August 2012
Here's a question for TMI Tuesday: do you think the Rawlsian approach to international relations is feasible, or is it all a bunch of liberal masturbatory fantasies? Also what's your favorite type of cake?
I feel like it’s pretty much a pipe dream right now, early TNG United Federation of Planets-style. Humans and, by extension, countries are far too focused on their own self-interest to cooperate on the scale that it would take to apply Rawlsianism on a grand scale. It’s almost the sort of system that would work better with computers or another life-form that was more able to interact and look at the bigger picture, rather than the singular individual. Or maybe it would just take more resources, where there’s less competition. Either way, our current situation, geopolitically speaking, just doesn’t make it feasible, and I can’t necessarily see that humanity is going to approach a situation that makes it any more likely in the next century or two.
And black forest cake.
- Person: I like Community!
- Me: ME TOO
- Person: That's cool.
- Me:
- Person:
- Me:
- Person:
- Me: I DON'T THINK WE'RE ON THE SAME PAGE
Thoughts before bed.: OH MY GOD. I JUST WITNESSED THE SINGLE GREATEST MOMENT IN HUMAN HISTORY. →
likethebookshop.tumblr.com
On a bus, heading home from the city I am greeted by an incredibly nice Russian-sounding bus driver with a smile on his face. About 4 stops later (in the valley, of course) a bogan hops on with his skanky (I assume) girlfriend. (May have been sister. May have been both.) Naturally, he does not have the money for a bus, so of course The Bogan (Henceforth referred to as Shit-Skull) blames the bus driver. Using all manner of racial slurs, loud profanities and general offensive douchbagery, Shit-Skull proceeds to be a asshole and make the entire bus shuffle uncomfortably in their seats.
All except one man.
Ah, this man. I wish I could BE this man, this average looking hero that stepped up to defend the poor bus driver.
“Look mate, he’s just doing his job. How’s about you calm down and leave the driver alone. It’s no t his fault you can’t pay.” The logic of the situation made a slight whistling noise as it passed over Shit-Skull’s head. We could see the Tonka Truck gears clunk and grind in this mans underdeveloped cranium. Calm…down? It must be a challenge!
“Are you try’na start me c**t? You wanna go me you f**king c**t? You wanna f**ing go me?” Ah, truly the words of a poet. But not even Oscar Wilde himself could have predict the Batman-esque reaction of:
“Yeah, actually. Let’s do this. Off the bus.”
You could hear a penny drop as the 256mb brain inside Shit-Skull’s shitty little skull ticked over. Finally, the judging eyes of the bus coupled with the high-pitched, slurring voice of his sister-daughter telling him to “take him” and (quoting directly) “don’t take none that shit babe” convince them both to step off the bus ready to fight.
Calmer than a monk on morphine, our hero turns to the bus driver, simply says “shut the door mate”, AND WALKS BACK TO HIS MOTHERFUCKING SEAT. The bus driver shut the door, drove away, and the entire bus ERUPTED. We were clapping, we were cheering, I gave Shit-Skull the finger out the window and I’m pretty sure people hugged.
Tl;dr: Thank you stranger, for making humans okay in my book.
“Next week, while we’re all watching NBC, a nuclear-powered, MINI-Cooper-sized super rover will land on Mars. We accurately guided this monster from 200 million miles away (that’s 7.6 million marathons). It requires better accuracy than an Olympic golfer teeing off in London and hitting a hole-in-one in Auckland, New Zealand. It will use a laser to blast rocks, a chemical nose to sniff out the potential for life, and hundreds of other feats of near-magic. Will these discoveries lead us down a path to confirming life on other planets? Wouldn’t that be a good story that might make people care about science? But telling us this story means more than just the composition of the rocks (sorry, Mars geologists). It’s about the team that makes it happen.
No one producing an Olympic teaser asks, “What’s the importance of 100 meters?” No, they tell us about the athletes who dedicate their lives to running the race, because dedication and triumph are what make a human running 100 meters interesting. If NBC can get us all misty-eyed about 100 meters, imagine what NASA could do with 200 million miles.
The Mars race is about human survival and understanding our place in a vast and terrifyingly beautiful universe. And the stories of its athletes (mathletes?) should be world-class, because they accomplish near-impossible tasks on a cosmic scale — the hardest sport you could ever compete in. It requires dedication and doggedness that only the most passionate people in the universe could deliver. Unfortunately, this drama plays out behind closed doors. We won’t have insights into the sacrifice, scandal, discovery, divorce, hardship, and drama that it takes to work for a decade delivering a one-ton super rover to another planet. It’s the biggest irony that the most junior engineer at NASA is fearless in the face of trying to send a robot to Mars, but the career bureaucrats are afraid to tell that engineer’s story of failure or success.
NASA will say that they’re doing the best they can and stretching their education and outreach budgets to the max. But if they hope to stay in business, they need to tell us how they’re pushing the limits of humanity with over-the-top, risky-ass missions that will answer questions about who we are as a species on this planet.” —
No one producing an Olympic teaser asks, “What’s the importance of 100 meters?” No, they tell us about the athletes who dedicate their lives to running the race, because dedication and triumph are what make a human running 100 meters interesting. If NBC can get us all misty-eyed about 100 meters, imagine what NASA could do with 200 million miles.
The Mars race is about human survival and understanding our place in a vast and terrifyingly beautiful universe. And the stories of its athletes (mathletes?) should be world-class, because they accomplish near-impossible tasks on a cosmic scale — the hardest sport you could ever compete in. It requires dedication and doggedness that only the most passionate people in the universe could deliver. Unfortunately, this drama plays out behind closed doors. We won’t have insights into the sacrifice, scandal, discovery, divorce, hardship, and drama that it takes to work for a decade delivering a one-ton super rover to another planet. It’s the biggest irony that the most junior engineer at NASA is fearless in the face of trying to send a robot to Mars, but the career bureaucrats are afraid to tell that engineer’s story of failure or success.
NASA will say that they’re doing the best they can and stretching their education and outreach budgets to the max. But if they hope to stay in business, they need to tell us how they’re pushing the limits of humanity with over-the-top, risky-ass missions that will answer questions about who we are as a species on this planet.” —
Andrew Kessler, The Huffington Post. Why You Should Be More Interested in Mars Than the Olympics.
Kessler, who spent ninety days inside NASA to write Martian Summer: Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen and My 90 Days with the Phoenix Mars Mission, believes the agency is “so frightened of failure that they’re willing to sacrifice their greatest asset: the ability to inspire.” In other words, they no longer tell a good story.
Know who could help? Kick ass science journalists.
Sidenote: AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards applications are due tomorrow.
(via futurejournalismproject)
I want to tell that story. Holy crap do I want to film that and tell that story.
(via berenzero)