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The thing that always kind of amazes me with the idea of "going to other planets" is that, no matter how wide and spacious and amazing and possibility-filled these planets are, the nature of humanity is such that:
a) there will be a queue of people to go,
b) that queue of people will be Very Carefully Selected,
And I'm not just talking about "capable of surviving in space" which is a whole new ballgame of prepared (see: astronaut training).
I'm talking about, well, I don't know the term for it, but I think of it as a kind of Social Eugenics. Namely, if you aren't the right colour, gender, have the right look, the right beliefs, or live in the right country, you won't be going anywhere.
The 'Lost In Space' movie of the 90s got seriously panned for, well, a whole load of reasons. But the thing that I most clearly remember about it (apart from the weird time-travel) was a line from William Hurt (Dad Robinson) to Matt LeBlanc (hotshot space jockey) which was essentially about the space race. Paraphrased it went something like, "If the Jupiter II doesn't get out there first, Western Devils like you and I will be left on Earth to rot." I never did work out if he was talking about the Chinese communists, or the Middle Eastern Arabs. Either way, I thought it was an interesting commentary on humanity: that even space exploration had turned into this nationalistic division between 'right' and 'wrong'.
Which then brings me to point c) about Humanity In Space:
c) no amount of careful pre-Selection will stop the Worst Of Humanity from making it off planet alongside the Best Of Humanity, because all of us have both the Worst and Best of Humanity in us already and wherever we go, there we are!
Today's ramble is prompted by the news that NASA has found a star with 7 Earth-like planets. Which has, of course, occasioned excitement.
Now, can you imagine not only racism and nationalism as social issues to deal with, but Planetism, too? Seriously. No Good Can Come From This.
a) there will be a queue of people to go,
b) that queue of people will be Very Carefully Selected,
And I'm not just talking about "capable of surviving in space" which is a whole new ballgame of prepared (see: astronaut training).
I'm talking about, well, I don't know the term for it, but I think of it as a kind of Social Eugenics. Namely, if you aren't the right colour, gender, have the right look, the right beliefs, or live in the right country, you won't be going anywhere.
The 'Lost In Space' movie of the 90s got seriously panned for, well, a whole load of reasons. But the thing that I most clearly remember about it (apart from the weird time-travel) was a line from William Hurt (Dad Robinson) to Matt LeBlanc (hotshot space jockey) which was essentially about the space race. Paraphrased it went something like, "If the Jupiter II doesn't get out there first, Western Devils like you and I will be left on Earth to rot." I never did work out if he was talking about the Chinese communists, or the Middle Eastern Arabs. Either way, I thought it was an interesting commentary on humanity: that even space exploration had turned into this nationalistic division between 'right' and 'wrong'.
Which then brings me to point c) about Humanity In Space:
c) no amount of careful pre-Selection will stop the Worst Of Humanity from making it off planet alongside the Best Of Humanity, because all of us have both the Worst and Best of Humanity in us already and wherever we go, there we are!
Today's ramble is prompted by the news that NASA has found a star with 7 Earth-like planets. Which has, of course, occasioned excitement.
Now, can you imagine not only racism and nationalism as social issues to deal with, but Planetism, too? Seriously. No Good Can Come From This.
no subject
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1706/
Yes, humanity will always carry humanity's flaws along on any venture.
*The lead author of the paper was Belgian. You can read all the nationalities of the other authors involved, and their home countries, on the link.
no subject