8 ms·
If I may, I am personally very excited for more people, especially wealthy people, to go into space so that many of them experience the overview effect.[0] > T
by consumer451 7y ago
If I may, I am personally very excited for more people, especially wealthy people, to go into space so that many of them experience the overview effect.[0]
> The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from outer space.
> It is the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, "hanging in the void", shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this "pale blue dot" becomes both obvious and imperative.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect
- dpflan 7y agoConceptually, I agree with your idea. I would like a lottery to emerge for anyone to get a space flight to experience the overview effect -- something I think that could reinvigorate interest in science and the planet. Now I wonder if the Overview Effect can be addictive...
- DuskStar 7y agoI'd need some serious convincing to accept that sending a randomly selected person into space would have anything close to the positive impact that sending the "Larry Ellison"s of the world into space could.
- phs318u 7y agoSeriously - I can't tell if you're being: 1. on topic (overview effect), or 2a. joking ("haha - send jerks like Ellison into space - one way ticket!"), or 2b. not joking ("send jerks like Ellison into space - one way ticket").
- bengotow 7y agoI agree - I’m all for fairness, but billionaires could come back to Earth and redirect billions of dollars. All I could do is, I dunno, write a medium post.
- hexane360 7y agoYou're assuming there's zero benefit to experiencing space second-hand. Even if that effect is very small, it applies to enough people that it quickly overtakes any large first-hand effect. America watching Neil Armstrong land on the moon had a much bigger effect than Neil Armstrong ever could have, even if he was the richest man alive.
- DuskStar 7y agoBut does America watching John Smith from NYC in space have a larger impact than seeing Larry Ellison (also from NYC) in space? Is that difference large enough to outweigh the impact that changing Ellison's worldview could have? Also, if seeing people in space has such a huge impact... Can anyone name someone currently on the ISS from memory? I don't think the marginal impact of seeing more people in space is necessarily large.
- fiblye 7y agoJohn Smith from Queens is far more relatable than Larry Ellis is or ever will be. Nobody who isn’t being paid cares what Larry Ellis says now and going to space won’t change that. Knowing any average person can accomplish their goals is far more motivating to many people, especially kids, than knowing the super rich can just up and leave the world and do absolutely anything they desire just because they find ways to extract wealth from the 99.9% who are only allowed to dream.
- dpflan 7y agoI agree, the potential impact of the individual is lower. It's not to say that the individual can have the same impact; it's primarily the system that promotes the opportunity that could have the impact on society, perhaps inspiring many, many more people. Not just to go to space but build technology, to manage organizations, etc that are part of space industry. Making space seem more accessible, rather than a luxury experience for the super-wealthy could have positive effects too. Who knows, it’s all hypothesizing with dashes of optimism.
- tyingq 7y agoI imagine the overview effect might be something dramatically different for a sociopath.
- ketozhang 7y agoI wonder if VR would provide the same effect with today's technology or of the upcoming future.
- lanewinfield 7y agoI thought the same as soon as I read the original comment—I've had minor but similar feeling in VR. Try "Irrational Exuberance."
- meruru 7y agoNever tried VR, but my initial reaction went like this: how is viewing Earth from space different than just looking at a video? -> the viewport is larger -> just use VR.
- ngokevin 7y agoYou'll get the sense of scale in VR, but I don't think you can get the realization that below you would be billions of people walking and bustling around you cannot even sense. The feeling of being so zoomed out and everything feeling so small. In VR, a pixel would be only a pixel rendered from a fixed texture map and nothing more. Might not have the same effect.
- amacbride 7y agoPlus, of course, you’d be in microgravity. I’m sure that adds quite a kick to the visuals (which wouldn’t be present in VR.)
- mkagenius 7y agoPretty sure, even a normal video gives me the feels.
- mhh__ 7y agoOr LSD like the good old days
- fiblye 7y agoIf it becomes cheap enough, it’ll eventually be a thing CEOs do to give meat to their motivational speeches and brag about how accomplished they are, much like climbing Everest. I fear it being less of a “I’m going to try to understand the world more after going to space”, and more of a “I understand the world more because I went to space and you didn’t.”
- microcolonel 7y agoGotta say though, I think the overview effect is its own form of delusion. Whether you think other strangers' conflicts are petty or not is immaterial to whether or not they should continue. You can't just not conflict, it's simply not an option. From the extremely privileged (not to downplay the incredibly hard work and model perseverance of astronauts) perspective of an astronaut, of course other people's kinds of lives seem trivial, because you have no idea how other people live.
- kodz4 7y agoHow come no Russian cosmonauts have reported this? Americans and their weird need to turn everything they feel into something marketable more like it...
- mkagenius 7y ago> How come no Russian cosmonauts have reported this? May have reported but is kept as a state secret? Also, it could be in russian which we can't understand.
- ptrott2017 7y agoBoth Valentin Lebedev and Anatoty Berzovoy have reported similar experiences to name two cosmonauts. Unlike most US astronauts, many cosmonauts continue working for government and do not publish books, or engage in public speaking in the same way (largely due to fewer marketing opportunities), so the overview efect tends to be reported largely from a US perspective. However UK astronaut Time Peak reported similar findings as has, Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier and dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers (to name a few others). It will be interesting to see as the taikonauts begin to talk about their space experiences, if they report it or not.
- kodz4 7y agoThanks. I had not heard of this effect. Now I am just wondering if it can be triggered by watching the earth on a large screen...