Matt Hanley
Recent Activity
Matt Hanley commented on Why does the general public laugh at the idea of aliens and UFOs? on February 12, 2008, 4:54 PM
Masseffect360: You just negated the question and then fabricated a general assumption. :) Kind of defeats the whole socio-anthropological question. But, maybe you were just answering from your POV.
Matt Hanley commented on Why are Americans no longer interested in space exploration? on February 12, 2008, 4:49 PM
MassEffect360:I think that is an interesting assertion. An interesting viewpoint for sure. As a historian, however, I always hate to boil something down to such a narrow view%u2014not that that is right or wrong. Personally, I%u2019d enjoy another space race. I think things generally happen faster under competition. We have been building the international space station for years as a combined effort, and the progress is extremely slow compared with our advancements in the 60s and 70s. However, I was originally looking at the question from a social science/social apathy angle, rather than skeptical big government reasoning. Mainly, I was remembering out badly Bush%u2019s Mission to the moon was received a number of years ago, when his ratings were much higher. From what I gathered on the social plain, it was largely Democrats that were disinterested in the mission. So, I guess that might line up with your conservative theory somewhat.Generally, though, I think American culture, maybe world culture, has lost its sense of adventure. The exploration mentality has largely disappeared.On a side not, space doesn%u2019t belong to everyone. Space and will be broken down into government and private ownership. The same basic legal property theories apply. However, at present, most countries/people are not as interested. But, this will change as soon as colonization and natural resource rights come into place. No one used to care about the North Pole, but now the world is fighting over who owns what.
Matt Hanley commented on Why does the general public laugh at the idea of aliens and UFOs? on February 4, 2008, 11:42 AM
Now that you mention it, I always wonder why Larry King wears those suspenders.
Matt Hanley commented on If you were President in 1945, would you have dropped the bomb on Hiroshima? on January 31, 2008, 3:57 PM
Gatzy: They knew we have a superior weapon of sorts, but I don't really think it matters what they knew. The fact is that the atomic bomb was much less of a destructive force than the fire bombings of Tokyo and the rest of Japan.The Japanese had been losing civilians to bombings for a long time, yet it was holding out for better surrender terms so that it could rebuild and again attempt to take over Asia and the Pacific islands. Japan was willing to sacrifice its people for this reason, among others. The Japanese had been surrounded for some time. Conventional bombing of major cities and manufacturing centers was having no affect. And, since the fall of the Cold War and the release of documents, we now know that the Emperor had little interest in surrendering.Many civilians from many different countries died in World War II, but it was the Japanese that first killed noncombatants when it bombed Chongqing, China.Again, I am not justifying anything. I%u2019m just reminding you of the complexity.
Matt Hanley commented on How can people rationally deny man-made global climate change? on February 24, 2008, 4:50 PM
nealberunnin:I totally agree with everything you said. Well put. I%u2019m generally for conservation and environmentalism, but listening only to media hype doesn%u2019t really help the cause. In my experience it just pushes lazy skeptics further into denial. The media%u2019s hype of the polar bear crisis is an example of this. Currently the polar bear population is thriving. We have the largest population of polar bears we have had in decades. However, I understand the threat to polar bears to be real%u2014it is just 30-60 years down the road. Still, the media hypes the polar bear crisis now, and then skeptics look at statistics that say that the polar bear population is thriving. Then, they said that global warming is having no negative effect in that regard.