Some Lunar Landers Could Be Designed to Remain There as Shelters

Some lunar landers could be designed to remain on the moon as shelters and living or work modules. The lander legs might be designed like jack-up oil rigs and retract to lower the module to the ground. It should be possible to let the landers have some sort of track vehicle movement capability so they could adjust their position to a building site close to the landing pad.

Another way to move the landers into position could be with a tow chain fixed to an anchor. Then the landers would need have only built in rollers or wheels rather than mechanical power for-themselves. Of course the mechanical power units if built in to the landers could also be removable and when detached from the landers after moving the landers, be retasked as motors for work at the station- perhaps in manufacturing or extracting materials for building materials.

Central Peak in Copernicus Crater- N.A.S.A. image

N.A.S.A. Should Place an Observatory on Ultima Thule

Ultima Thule is about the most distant object in the solar system that has been accessed by electronic explorers. It should receive an ensemble of optical, infrared and radio telescopes of modest size to observe the solar system inward and outwardly as early warning sentinels, scientific measurement outposts and communications relay stations. One might even place a reflecting dish for lasers on it. In theory that infrastructure could be placed with two or three landers and pay dividends for decades.

https://heavy.com/news/2019/05/ultima-thule/

N.A.S.A. image of Ultima Thule

Rousseau on the Protestant Reformation

There have been a few good translations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's last publications. They were published 1752-1764 and are Letters to Beaumont and Letters Written from the Mountain. Rousseau had some succinct sketches of the reformation history. Interestingly the reformers were then regarded as humanists. It is not too surprising that he knew Calvinism and the history having been born in Geneva.

A 2001 book (there is also a 2013 work in print) has a good, plain English translation. One may of course view the original 1764 text on line at the Princeton library among other sources. 

Examples of Rousseau's thought from the book page 154-157 (following) illustrate the continuing relevance of Rousseau's summary of the ideas of Protestant reformers, and their concept of independence and self-reliance for interpreting the scriptures rather than an ecclesiastical or government authority. Compulsory state monopoly on spiritual or even political reasoning can be a problem in authoritarian and theocratic governments including socialism and communism.

Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU author, Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain, and Related Writings, C. Kelly and E.G. Grace editors. 2001

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/reviews/letter-to-beaumont-letters-written-from-the-mountain-and-related-writings-jean-jacques-rousseau/1101165266?ean=9781611682854
  
"When the Reformers separated from the Roman Church they accused it of error; and in order to correct that error at its source, they gave to Scripture a different meaning than the one the Church gave it. They were asked by what authority they thus deviated from the accepted doctrine? They said that it was by their own authority, by that of their reason. They said that since the meaning of Bible was intelligible and clear to all men in what concerned salvation, each was a competent judge of doctrine and could interpret the Bible, which was its rule, in accordance with his individual mind; that all would agree this way about the essential things, and that those upon which they could not agree were not at all essential.

Thus the individual mind is established as the sole interpreter of Scripture; thus the authority of the Church is rejected; thus each is put under his own jurisdiction for doctrine. Such are the two fundamental points of the Reform: to acknowledge the Bible as rule of one’s belief, and not to admit any other interpreter of the meaning of the Bible than oneself. Combined, these two points form the principle on which the Reformed Christians separated from the Roman Church, and they could not do not any less without falling into contradiction; for what interpretive authority could they have reserved for themselves, after having rejected that of the body of the Church?

But, it will be said, how could the Protestants have been able to unite based on such a principle? Wanting each to have his manner of thinking, how did they constitute a body against the Catholic Church? They had to do it: they united in this, that all acknowledged each of them as competent judge for himself. They tolerated and they ought to tolerate all interpretation except one, namely that which removes liberty of interpretation. Now that single interpretation which they rejected was that of the Catholics. Thus they had to proscribe in concert Rome alone, which equally proscribed all of them. The very diversity of their manners of thinking about all the rest was the common bond that united them. It was so many small States leagued against a great Power, and the general confederation of which removed nothing from the independence of each.

      The Protestant Religion is tolerant by principle; it is tolerant essentially; it is as much so as it is possible to be, since the only dogma it does not tolerate is that of intolerance. That is the insurmountable barrier that separates us from the Catholics and unites the other communions among themselves. Each one indeed views the others as being in error. But none views or ought to view that error as an obstacle to salvation."

