So, I log on tonight and catch the headline on msn.com:
A 'major milestone' in search for Earth's twin
NASA's Kepler telescope confirms first alien planet found in habitable zone
Check it out: They found a planet, 600 light years away from us, that appears similar to earth and has a global climate in the 70's all year round.
OK... That? Is fucking MIND BLOWING! That's AMAZING! It's ASTONISHING! It's ball-bashingly HUGE NEWS!
And what does NBC's strait-News Anchor Brian Williams have to say about it? Maybe some profound, "One small step..." style quote? Nah: He starts out saying "Imagine what we could do with this," and leads into a sarcastic suggestion that we colonize it, and start building Cell-Phone Towers and Parking Lots.
Yeah: He was kidding. I realize that.
But think about it. Consider the EARTH SHATTERING implications of this for a moment.
If it's within a couple million years of age of our planet? I guaren-god-damned-tee you something sentient is living there. We were a single cataclysmic event away from having scales on our skin so, barring something similar in the past million years or so over there, there's a damned good chance they're looking back at us right now. (And possibly have been for some time.)
I wonder what they would have to say about religion, if we ever met them.
Would they laugh at us because we're so irrational as a species? Or would they see a lot of themselves in us?
Suppose they've been watching use for a couple thousand years now. (Like... more than six or so.) It's certainly possible. Would anyone still believe in young earth creationism after learnig that?
Those was the first things that came to my mind, once I was done geeking out about it. And that a hundered years from now, we'll be GOING THERE, and WOW: I was alive to witness it being discovered. This is 'first man on the moon' big, in terms of scientific milestones, and it happened in my lifetime.
So please pardon my digust as Mister Williams' choosing to mark the event with a jaded, throwaway joke about Cell Phones and Parking Lots, never considering for a moment, that we might arrive to find an indiginous population already there. (But it's not like THAT'S ever happened before, huh America?)
I'm sorry. I just don't know how the "Liberal" media can see something as profound as this, and have their first thoughts go to Cell Phones and Parking lots. (Not to mention implied Colonization with nary a thought for who might already be there!) If America has been dumbed down by Consummerism, that one joke, used to mark so momentous an occasion, is exemplary of it.
Behold: Your liberal media?
Who IS this guy?!
Political Talk Show Host and Internet Radio Personality. My show, In My Humble Opinion, aired on RainbowRadio from 2015-2017, and has returned for 2021! Feel free to contact me at niceguy9418@usa.com. You can also friend me on Facebook.
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"I wonder what they would have to say about religion, if we ever met them."
ReplyDeleteThey would probably be believers and non-believers in God, just like us. Since there is always that driving hope that there is something after our short lives to look forward to besides rotting in a pine box or re-appearing as a corn plant. Of course, I'm sure some look forward to 'just' rotting in a box and that is fine (for them).
I think I'm a little more skeptic of space travel than you. Because of our past history with unknown people/races, my inclination is to believe that IF we ever meet up with ANY kind of alien or other being, our first reaction will be to try to destroy it. Like you say, it's not like that's ever happened before. So, my hope is that we NEVER find any other lifeforms. All we'll do is to try to destroy it.
But, hey, let's spend a gazillion dollars and travel to that planet with 2 astronauts and let them try to destroy what ever they find. However, NASA doesn't even have the intelligence to build a vehicle to go to the moon and back without killing a large percentage of the participants. They can't even build one to simply go into orbit and back. Meanwhile ... back in reality people are dying of hungry and homelessness. They don't need any of that money being spent trying to prove there is another life-form out there, we can't even take care of the ones we currently have. NASA has wasted enough money trying to find water everywhere except where it counts ON EARTH. Sorry to pop your youthful dream balloon, but dreaming of space travel died with the occupants of the Shuttle Challenger.
Oh darn, by the time technology is advanced enough to do that kind of travel our planet will have been destroyed by our own greed and ineptness. Never mind. Let's go ahead and spend that money ... it will distract our planets current occupants from the reality of hunger/wars/global warming.
William - I don't think you have yet posted a comment here that has SO MUCH in it that I agree with. Not everything, mind you, that would be extraoridinary. But really, rather a lot, particularly that last paragraph and you jaded presumtions about humanity's likely tendencies.
ReplyDeleteYou may be assuming a bit much, however, regarding my enthusiasm for space travel. I realize - as Brian Williams was perhaps implying - that this discovery does not solve any of the problems of our day-to-day lives.
And BTW: I like the problems you acknowledged... Hunger, Wars and GOLBAL WARMING. Nicely done. There's hope for you yet.
I'm just blown away by the fact that we actually FOUND something like this. It's a milestone. A BIG one. I've always held that it was a mathematical impossibly that we were actually ALONE in the universe, but this goes along way towards giving us some EVIDENCE of it. We found a place that it COULD happen. (Take THAT, Bible Literalists!)
I will break with you, however, on the value (or lack there of) of the space program. In t esimplest sense, there has been a TON of technology you use every day that's come out of that program: velcro, microwaves, computers, communications, just to name a few. And if nothing else - if we got NOTHING of tangible or commercial value, I still hold that KNOWLEDGE and DISCOVERY have INHERENT VALUE in and of themselves. Knowing more about our universe, and the laws that govern it, and thus about ourselves and our own planet, is an inherently good thing on it's own.
