6 ms·

Somehow I forgot we’re flying a helicopter on Mars. For all the other bullshit we do as a species, we do get up to some pretty neat stuff, too.

Loughla 3y ago
It's astounding to me that we're capable of flying a remote vehicle on a literally other planet, but we also kill each other in large numbers over whose god is correct. Genuinely astounding to me, and slightly disappointing.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  We kill for lots of reasons, some as trivial as wanting the pocket change another person has on them.
- c22 3y ago
  No doubt someday we'll be killing people on other planets with remote vehicles.
- OmarShehata 3y ago
  "killing each other over whose god is correct" is a profound misunderstanding of humanity. That's not why humans kill each other now, or in any time in history. It is and always has been simple & rational game theory: fear of the other tribe killing you for your resources, or just simply because they're afraid you might kill them for _their_ resources. For example, this is (one of) the core reasons of why peace in Israel/Palestine is so hard (each side fears accepting sovereignty of the other side means they will continue to encroach and wipe them out). Humans are pretty clever and ingenious at all levels
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    That's true sometimes, but sometimes people just want to take what their neighbors have. Russia's government faced no risk of Ukraine attacking, or NATO for that matter. They just wanted Ukraine.
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      That's reductive. I'd compare it to the Cuban missile crisis. We were basically pointing a gun at their heads.
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        It's just false. There was no way NATO or Ukraine was attacking Russia, in ten thousand years. NATO can barely be bothered to fund their militaries even now, and the US Republican party can't be bothered to fund Ukraine. Even after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 (and Georgia before that) the NATO countries were still making gas and other trade deals, thinking they would bring Russia into the fold of peaceful, free-trading nations. Trump tried to work with Putin; Obama did the big 'reset', etc., etc.
      - kibwen 3y ago
        "How dare these other countries respond to my aggression by forming a defensive pact to defend against my aggression! I'll aggress them for that!" Russia is the one pointing the gun is this scenario, but they sure do love to pretend otherwise.
        rpmisms 3y ago
        NATO was formed because of the Soviet Union. Russia is a different country.
        oneshtein 3y ago
        Russia pretends that it is the USSR in UN.
    - pests 3y ago
      Oh, just like America felt no risk when Russia tried to move into Cuba?
      - wolverine876 3y ago
  - therealdrag0 3y ago
    What about the crusades? Traveling from France to Israel to “take back the holy land” seems pretty religiously motivated.
    - temp112123 3y ago
      [dead]
  - BurningFrog 3y ago
    Yeah, there is the noble reason you tell people - often including yourself - and there is the real reason that we don't talk or think about.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Remind me why we are killing each other? Is it for survival? OT: We know everything we need to survive and prosper very well - imperfectly, but with margin of error to spare, including capable political systems. The people still killing are just criminals who want to steal and murder.
- squarefoot 3y ago
  Could be worth plotting a chart that shows how many of those who kill over some deity related reasons could also be part of those who design, build and operate remote vehicles on another planet, and the other way around.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    i'm guessing if they were plotted using a Venn diagram, there wouldn't be much crossover.
    - jbboehr 3y ago
      Well, about that: > in the ranks of captured and confessed terrorists, engineers and engineering students are significantly overrepresented https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....
      - mturmon 3y ago
        That’s why we invented national labs, to keep those potential bad actors occupied with better goals.
- Aaargh20318 3y ago
  I dunno, some of these recent episodes of ‘the news’ feel a bit like lazy writing. Like this whole subplot where the humans kill each other fighting over the only part of the middle east that doesn’t have any oil. Who’d believe that would happen in real life?
