Why Humanity Will Never Be A Space-Faring Species
How the tyrannies of distance, biology, and physics will always defeat us
Many years ago, my first job after arriving in California was to help set up business processes and technology solutions for a company in the San Francisco Bay Area. This company produced literature about various illnesses, presented in easy-to-understand cartoon form. The company’s customers were doctors’ offices and dentists’ offices across North America and in its niche it was very successful. Primary marketing and fulfillment was accomplished via a group of about twenty telemarketers who happened to be all female and all aged between thirty and fifty. These women formed a cohesive social group because they shared one over-riding common interest: daytime TV soap operas.
In order to avoid missing even a single episode of their various must-watch series, they’d arranged a rota. As each telemarketer in turn took their allotted 30-minute break, they’d go to the break room next to the telemarketing area and sit in front of the TV to watch whatever soap opera happened to be the one they’d been allocated. Then, once the soap was over, they’d rush back to their telemarketing station and quickly send an internal message to all the other telemarketing agents updating them on the day’s soapy events. In this way, the women…