And while I won't put any bets on even our great-great-grandchildren setting foot on that planet, or indeed any other outside of our solar system, just remember: It was a mere 60 years after first flight that we put a man on the moon. A mere eighty from Kitty Hawk to the Space Shuttle. From an overglorified glider to a space ship in eighty years is pretty impressive, and technological advancement increases exponentially. I'm not saying 'we'll get there. You can bet that we won't. But for the love of LIFE, you've got to DREAM BIG!
I don't understand your hit on "Bible literalists". Where in the Bible does it say we are the only species produced? From what I've read in the Bible there is nothing that says the human race is the only race. Similar to those who claim the earth is 13,000 years old "according to the Bible". The Bible says no such thing, it's just another way of someone trying to control others.
ReplyDeleteBack on topic. I used to love the space program, it was one of my favorite things in life .. after hockey, little league and pumpkin pie. But, when they killed those astronauts on the Shuttle Challenger I lost ALL respect for NASA. It was a waste of life for NO good reason. I won't go into the political aspect/theories, but they built one of the most complicated machines known to man and they let something as simple as a rubber O-ring decide that fate. It wasn't like they didn't know it would happen, too. They had designed those boosters to be built as they were and when one got damaged during shipment, they used an unmatched section against ALL knowledge that they had learned during all the testing they had done on those boosters. It became a case of; how can you be so smart yet so stupid? It was then I decided that if they're just going to run the program as a guessing game, then there is plenty here on Earth to worry about and there isn't anything else that we can learn to justify the expense that the program costs. Even if they found life somewhere ... big deal, there's nothing we could do with it. If however, there is life out there, that is more advanced than we are, they can come to us and teach us to further our knowledge. But, like I say, the governments of the world would probably just kill them if they showed up.
And, I don't know why you would say "there's hope for you yet". Do you honestly think ALL right-wingers don't know what's going on? Or do you just keep such a closed mind that you won't let yourself believe that there are independent thinkers out there who don't use AM radio as a guide. BTW I get no broadcast TV, used to have rabbit-ears, but the digital decoder broke and we only watch DVD's on our TV now. No fox, no msnbc, no nothing of what you blame me for being influenced by. But, thanks for conveniently placing me into a box in order to further your misconceptions of anyone not agreeing with you.
I shouldn't argue here, because denigrating and insulting the mainstream media is the single most important thing a citizen can do. So keep it up.
ReplyDeleteBut among the thousands of events that I'd rank higher than this is the discovery of the first extra-solar planet. That one both confirmed and challenged our models. Once we saw the first few planets, the existence of this one became a statistical certainty.
Then you go and basically assume sentient life? Can't you even begin to perceive the hundreds of unknowns between "there exists a location that is 70 degrees" and "self-aware brains"?
And although it's hard to make predictions beyond the singularity, traveling extremely far in something heavy might simply be an impossibility. I don't think we'll make it over there in less than 5000 years.
@William - I hit on "bible literalists" whenever I feel like it, because they're illogical, irrational morons who lack a basic understanding of not only science, but history, philosophy and theology as well. Making a bible-literalist looked stupid may be as easy as putting on a hat, but I LIKE wearing hats. So fuck 'em.
ReplyDelete@Steeve - Perhaps it was lost in my wide-eyed schoolboy enthusiasm, but I don't, in fact, ASSUME that there's sentient life there. You're abs right - that's way too big a leap. I'm still blown away by how much more EVIDENCE we have for the POSSIBILITY now. But yeah... I got a bit geeked out by the whole thing, so I can see how it could read that way.
You know, Eddie, they didn't actually "find" anything. They merely see what they want and describe it as something that will impress you and people like you so they'll get more funding.
ReplyDeleteI hope you send in some of what I helped you earn. That way the money you spend is the same as the money they are asking for: created out of fairy tales and stories.
More news about how many planets may be out there: 100 billion planets (according to the American Astronomical Society).
ReplyDeleteInteresting fact related to evolution/creation theories ... NO other life has been found (except single cell life: which isn't considered life by some). If evolution is the theory that is to be taught (in schools) as fact, where are the other planets that have trees? Animals? Humans? Fish? Anything else? Hmmm, just saying that if life suddenly appeared (here on Earth) in some magical way (other than God creating it), how is it that this 'miracle of life' has NOT happened anywhere else? Not even a partial part of that theory called evolution has occurred. No trees anywhere. No fish anywhere. No animals anywhere. Is there any way to explain why NO evolution occurs anywhere except here on Earth? It would seem to me that if evolution was an accurate theory, there would be other examples. Oops, I guess that could be said of creation to.
Can anyone tell me why one theory is so much more believable than the other, again? I seem to have missed the part where science can "prove" this theory as absolute as we teach it in science classes, while banishing creation to 'philosophy' class. I guess that lack of finding anything else living anywhere else is sure making those "Bible thumpers" look stupid.