Locke and Calvin- What Intellectual Relation?

I will give it a try.

The idea that Locke might have been much influenced by Calvin is interesting. I tend to regard the British philosophical evolution of empiricism and utilitarianism following as forming informed by Continental intellectual developments yet substantially separate. In my opinion 18th century British philosophers preponderantly developed from a Magna Carta (1215) tree-diagram outgrowth and increasing democratic rationalization for liberalism (meaning in this case liberty from absolute power or rule by Monarchs and royalty). Though many Brits of the day were protestants and informed by movements of reformed theology of which Calvin was one of the foremost, the British philosophical trend was toward empirical observation and consideration of that which is, while Calvin's deontological interpretation of scripture was occupationally of a different character.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/louis-xiv-and-the-huguenots/

Christian theologians and philosophers of the reformed church did exist in a day where the separation of Church and state in Europe was amorphous at best. Royals in Britain seemed to tolerate empirical researches in philosophy and science without considering the information threatening to them politically for good reason. Continental neo-theocracy was more complex, as were the economic systems in Europe with royals only very reluctantly relinquishing any sort of right to rule. It is a great irony that Giordano Bruno attended Calvin's Academy in Geneva only later to be burned at the order of the Pope in Italy. Papal relations were more bound up with secular neo-theocratic power held by the royal houses. Britain's King James in 1603 had put down Papal religious monopoly in Britain. While Calvin and continental reformers of the church had their own issues with the Catholic Church, philosophically the development was different- and philosophers need be careful and with different considerations regarding economics than those of Britain- a nation with a far-flung materialistic empire.

Germany's great philosophical renaissance of the 18th century with Kant and Hegel (and into the 19th) with others followed German independence from the Catholic Hapsburg power to monopolize and only tolerate parsimoniously, independent philosophical researches.

Collapsology and Neo-Smartologists

With Democracy ostensibly blessed with free political choice the future is malleable and non-deterministic. There are fundamentalist collapsologists of all faiths and faithlessnesses I would guess, including pre-trib Christians. As a neo-Calvinist, Gentryist post-tribber, post-Darwinian and quantum metatheoretical transcendence optimist American my opinion is that the future can be shaped toward the optimal with intelligence rightly applied. That may appear to be lacking in politicians generally, yet one can’t have everything.

collapsology

It should be possible to stop population growth on Earth and restore the ecosphere to health, transition the economy to an ecologically long-term, sustainable footing and halt and reverse the 6th planetary mass extinction caused by human destruction of habitat. The first world is already entered into the post-industrial evolution though upgrading materials science and production as well as, unfortunately, outsourcing some dirty industries to countries like China.

It is always possible to select dystopian economic industrial and residential ensembles politically. Escapism such as unlimited space expansion hypothetically avoids the clear and present challenges on Earth. The solar system should have no more than maybe five billion souls living off-Earth anywhere in reasonably healthy places with Earth-like gravity norms. The resources of the solar system should not be relocated in mass or consumed as fast as bacterial-like growth rates can allow.

There are not religious or political reasons why the people of Earth cannot recover the ecosphere and manage it well in a non-bacterial way as God probably intended. Well, if there is a reason it is just plain, pervasive social and political stupidity.

* I disclaim being a neo-smartologist that regard humanity, except for oneself, as generally stupid. Is there enough oxygen in the atmosphere still?

Diafron and Cosmology - reading from 'Pieces of Eight'

                   I read a passage from my science fiction work.

AOC and The Dirty Dozen

I heard AOC say recently on a news sound bite (less than a paraphrase) that the 12 year number wasn’t to be taken literally. It was comparable to a Biblical comment like ‘the sheep in my flock here my voice’- not to be taken literally (that is- the saved Christians aren’t really sheep in the way that a cruel heat wave is not really a hater).

The 12 years was used to symbolize the urgency of correcting Earth ecosphere or atmospheric issues in particular that need be fixed directly or things will get much worse. They say that there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at anytime in the past 3.5 million years (415 p.p.m.), and the number is steadily rising.