Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
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Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
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Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#2> I propose that we all agree to ban all permanent lunar development that is visible with the naked eye from Earth.
...with no proposal to weigh the value of the development against against the value of good taste or nebulously defined compassion. To suppose that no such development with greater value is possible betrays a poverty of imagination.
IMHO it is authoritarian to constrain the actions of others on the basis of taste and beauty. I don't dismiss their value, I just place it lower than the value of independent agency, as opposed to "you can't do that because I don't like how it looks." A better reason should be needed. That's true of putting a poster on the wall, let alone preemptively blocking huge communal projects.
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#3[flagged]
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#4Vaguely related have you seen this amazing photo of the far side of the moon captured in 2015 by NASA Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite as it passed in front of Earth?
* https://assets.science.nasa.gov/dynamicimage/assets/science/...
* https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/psd/sola...
* https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/from-a-million-miles-away-...
* https://science.nasa.gov/resource/from-a-million-miles-away-...
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#5Vaguely related have you seen this amazing photo of the far side of the moon captured in 2015 by NASA Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite as it passed in front of Earth? * https://assets.science.nasa.gov/dynamicimage/assets/science/... * https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/psd/sola... * https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/from-a-million-miles-away-... * https://science.nasa.gov/resource/from-a-mill…
This is a really interesting perspective.. it makes the moon look much closer than it is!
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#6> I propose that we all agree to ban all permanent lunar development that is visible with the naked eye from Earth. ...with no proposal to weigh the value of the development against against the value of good taste or nebulously defined compassion. To suppose that no such development with greater value is possible betrays a poverty of imagination. IMHO it is authoritarian to constrain the actions of others on the basi…
> IMHO it is authoritarian to constrain the actions of others on the basis of taste and beauty.
Clearly, a lot of people feel differently in various settings. For example NIMBY groups, HOAs, landscape or monument protection laws. The list never stops, really.
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#7[flagged]
It's all well and good to be buried on the moon, but hopefully the author's descendants are not left with the tab for the funeral.
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#8> I propose that we all agree to ban all permanent lunar development that is visible with the naked eye from Earth. ...with no proposal to weigh the value of the development against against the value of good taste or nebulously defined compassion. To suppose that no such development with greater value is possible betrays a poverty of imagination. IMHO it is authoritarian to constrain the actions of others on the basi…
If I build an ugly house that affects fifty people. If I build an ugly moon base that affects 8 billion people.
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#9> I propose that we all agree to ban all permanent lunar development that is visible with the naked eye from Earth. ...with no proposal to weigh the value of the development against against the value of good taste or nebulously defined compassion. To suppose that no such development with greater value is possible betrays a poverty of imagination. IMHO it is authoritarian to constrain the actions of others on the basi…
It's not exactly about personal taste; it's about a kind of spiritual pollution. If we etched a big McDonalds advertisement on the moon, it wouldn't just be in poor taste, but it would irrevocably cheapen (destroy, even) something which has been constant throughout all of humanity's evolution. The moon is particularly important in a cultural sense because it's something shared by everybody. If we bulldozed Mount Fuji to put in some apartments, it would be a loss for humanity in general, but Japan in particular. Changing the moon could potentially redefine us as a species
Developing the near side of moon with cities would literally and figuratively change the way we look at the moon; it would be a cultural Rubicon which cannot be uncrossed, and so we need to be very careful with whatever solution we go with, because we can't go back
Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side
#10[flagged]
It's all well and good to be buried on the moon, but hopefully the author's descendants are not left with the tab for the funeral.
We're all left with the tab, that tab being the enormous amount of greenhouse gases it takes to lift even a gram of matter into space. Maybe there will be one day in the far future when we've reversed climate change and reached an equilibrium, we can safely bury people on the moon, but let's not start it now.