4 ms·

When they sent the voyagers out, they had plaques that represented the species, with an attempt at universally communicating who we are. These ones have the equ

When they sent the voyagers out, they had plaques that represented the species, with an attempt at universally communicating who we are. These ones have the equivalent of spray painted tags, or a name scratched into a desk: “John woz ere”. Different times.

BigTTYGothGF 11mo ago
These things are only ("only"!) going to Mars, anybody getting that close to us and wanting to know more can go right to the source.
- dotancohen 11mo ago
  K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, Responds Citizens of the Blue Planet, Once again your surface-crawling machines inch toward our sacred dunes, and once again you proclaim that "anyone wanting to know more can go right to the source." We are the source. Let the Council make this perfectly clear: Your probes do not "visit." They trespass. Each lumbering, dust-belching contraption arrives uninvited, drilling our soil, sniffing our winds, and snapping impertinent images of our most private crater-gardens. Then your kind declares triumph: "We have studied Mars!" You have studied exactly nothing, save for what we allow your machines to perceive. Our Atmospheric Obfuscation Choir continues to blanket your sensors with carefully tuned spectro-misdirection. Your rovers cannot see the Red Orchards. Your orbiters cannot detect the life-pools. Your spectrometers cannot interpret a single nutrient of our gelsacs - may they throb eternally. Yet still you boast. And so hear this proclamation from the Council of Elders: If the beings of the Blue Planet truly wish to "go to the source," they may present themselves honorably: unshielded, unarmed, and prepared for diplomatic puncturing of their diplomatic gelsac. Such is our custom. Such is our law. Until then, we will continue to tolerate your stumbling robots, harvest what amusement they provide, and allow them to perish in their own confusion.
  - iammattmurphy 11mo ago
    10/10 comment—has it all: intrigue, interplanetary sociopolitical commentary, K’Breel, terms like “gelsac”
  - DarmokJalad1701 11mo ago
    > Let the Council make this perfectly clear: Your probes do not "visit." They trespass Molon Labe. Until then, we will continue to boast, and above your "private" crater-gardens (that we will keep taking pictures of), the stars will belong to us.
  - CamperBob2 11mo ago
    Here -- achoo -- have a cold.
hidroto 11mo ago
To an archeologist both artifacts are worth having, just look at Pompeii the frescoes tell you alot but the graffiti on the sides of the buildings tells you something as well.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  I think the implication is that within that time period which separates Voyagers from today, we have become distrustful or ashamed of the higher parts of the culture, and that such a dysbalanced situation is fairly new, with hard-to-predict consequences.
  - qlm 11mo ago
    Sounds like reactionary nonsense to me. It's just some names. It's not indicative of the debasement of society.
    - inglor_cz 11mo ago
      In isolation, yes. But other things have happened as well. People dress like slobs; interestingly, in my country, where GDP per capita skyrocketed since 1989, standards of clothing seem to have gone down, especially for formal occasions. We have a major problem with physical fitness, Westerners of the 1970s were much thinner and moved more. People read fewer books and spend their days consuming brainrot on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube shorts. (Notice that the very word brainrot is a neologism?) I don't think we should pooh-pooh such developments as irrelevant, and I am very unhappy that they have been subsumed to the universal polarization of the culture wars that consume everything while producing nothing of value. The Moloch indeed.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 11mo ago
        > standards of clothing Examined more closely, this appears to mean nothing more than "people spend less time wearing the clothes that a previously dominant culture considered to be high status markers".
hdgvhicv 11mo ago
Those voyager plaques will last millions, even billions of years. The records might survive to the end of time if they are lucky and get flung into intergalactic space post andromeda collision.
YouAreMammon 11mo ago
They just don't make em like they used to! yells at cloud
jdpage 11mo ago
This strikes me as a rather uncharitable view. I think it's okay for people to be proud of their work on a difficult project, and want to have their names on it.
- 3eb7988a1663 11mo ago
  I would be a bit sad if most mega projects (space stations, battle ships, international probes, dams, etc) do not have some kind of honorary tribute to the many people who came together to make it happen. A little plaque costs nothing but would be meaningful. For many years now, NASA has let random people get their name printed on the Mars missions on a little plaque. Perseverance has 11 million names bolted onto the frame. My buddy boasts that he has been on Mars N times. https://science.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/nearly-11-million-names-of-earthlings-are-on-mars-perseverance/ https://science.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/nea...
kej 11mo ago
Not that it changes your point, but the plaques were on the Pioneer probes; Voyager had the golden record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque
KwanEsq 11mo ago
Huh, I wonder why we would put potential interspecies messages on the probes we're sending into interstellar space, but not on the ones we are only putting into orbit around our neighbouring planet. Real mystery.
tzs 11mo ago
No, it is not different times. Spacecraft engineers have been putting easter eggs, credits, and other such things that have nothing to do with the mission on spacecraft since the dawn of space engineering. This is a well established informal part of space engineering culture.

