The Pitfalls of Arrogance

An unpleasant encounter with a critic, and how we can learn better argumentation from it.

There are plenty of people who criticise the concept of space colonisation. Some are more reasonable than others. Often, unfortunately, a lot of critics are aggressive, ill-informed and unpleasant. I have locked horns with one such person recently.

Philip Ball wrote a scathing attack on the concept of space colonisation in the Guardian, and I in turn picked it apart in a Twitter post. Ball was unhappy at this and attempted a counter rebuttal, which honestly was even worse than the original Guardian article - in terms of factual errors, quality of argument, and tone.

I’ve no desire to have some ongoing back and forth with Ball. Aside from how tedious in general these things are, his displayed lack of good faith convinces me it would be futile anyway. I thought I would present my last word on the matter here though, so as to clear up a few things about both our arguments, and use it as a tool for…