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    There's the old joke that the biblical Jews escaped slavery in Egypt and wandered 40 years in the desert, only to find the one place in the Mideast without oil.
- wait_a_minute 3y ago
  People find reasons to kill each other in large numbers even when God is not involved, so why that as your chosen foil to humanity's otherworldly helicopter? It is important to me that people move beyond blaming God for things like this. There are many more, and much more recent as well, examples where if people cared to seek what God thought the entire conflict would've been avoided. For example...where was the dispute about God, say, between the Chinese and the Japanese fronts during World War 2? Or between the Nazis and the Red Army? It wasn't a disagreement about God that resulted in dropping the atom bombs to end conflicts of that scale, unless you would agree with me that the only disagreement was that America kept believing in God and her adversaries no longer did...in which case I'd then just say that fundamentally it was disbelief in God that led to WW2's horrors, not disagreements over which God is correct. God is exonerated in all cases. This approach would be more respectful of the engineers who believe in God and who also contribute to projects like the space vehicles and probes or other impactful projects, and certainly more respectful of the great names in human history who are remembered for their contributions and noted also in the record for their love for God...
- Intralexical 3y ago
  Idk. If there were gods, which one is correct seems like it'd be a pretty important question. I wouldn't want to worship Beelzejuice Voorhees the Head-Chomper. Of course, killing people because they privately worship the Head-Chomper is probably too far, unless they're actively chomping (your?) heads. Also, Beelzejuice isn't real. But principles like human rights and freedom are worth fighting for, and necessary to sometimes fight for (or else we're all screwed)— Beliefs, certainly, if not anthropomorphized as "gods". Also, religions are a pretty strong indicator of social in-groups and out-groups. If you removed the gods from some religious wars, they'd probably still be fighting each other over skin color, language, ethnicity, culture, social ties, Adidas vs. Nike preference, external political goals, land use, water contamination, domestic political pressures, fishing rights, economic disenfranchisement, etc. Theology may help divide and rationalize it, but control over resources and power are pretty concrete motivations for creatures that have to worry about starving/dying, and gods are a proxy for that. Scarcity begets conflict. GDP per capita is ~$900 in Gaza, ~$350 in Afghanistan, ~$5,000 in Omsk. Doubt many would willingly sign up, or accept being conscripted, to murder unbelievers if they were more sure about having warm meals and meaningful works to cherish. Doubt NASA engineers would be "capable of flying a remote vehicle on a literally other planet" if they were busy scrounging for physical necessities. Even Bin Laden introduced his 2001 statement by referencing the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and its effects on people. Kirill may talk of the "Antichrist", but what Putin wants is Sevastopol. I think it's reductive to just say "we also kill each other in large numbers over whose god is correct". We kill each other for a variety of reasons, usually fear of ourselves being killed, and sometimes we bring gods into it but it's very rarely, if ever, the sole reason.
dontupvoteme 3y ago
I forgot which probe and celestial objects it was, but at one point NASA was investigating a moon around Jupiter or Saturn, thought about dumping it there for nice photos (it was out of fuel iirc) and then they realized that it might have life on it. So they intentionally crashed it into the planet instead as to not potentially contaminate said moon - possibly our first implementation of the prime directive!
- dotnet00 3y ago
  We did that with Cassini on Saturn, and we intend to do that with Juno on Jupiter. But, on the other hand, while measures are taken to ensure that spacecraft headed to other bodies are not contaminated, we've also found that life still often manages to find a way. So I thibk the various landings on Mars, and the lander on Titan (plus the quadcopter heading there later this decade) are somewhat likely to have brought along some extremely resilient (but dormant) life anyway.
fhsm 3y ago
A helicopter running Linux no less. https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/19/22291324/linux-perseverance-mars-curiosity-ingenuity https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/19/22291324/linux-perseveran...