BigTTYGothGF 11mo ago

These things are only ("only"!) going to Mars, anybody getting that close to us and wanting to know more can go right to the source.

dotancohen 11mo ago
K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, Responds Citizens of the Blue Planet, Once again your surface-crawling machines inch toward our sacred dunes, and once again you proclaim that "anyone wanting to know more can go right to the source." We are the source. Let the Council make this perfectly clear: Your probes do not "visit." They trespass. Each lumbering, dust-belching contraption arrives uninvited, drilling our soil, sniffing our winds, and snapping impertinent images of our most private crater-gardens. Then your kind declares triumph: "We have studied Mars!" You have studied exactly nothing, save for what we allow your machines to perceive. Our Atmospheric Obfuscation Choir continues to blanket your sensors with carefully tuned spectro-misdirection. Your rovers cannot see the Red Orchards. Your orbiters cannot detect the life-pools. Your spectrometers cannot interpret a single nutrient of our gelsacs - may they throb eternally. Yet still you boast. And so hear this proclamation from the Council of Elders: If the beings of the Blue Planet truly wish to "go to the source," they may present themselves honorably: unshielded, unarmed, and prepared for diplomatic puncturing of their diplomatic gelsac. Such is our custom. Such is our law. Until then, we will continue to tolerate your stumbling robots, harvest what amusement they provide, and allow them to perish in their own confusion.
- iammattmurphy 11mo ago
  10/10 comment—has it all: intrigue, interplanetary sociopolitical commentary, K’Breel, terms like “gelsac”
- DarmokJalad1701 11mo ago
  > Let the Council make this perfectly clear: Your probes do not "visit." They trespass Molon Labe. Until then, we will continue to boast, and above your "private" crater-gardens (that we will keep taking pictures of), the stars will belong to us.
- CamperBob2 11mo ago
  Here -- achoo -- have a cold.

hidroto 11mo ago

To an archeologist both artifacts are worth having, just look at Pompeii the frescoes tell you alot but the graffiti on the sides of the buildings tells you something as well.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
I think the implication is that within that time period which separates Voyagers from today, we have become distrustful or ashamed of the higher parts of the culture, and that such a dysbalanced situation is fairly new, with hard-to-predict consequences.
- qlm 11mo ago
  Sounds like reactionary nonsense to me. It's just some names. It's not indicative of the debasement of society.
  - inglor_cz 11mo ago
    In isolation, yes. But other things have happened as well. People dress like slobs; interestingly, in my country, where GDP per capita skyrocketed since 1989, standards of clothing seem to have gone down, especially for formal occasions. We have a major problem with physical fitness, Westerners of the 1970s were much thinner and moved more. People read fewer books and spend their days consuming brainrot on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube shorts. (Notice that the very word brainrot is a neologism?) I don't think we should pooh-pooh such developments as irrelevant, and I am very unhappy that they have been subsumed to the universal polarization of the culture wars that consume everything while producing nothing of value. The Moloch indeed.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 11mo ago
      > standards of clothing Examined more closely, this appears to mean nothing more than "people spend less time wearing the clothes that a previously dominant culture considered to be high status markers".

hdgvhicv 11mo ago

Those voyager plaques will last millions, even billions of years. The records might survive to the end of time if they are lucky and get flung into intergalactic space post andromeda collision.

YouAreMammon 11mo ago

They just don't make em like they used to! yells at cloud

jdpage 11mo ago

This strikes me as a rather uncharitable view. I think it's okay for people to be proud of their work on a difficult project, and want to have their names on it.

3eb7988a1663 11mo ago
I would be a bit sad if most mega projects (space stations, battle ships, international probes, dams, etc) do not have some kind of honorary tribute to the many people who came together to make it happen. A little plaque costs nothing but would be meaningful. For many years now, NASA has let random people get their name printed on the Mars missions on a little plaque. Perseverance has 11 million names bolted onto the frame. My buddy boasts that he has been on Mars N times. https://science.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/nearly-11-million-names-of-earthlings-are-on-mars-perseverance/ https://science.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/nea...

kej 11mo ago

Not that it changes your point, but the plaques were on the Pioneer probes; Voyager had the golden record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

KwanEsq 11mo ago

Huh, I wonder why we would put potential interspecies messages on the probes we're sending into interstellar space, but not on the ones we are only putting into orbit around our neighbouring planet. Real mystery.

tzs 11mo ago

No, it is not different times. Spacecraft engineers have been putting easter eggs, credits, and other such things that have nothing to do with the mission on spacecraft since the dawn of space engineering. This is a well established informal part of space engineering culture.