I hate this quote

08/11/05 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

bq. “Someone once said that there was no doubt that we would colonize the Moon and Mars. The only question was what language would be spoken. My money is on Chinese.”

I hate this quote. It assumes several things that just tick me off:

1) It assumes that if NASA isn't doing it then America has no presense in space. That's like assuming that if Amtrack didn't exist that the American rail system would collapse.

2) Yes, the Chinese represent a huge amount of economic muscle. That doesn't mean that they're all competitors. In the same way that every IT company these days has a significant Indian representation, my prediction is that the company that lands on the Moon will be American and the company that lands on Mars will be a Sino-Anglo-Indian conglomerate.

I much prefer my version:

bq.

“Someone once said that there was no doubt that we would colonize the Moon and Mars. The only question was what language would be spoken: the language of science or the language of business. My money is on business. The language of business is universal, ignores national borders, and is capable of speaking all human languages.”