Loughla 3y ago

It's astounding to me that we're capable of flying a remote vehicle on a literally other planet, but we also kill each other in large numbers over whose god is correct. Genuinely astounding to me, and slightly disappointing.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
We kill for lots of reasons, some as trivial as wanting the pocket change another person has on them.
c22 3y ago
No doubt someday we'll be killing people on other planets with remote vehicles.
OmarShehata 3y ago
"killing each other over whose god is correct" is a profound misunderstanding of humanity. That's not why humans kill each other now, or in any time in history. It is and always has been simple & rational game theory: fear of the other tribe killing you for your resources, or just simply because they're afraid you might kill them for _their_ resources. For example, this is (one of) the core reasons of why peace in Israel/Palestine is so hard (each side fears accepting sovereignty of the other side means they will continue to encroach and wipe them out). Humans are pretty clever and ingenious at all levels
- wolverine876 3y ago
  That's true sometimes, but sometimes people just want to take what their neighbors have. Russia's government faced no risk of Ukraine attacking, or NATO for that matter. They just wanted Ukraine.
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    That's reductive. I'd compare it to the Cuban missile crisis. We were basically pointing a gun at their heads.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      It's just false. There was no way NATO or Ukraine was attacking Russia, in ten thousand years. NATO can barely be bothered to fund their militaries even now, and the US Republican party can't be bothered to fund Ukraine. Even after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 (and Georgia before that) the NATO countries were still making gas and other trade deals, thinking they would bring Russia into the fold of peaceful, free-trading nations. Trump tried to work with Putin; Obama did the big 'reset', etc., etc.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      "How dare these other countries respond to my aggression by forming a defensive pact to defend against my aggression! I'll aggress them for that!" Russia is the one pointing the gun is this scenario, but they sure do love to pretend otherwise.
      - rpmisms 3y ago
        NATO was formed because of the Soviet Union. Russia is a different country.
        oneshtein 3y ago
        Russia pretends that it is the USSR in UN.
  - pests 3y ago
    Oh, just like America felt no risk when Russia tried to move into Cuba?
    - wolverine876 3y ago
- therealdrag0 3y ago
  What about the crusades? Traveling from France to Israel to “take back the holy land” seems pretty religiously motivated.
  - temp112123 3y ago
    [dead]
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  Yeah, there is the noble reason you tell people - often including yourself - and there is the real reason that we don't talk or think about.
wolverine876 3y ago
Remind me why we are killing each other? Is it for survival? OT: We know everything we need to survive and prosper very well - imperfectly, but with margin of error to spare, including capable political systems. The people still killing are just criminals who want to steal and murder.
squarefoot 3y ago
Could be worth plotting a chart that shows how many of those who kill over some deity related reasons could also be part of those who design, build and operate remote vehicles on another planet, and the other way around.
- dylan604 3y ago
  i'm guessing if they were plotted using a Venn diagram, there wouldn't be much crossover.
  - jbboehr 3y ago
    Well, about that: > in the ranks of captured and confessed terrorists, engineers and engineering students are significantly overrepresented https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....
    - mturmon 3y ago
      That’s why we invented national labs, to keep those potential bad actors occupied with better goals.
Aaargh20318 3y ago
I dunno, some of these recent episodes of ‘the news’ feel a bit like lazy writing. Like this whole subplot where the humans kill each other fighting over the only part of the middle east that doesn’t have any oil. Who’d believe that would happen in real life?
- wolverine876 3y ago
  There's the old joke that the biblical Jews escaped slavery in Egypt and wandered 40 years in the desert, only to find the one place in the Mideast without oil.
wait_a_minute 3y ago
People find reasons to kill each other in large numbers even when God is not involved, so why that as your chosen foil to humanity's otherworldly helicopter? It is important to me that people move beyond blaming God for things like this. There are many more, and much more recent as well, examples where if people cared to seek what God thought the entire conflict would've been avoided. For example...where was the dispute about God, say, between the Chinese and the Japanese fronts during World War 2? Or between the Nazis and the Red Army? It wasn't a disagreement about God that resulted in dropping the atom bombs to end conflicts of that scale, unless you would agree with me that the only disagreement was that America kept believing in God and her adversaries no longer did...in which case I'd then just say that fundamentally it was disbelief in God that led to WW2's horrors, not disagreements over which God is correct. God is exonerated in all cases. This approach would be more respectful of the engineers who believe in God and who also contribute to projects like the space vehicles and probes or other impactful projects, and certainly more respectful of the great names in human history who are remembered for their contributions and noted also in the record for their love for God...
Intralexical 3y ago
Idk. If there were gods, which one is correct seems like it'd be a pretty important question. I wouldn't want to worship Beelzejuice Voorhees the Head-Chomper. Of course, killing people because they privately worship the Head-Chomper is probably too far, unless they're actively chomping (your?) heads. Also, Beelzejuice isn't real. But principles like human rights and freedom are worth fighting for, and necessary to sometimes fight for (or else we're all screwed)— Beliefs, certainly, if not anthropomorphized as "gods". Also, religions are a pretty strong indicator of social in-groups and out-groups. If you removed the gods from some religious wars, they'd probably still be fighting each other over skin color, language, ethnicity, culture, social ties, Adidas vs. Nike preference, external political goals, land use, water contamination, domestic political pressures, fishing rights, economic disenfranchisement, etc. Theology may help divide and rationalize it, but control over resources and power are pretty concrete motivations for creatures that have to worry about starving/dying, and gods are a proxy for that. Scarcity begets conflict. GDP per capita is ~$900 in Gaza, ~$350 in Afghanistan, ~$5,000 in Omsk. Doubt many would willingly sign up, or accept being conscripted, to murder unbelievers if they were more sure about having warm meals and meaningful works to cherish. Doubt NASA engineers would be "capable of flying a remote vehicle on a literally other planet" if they were busy scrounging for physical necessities. Even Bin Laden introduced his 2001 statement by referencing the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and its effects on people. Kirill may talk of the "Antichrist", but what Putin wants is Sevastopol. I think it's reductive to just say "we also kill each other in large numbers over whose god is correct". We kill each other for a variety of reasons, usually fear of ourselves being killed, and sometimes we bring gods into it but it's very rarely, if ever, the sole reason.

dontupvoteme 3y ago

I forgot which probe and celestial objects it was, but at one point NASA was investigating a moon around Jupiter or Saturn, thought about dumping it there for nice photos (it was out of fuel iirc) and then they realized that it might have life on it. So they intentionally crashed it into the planet instead as to not potentially contaminate said moon - possibly our first implementation of the prime directive!

dotnet00 3y ago
We did that with Cassini on Saturn, and we intend to do that with Juno on Jupiter. But, on the other hand, while measures are taken to ensure that spacecraft headed to other bodies are not contaminated, we've also found that life still often manages to find a way. So I thibk the various landings on Mars, and the lander on Titan (plus the quadcopter heading there later this decade) are somewhat likely to have brought along some extremely resilient (but dormant) life anyway.

fhsm 3y ago

A helicopter running Linux no less. https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/19/22291324/linux-perseverance-mars-curiosity-ingenuity https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/19/22291324/linux-perseveran...