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My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

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Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#171

With all respect to Shatner (first canadian space tourist iirc) I dont take much from these narratives. A rich/famous/connected person does a thing that we all want to do but cannot afford, something that requires insane amounts of energy/pollution. Then they turn around and talk of the profound experience and how it has made them a better person. Big deal. The pubic good is limited to a few interviews and an article…

There's no pollution. New Shepard uses liquid hydrogen and oxygen for fuel, which makes water. No hydrocarbons involved in the launch itself.

Fire != Pollution

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#172

Unfortunately sending every millionaire into space for them to realize this is an hostile environment is taking us closer to earth destruction. Sorry to be sour about this, but people could just teach themself astronomy and realize there is no place out there to welcome us when the earth will be on the verge to become unlivable. Even assuming a colony of a dozen women/men is ever established on the moon or Mars, they…

While I don’t disagree with your overall point, it’s worth noting that this essay is from the point of view of William Shatner, the actor who played the original Captain Kirk on the Star Trek TV series. I’m pretty sure he didn’t pay, and it sounds like he may have even been paid to go.

My impression is that Shatner’s participation was the classiest part of the trip, which is really saying something. The moment after the landing when Jeff Bezos popped a bottle of champagne in Shatner's face while he was trying to express his feelings about the experience really summed it all up for me.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#173
post #101
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government always turns into an authoritarian system when it is around long enough, and all major world governments are working toward a single Earth government. They will probably achieve it in the next 500 years if the trend of governmental consolidation continues as it has for the last thousand.

Maybe Mars is a good idea after all.

In all seriousness that's one of the best arguments to colonize Mars IMO.

Humanity needs to constantly run away from itself.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#174
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [Zaphod] had seen the whole universe stretching to infinity around him—everything. And with it had come the clear and extraordinary knowledge that he was the most important thing in it. —Douglas Adams

Missing some important context on that one lol. The "real" version of that device drives people crazy with their insignificance. The one Zaphod goes into is in a simulation designed for him, where he really is the most important thing.

Ironically, this seems to mostly describe reality as I see it, with Blue Origin being part of a manufactured reality designed to appease the ego and manchild personality of Jeff Bezos.

Shatner is also rich and famous (and known for his arrogance) but not to the degree that he can make governments fight for his amusement the way Bezos can. Shatner is still grounded enough to be capable of seeing reality, and being transformed by it, whereas Jeff Bezos can only see the hall of mirrors he's constructed around himself.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#175

Unfortunately sending every millionaire into space for them to realize this is an hostile environment is taking us closer to earth destruction. Sorry to be sour about this, but people could just teach themself astronomy and realize there is no place out there to welcome us when the earth will be on the verge to become unlivable. Even assuming a colony of a dozen women/men is ever established on the moon or Mars, they…

There are about 608k UHNWI ($30+ million net worth) in the world, and I'm not sure if even $30 million is enough to have a space trip be a tourist trip that isn't too painful, and you have to be the kind of person that finds traveling to antartica appealing on top of that. So I'm not sure if many rich people could even afford or care to do this kind of thing anyway.

But on the other hand, the shit that most green types focus on like plastic straws & grocery bags, meat, low flow showers, space tourism and such is usually very small percentage of actual environmental damage, while paradoxically ignoring the actual big causes such as gasoline motors, industrial processes, coal power plants, high water crops such as almonds, water & $$$ subsidies for agriculture, non-regenerative agriculture and fighting great solutions like nuclear power and EV cars. An effective environmentalist would shame people for buying almonds and tell them to eat pistachios instead, take the train / bike everywhere and lobby to get more nuclear power plants installed.

I think it comes down to a combinations misplaced 'personal responsibility & morality' principle because you feel powerless, along with dislike of the rich wrapped in environmental concern, where people would cut off their nose to spite their face.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#176

With all respect to Shatner (first canadian space tourist iirc) I dont take much from these narratives. A rich/famous/connected person does a thing that we all want to do but cannot afford, something that requires insane amounts of energy/pollution. Then they turn around and talk of the profound experience and how it has made them a better person. Big deal. The pubic good is limited to a few interviews and an article…

But Shatner is an actor? I'm not sure I agree with the implication that one type of artist is better to send than another but I do agree that maybe we should consider the frivolous waste of sending people to space for joyrides when the cost is so high.

>> But Shatner is an actor?

And a singer! Who sang about space!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lul-Y8vSr0I

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#177

Unfortunately sending every millionaire into space for them to realize this is an hostile environment is taking us closer to earth destruction. Sorry to be sour about this, but people could just teach themself astronomy and realize there is no place out there to welcome us when the earth will be on the verge to become unlivable. Even assuming a colony of a dozen women/men is ever established on the moon or Mars, they…

I don't object to sending billionaires into space, only to letting them return. At least with a heat shield.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#178

Unfortunately sending every millionaire into space for them to realize this is an hostile environment is taking us closer to earth destruction. Sorry to be sour about this, but people could just teach themself astronomy and realize there is no place out there to welcome us when the earth will be on the verge to become unlivable. Even assuming a colony of a dozen women/men is ever established on the moon or Mars, they…

While I don’t disagree with your overall point, it’s worth noting that this essay is from the point of view of William Shatner, the actor who played the original Captain Kirk on the Star Trek TV series. I’m pretty sure he didn’t pay, and it sounds like he may have even been paid to go. My impression is that Shatner’s participation was the classiest part of the trip, which is really saying something. The moment after…

Yes. You dont become the (2nd) richest person by caring about others.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#179

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

I don't know, I feel like I've read several "What celebrity is an asshole in real life" threads on Reddit and there seem to be plenty of stories about him being a complete alcoholic and asshole.

A 91 year old complete alcoholic? That's heroic.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extinction is not limited to species. Species arent really a thing as one eventually transforms into another over near-infinite steps. Only genes/traits matter. Evolution is in fact impossible without the loss of traits between generations. Extinction of traits in favor of better ones is baked in to the very definition.

> Only genes/traits matter. and yet almost every selection mechanism can only operate on phenotypic forms. The nature of a "species" is a shorthand for "sufficiently distinctive phenotype(s) that evolution will operate distinctly on this group of individuals", and in this sense, "species" do matter. > Extinction of traits in favor of better ones is baked in to the very definition. I don't know what definition you're…

Not having a trait is itself a trait. A snake that evolves legs has lost the trait of the legless bodyform.
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