Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

All of the Debates, All of the Wars, All of the Yelling

They all take place here:

That little speck looks like an artifact of the photo, but it is not. That is Earth, our home planet, as seen from 3.7 billion miles away by Voyager I in 1990. As Carl Sagan said over ten years ago:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
And yet, no matter how many times this is pointed out, we cannot get along. This planet is loaded with self-important small-minded men who seek to impose their views, their moralities, their ideologies on others. They persist even though it is pitifully obvious by now that this planet is less than a speck, a mote, in a vast sea of darkness.

Many of them feel that they are called by God to do so, to be the moral, if not actual authority over everyone else on that little speck. Because their version of God told them to, they will try to bring about death and desolation to everyone else who does not follow their path. From the distance that Voyager I took that photo, nobody would have a clue who prevailed on that little mote in the sky.

Voyager I is now three times as far away as when it took that last photo of our world. Its cameras, even if they still worked, could not resolve our world.

If only we put a fraction of the effort into trying to understand and live with each other on this habitable mote of cosmic dust that we spend into being ready to kill each other.

But as that will probably never happen, I sometimes wonder why it was even worth the 30 minutes to do this one blog post. We, as a species, seem to be hard-wired to want to kill each other, because we really are nothing more than a bunch of literate baboons with powerful weaponry.

Sometimes I think that we really are screwed.

Update: Lockwood's post from January on the same subject. Or just go see the photo.

7 comments:

Justin Buist said...

"We, as a species, seem to be hard-wired to want to kill each other,"

No, we are not. This topic was just hit upon on a radio show I listen to with regards to self defense. Human beings are wired not to try and kill each other.

We are, however, rather willing to group ourselves into tribes, elect leaders, and then follow them into battle against a common enemy. Sometimes for good, often for no good.

What we really need, as a species, is to realize that the ultimate threat to our survival isn't the differently colored man next to us or the man with a different religion. It's the damned universe and its willingness to rain down a random asteroid on our friggen planet.

We have to get off this rock.

One Fly said...

We're nothing but piss ants in time!

Comrade Misfit said...

Justin, I don't know that is a significant difference. Some tinpot leader gets up and says: "Follow me, boys, we're gonna go wipe out all them Hatfields/Yankees/Frenchmen/undermenchen" doesn't seem to me to be a hell of a lot different, other than degree, from killing the guy down the street because he's wearing the wrong shirt.

Self-defense is not the same, it is reactive.

But yes, we do have to get off this rock.

One Fly, for all of the hoopla about things, I sometimes wonder who knows what the significant disputes were in the 13th Century, let alone who the rulers of the nations were. How many people know the foreign policy issues of the Fifth Egyptian Dynasty?

What is going on, now, is obviously important to us. But it will probably not matter a whit.

Frank Van Haste said...

Dear Miss Fit:

As usual, the late Mr. Carlin had cogent things to say.

Regards,

Frank

Sarah said...

... we really are nothing more than a bunch of literate baboons with powerful weaponry.

First, let me say I think that is awesome. :)

Trying to understand just how small we, the Earth, the Milky Way Galaxy is, in the cosmic scheme of things is a wonderful thing. It stretches our minds to cosmic measures. One of my favorite musing topics is cosmology, and speculating on what is and what shall ever be.

If the "yellers" could understand this, perhaps they wouldn't work so hard on killing each other for religious reasons. But maybe if they weren't so dogmatic & violent they could understand this...

I've heard astronauts say similar things, about "the small blue dot" - Alan Bean (IIRC) saying he could hold up his thumb and cover the entire Earth -- all of human population & history. He felt it was a transformative moment, and would change the way people view their conflicts.

All that you touch and all that you see
all that you taste, all you feel
and all that you love and all that you hate
all you distrust, all you save
and all that you give and all that you deal
and all that you buy, beg, borrow or steal
and all you create and all you destroy
and all that you do and all that you say
and all that you eat and everyone you meet
and all that you slight and everyone you fight
and all that is now and all that is gone..

Sarah said...

Frank, that's great. I've heard the Carlin bit before and it's right on and viciously funny as always.

The planet's fine! We're fucked.

Lockwood said...

I posted a photo with similar theme back at the beginning of the year. I guess my feeling is that at a certain point, it's hard to keep hope alive.