Related to the Francophone African solar system

[james_davis_nicoll]

If it turns out that the appropriate model for people in space is something like a highly automated mining camp (Rather than, oh, O'Neill's California Suburbs innnnnn Space), then if there are Canadians up there, I bet that they won't be from the relatively prosperous parts of Canada. Ontarians will be too smugly comfortable, Albertans will still be working through their sea of oil and nobody from BC will be able to pass the drug test. No, the planets might belong to the groups known for migrating to places that can offer them jobs, the Newfoundlanders and the Maritimers.

I thought of this while watching Stand Up in Kandahar last week, when one of the Newfoundlander comics made a joke that they'd go anywhere for work. "Anywhere" covers a lot of territory.

Comments

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking somewhat about the space elevator/Panama Canal analogy. You know: American initiative, stalls, gets bought out by Asian consortium. Dubai finance, Singapore location, Chinese materials, Japanese robots, and a whole lot of semi-expendable Filipino orbital construction workers. Of course it ends up with a Greek diner at top. There's room for a Newfoundlander dishwasher.

There's room for a Newfoundlander dishwasher.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Newfoundlanders are not inherently incapable of being educated, you know.

I was thinking of the same kind of dynamic that led to test pilots trying to sound like a Southerner leading to a generation of spacers who sound like an educated John Crosby.

Re: There's room for a Newfoundlander dishwasher.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

I mentally associate 'dishwasher' with 'collegiate underemployment', which I suppose dates me.

Panama Canal analogy

[(Anonymous)]

I like this.

It'd be Bangladeshi as much as Filipino, mind you. With some interesting sorting by work type.

Totall random thought: I wonder what's the highest point on a space elevator from which, if your spacesuit had the right sort of parachute, you could plausibly survive a fall and a nonpowered re-entry. I'd guess ~~1000 km up, but that's just a guess.


Doug M.