Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

variety.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 235 posts

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#11

Post by amcoastal »

lagrange77 wrote: post #6
shrthnd wrote: post #2

> I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no bord…

Back in the day, i was naively hoping, that the internet had a similar effect on man.

No post body was provided.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#14

Post by ThePhysicist »

I like him, he seems to be a thoughtful person. I once listened to his album (which has a great cover of the song "Common People", that jokes about how rich people see the world [1]), in which he reflects on the death of his previous wife, who drowned in their pool, I found that quite touching as well

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainyK6fXku0

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#17

Post by ajsnigrutin »

ethanbond wrote: post #4
superchroma wrote: post #3

You don't need to go to the moon to feel this way these days, although I'm sure the vantage point helps. With the euphoria of the 60's now merely a tiny dot in our societal rear view mirror, crowded out by decades of bad news, I think people are on a certain level aware of this. We distract ourselves to avoid contemplating it too deeply. With an abundance of such distractions, people don't take time to think about th…

Euphoria of the 60s? In the US at least, I’d suggest that too was a distraction from the horror of what was going on at that time. You know, your friends getting taken to a jungle halfway across the world to come back with no legs, broken psyches, and a society that had turned its back on them.

It's not like things changed after... iraq, iraq 2, afghanistan, syria and many others... dead kids from all over US and europe losing their lives for some rich people to get richer. Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#18

Post by Theizestooke »

lagrange77 wrote: post #6
shrthnd wrote: post #2

> I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no bord…

Back in the day, i was naively hoping, that the internet had a similar effect on man.

Social media has caused a lot of people to shift their world views, and re-examine their identities. Not necessarily in ways that benefit themselves or society.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#19

Post by flobosg »

shrthnd wrote: post #2

> I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no bord…

> You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”

―Edgar D. Mitchell

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#20

Post by i386 »

ethanbond wrote: post #4
superchroma wrote: post #3

You don't need to go to the moon to feel this way these days, although I'm sure the vantage point helps. With the euphoria of the 60's now merely a tiny dot in our societal rear view mirror, crowded out by decades of bad news, I think people are on a certain level aware of this. We distract ourselves to avoid contemplating it too deeply. With an abundance of such distractions, people don't take time to think about th…

Euphoria of the 60s? In the US at least, I’d suggest that too was a distraction from the horror of what was going on at that time. You know, your friends getting taken to a jungle halfway across the world to come back with no legs, broken psyches, and a society that had turned its back on them.

The American Way.
Post reply on HN