JIM PINKERTON writes on technological threats and the need for space colonization.

That theme gets a chapter in An Army of Davids, along with a discussion of how small-scale private efforts might make it happen.

Kaus is skeptical, although Greg Egan wrote a fine novel based on staying ahead of the posse.

UPDATE: Reader David McCune emails:

One thing that Pinkerton didn’t mention about Heinlein’s alternate future was that mankind had reached and colonized the stars much earlier precisely because space flight had been a private, for-profit venture form the beginning. Between gray goo catastrophes, terrorists of all stripes, and an ever-growing government, it’s hard to be long-term optimistic without invoking space colonization.

Indeed. Something else that Heinlein said was that the Earth is too fragile a basket to hold all of our eggs.