About Lungfish, I found a copy of The River of Time and will check out the short story - I've read Postman, but that is about all from him - I, like you, have read a lot of science fiction though - although of late, not as much as I used to. Seems like the entire world is a dystopian science fiction novel - an ongoing series - about looking up at the universe, I always found it interesting what someone said - I forget their name - but they were saying that given how modern light washes out the stars i.e., most people will never see the stars in modern cities - at least not the awe-filled sky without the stars - and they wondered how that would affect the human mind. Since it would be the first time really that we have encountered a life without the massive awe that a truly starry night sky can provide - i.e., a humbling experience. I do wonder if that has an effect, and how much. Another change, of many, that will have unknown consequences.

About light being so far away - the size of the universe is staggering alright. It also creates all types of paradoxes - about aliens spawning life on other planets, one funny one I have often thought about could be a group A of colonists leave planet A in order to cross the universe to get to planet B, for whatever reason. But when they arrive at planet B, they find their great-great descendants there before them - not only had they built cities but empires had risen and fallen - the paradox being that, in the time it took group A to get to planet B, those left on group A's planet had advanced and then launched their own missions and arrived, due to more advanced tech, at planet B before group A arrived. Now the descendants have no memory of any other planet but the one they are on - in fact, they have lost all their tech because of a cataclysm - so they have low tech, much lower than the newly arrived group A. So group A is the aliens and decides to hide themselves. Who knows what history is - but it could be far weirder than we can think of. Using the previous example lol, it could be that the "aliens are visiting" might be more clown world than we can even imagine. If they are visiting and it is not a mass hallucination via propaganda.

About the space missions - yes, indeed - I think what we really need is that old explorer's mindset of heading out into the stars - we need something to unite the planet with ideas bigger than where we are - to unite us - I think such expeditions to other stars would act as a major unifier - right now we are stuck within a meditation on our own identity - which is fine but is being used to divide us.

About keeping peas and rice - I have a lot of them. Mainly all dried food in stores - nothing bottled, but only because I don't have the space - but I have planned for the long term - I need to get more though. It's cheap - so picking up even $10 worth of split peas every week makes a major difference - you eat half and then you box the other.

Thanks!