarro, or napoleon, or Julius Caesar, or Putin. He sees the world in terms of power, domination, control. It's right there in every phrase he speaks. I think the big disconnect is that people don't really notice it because they've never considered that that's not the only way to see the world.

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