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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

#71

This was very well written, very insightful and humble. Considering he's usually an asshole to people IRL. But I guess he just comes off that way when he wants to convey his truth to people. Not completely foreign to myself, having discovered that I'm actually autistic in my late 30s. That explained a lot. Anyways, this overview effect is something I always felt, even without going into space. I always felt we were w…

I used to be in favor of a world government. But then I realized it could quite easily turn into an authoritarian system at some point, which due to the global scope would then be rather difficult to get out of.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#72

Worth watching is the moment Shatner tries to explain his experience to Bezos, and Bezos barely listens. A portrait of two very different men. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1AilPvC37c

That was disturbing. Though no one notices, because they are revered for what often comes easy to them, accomplished actors are by and large humble even though the opposite is often believed. Besides inconceivable amounts of money, the one common defining quality among billionaires is narcissism, shorthand for lack of empathy, self-importance, entitlement, need for constant admiration, fear of criticism, etc.

What an empathic viewpoint you have there.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#73
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's not like things changed after... iraq, iraq 2, afghanistan, syria and many others... Conscription is a huge difference. Hundreds of thousands were sent to Vietnam against their will. > Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it. Ugh this both sideism.

>Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it.

If you don't see a difference between a war where soldiers that rape and pillage are criminals in their own country, where questionable decisions that caused civilian suffering are widely condemned, a war that saw very large domestic movement against it as it unfolded and another one where rape, torture, slavery, ethnic genocide and killing/exploiting of innocent people is an openly admitted state policy with the worst offenders getting decorated for it, with the majority of the population not only in support, but craving blood, more torture and use of nuclear weapons. I have no words to convince you. I can only hope that you will reflect on this in future.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#74
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched it live. It was uncomfortable and heartbreaking. William had a very profound experience and he wanted to explain it and thank Jeff. Jeff could not even focus long enough to let William get a few sentences out. Jeff’ s “team” (I think led by his significant other) was essentially throwing a frat party behind him - screaming ”whooo” and drinking/spraying champagne. It was sad.

Screaming "whooo" is legitimate behaviour after doing something exhilarating/dangerous for the first time.

Your comment is legitimate as well, yet you've completely missed the point.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#75

This was very well written, very insightful and humble. Considering he's usually an asshole to people IRL. But I guess he just comes off that way when he wants to convey his truth to people. Not completely foreign to myself, having discovered that I'm actually autistic in my late 30s. That explained a lot. Anyways, this overview effect is something I always felt, even without going into space. I always felt we were w…

> ...this overview effect is something I always felt, even without going into space. Very interesting. Have you met anyone else IRL who shares the overview effect? > ...autocracy to fix the problems. Tchaikovsky's novel Children of Time explores how two different cultures try to tackle this problem. I won't spoil it for you. It's a notion I keep chewing on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)

When you fly transatlantically sometimes you can see the curvature of the earth.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#76
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like things changed after... iraq, iraq 2, afghanistan, syria and many others... Conscription is a huge difference. Hundreds of thousands were sent to Vietnam against their will. > Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it. Ugh this both sideism.

And the ones sent to iraq wanted to be there... and die there? Or to afghanistan? Can't afford US college? Go to army! Can't afford a doctor? Army will fix you up! Join, a few peaceful years at a few bases, you'll have a college degree, you'll make mama proud, just sign here, you're 18 already, you can't buy beer yet, but you can join the army! Add some "fighting for US freedom" propaganda, and end up as a homeless d…

All of that is terrible and it’s still not conscription.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#77

This was very well written, very insightful and humble. Considering he's usually an asshole to people IRL. But I guess he just comes off that way when he wants to convey his truth to people. Not completely foreign to myself, having discovered that I'm actually autistic in my late 30s. That explained a lot. Anyways, this overview effect is something I always felt, even without going into space. I always felt we were w…

Has anyone tried to replicate this in VR?

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#78
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as less “both sideism” and more “maybe we can be the baddies too”.

We are the baddies. I live in a small EU country, and have soldiers in syria now. We could atleast have pulled them back home, before pointing a finger at putin, but we didn't even do that (and they'd all fit in a minibus). We're currently destroying our own economies because someone else is doing something that we've been doing for years now. Technically we deserve being cold and maybe some kind of a revolution, bec…

Did your country just send soldiers to Syria when it was thriving independent state?

Or was it when there was a brutal civil war and the state used chemical weapons against civilian populations?

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#79
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the correct take. Hippies, Flower Power, Love-Ins and so on cannot be properly understood without the context of the Vietnam War and the draft.

Yes and: The counter culture was a fraction of the population.

The outsized attention given to "hippies" is that era's version of nutpicking. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nutpicking

The dominate culture's reaction to "hippies" (pro civil rights, antiwar, nonconformism, antimaterialism) beget a hard turn to the right.

One cogent example is Reagan's meteoric political rise by demonizing a bunch of kids daring to exercise their right to free speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#1966–1970

As with all protests, "hippie" culture was coopted and commercialized. Enabling another generation of conformists to LARP as rebels, for a price. This time via appropriated totems like blue jeans and stadium rock.

Another predictable backlash, where the agitators are mocked and while their cultural stylings are assimilated.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Re: My Trip to Space Filled Me with Overwhelming Sadness

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...this overview effect is something I always felt, even without going into space. Very interesting. Have you met anyone else IRL who shares the overview effect? > ...autocracy to fix the problems. Tchaikovsky's novel Children of Time explores how two different cultures try to tackle this problem. I won't spoil it for you. It's a notion I keep chewing on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)

When you fly transatlantically sometimes you can see the curvature of the earth.

Interesting. Do many people experience transcendence as a result?
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