It seems like we people are always looking for a battle: high school vs. high school, city team A vs. city team B, battles between countries (GO CANUCKS! I never watch the games. I have a Canadian sixth sense that tells me they've won... amid the mass honking in the streets that occurs simultaneously). And I started thinking, you know... all this stuff with NASA sending a $600 M Kepler-carrying rocket to look for other habitable planets may have the happy side effect of world peace.
Hear me out.
Let's say we find life-supporting planets -- won't there be life on them? Are we prepared, as a globe, to unify against the extraterrestrial? I don't know that we are. I certainly haven't gotten over how NASA refused to name their new node after Stephen Colbert. I mean, he did get the most votes... oh well. If anyone believes in pure democracy, please raise your hand and say "Yes We Can"...
Like an army of idealists. Please keep that fever burning. The stars are aligned like its 1969.
Really, even if the world can unite against alien predators (sounds like New Colonialism -- do they have oil on these planets?) what is going to save us here on Earth? With "climate change" absolutely ravaging developing nations, how are we so sure that we're safe here for long? Isn't a tsunami going to totally wipe out my island soon? It's only a mater of time before things like "Katrina" happen other places. Can you blame Mother Nature? I would be fighting back too.
And the animals are pissed off at us too. The new swine-flu that is threatening a global pandemic is just one more example. Mad cow? Foot-and-mouth disease? Avian? The animals aren't too thrilled about the abuse that they've suffered either.
The new flu that started in Mexico now has outbreaks all over due to promiscuous travel. Mostly by airplane. How many tonnes of jet fuel smog does it take to make the Earth and it's other life forms turn against us?
Have we, humans, the "divine gods of this Earth" -- have we gone too far? Christians will think I'm blaspheming, but I'm not. We are not gods, but we sure act like it. And that's a sin.
We have no regard anymore for the fact that this planet is a fragile ecosystem, where all parts are involved and symbiotic. So many, many, many species have become extinct as a direct result of human interference. Even here on Vancouver Island! It's not even worth estimating, but I'm sure it hovers somewhere around the same number of trillions spent in the US military deficit.
But back to the $600 M rocket. Did you know that 40, 000 people who have NOTHING could live at my standard of living for a year?
I love statistics and math. So did Stalin. It makes things so clinical, things are reduced to mere data -- as if there's no significance attached to a number like 40, 000 (which also happens to be the number of children that die each DAY from malnutrition).
What happens when we realize that our own worst enemy is ourselves? Do we adapt, change, or get swept into our own self-extinction? Can you feel the influenza frenzy?
I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to join the voluntary human extinction movement.
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interesting post, i like your writing and how you come across.
ReplyDeletethe sad part about humanity's blind eye is that people very easily can disregard something that does not impact their life on a daily basis. just look at what happened last year when oil went up to $140/bar. and people felt the impact in their wallets when buying gas. sales of fuel efficient vehicles took off (relatively). similarly, world hunger: people give their $30/mo to world vision or what have you, and feel happy in the knowledge they're helping something. far be it from them to change their eating or shopping habits, the band-aid is good enough.
it's easy to get sucked into the 'we spend $X on space travel, that could feed millions of people if we used that money instead for food'. this is a dangerous line of thought, because the drive for exploration and discovery is (i feel) a very worthy pursuit. defense budgets may be a more appropriate target. though, now that i say that, a great many useful (and beneficial) technological innovations have come as a result of government money spent on defense spending...
god, i'll sign up. the world's severely fucked up and it sure ain't getting better.
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