The Best Thing Ever!
I know most of you have seen this already. Pharyngula and others posted it two days ago and I am far behind the times. Screw it! Here it is again. This is nearly the coolest video I’ve seen, and it actually gets me quite emotional. I’ve seen it three times. Never has someone done so well explaining how I truly feel. Watch. Please. Watch.
My god! My god! It’s full of stars. Oh, and I love the Rutger Hauer/Blade Runner clip in the middle. Genius!
“My god! My god! It’s full of stars.”
I read that line just half an hour ago in ’2010: Odyssey Two’. How cool is that?
BTW I do leave my computer alone for large stretches of time, it’s not as if I sit here waiting for new posts! So howcome I’m always the first to post on here? Strange.
It’s especially odd Daz as I only posted about ten minutes ago. I’m currently struggling through an Abortion related post. Ever had a hell of a time trying to say something just right? And then coming only within a rough hailing distance of the clarity you sought. If God really designed my brain, I’m going have to have a word with him about some quality control issues.
I’ve got one on the boil about differences ‘tween US and UK culture, spelling etc, and I’m having the same trouble. No matter how I write it, it comes out looking like I’m taking the pee out of Americans.
Here’s a bare-bones thought though, without any conclusions.
Britain: Monarchy, yet also socialist, with health care payments deducted just like tax, nationalised industries etc. No separation of church & state.
US: None of those.
Yet The UK in general seems to be less prone to extremes of politics and religion, unionisation is more generally accepted, even right-wing politicians seem to accept the NHS as a good thing, and so on.
‘Seems contradictory, don’t it’ is all the conclusion I’ve managed on that one so far. I’ve a feeling there’s years of study in there. And possibly a PhD thesis, if anyone wants it.
That happens to me occasionally.
For me, I find it’s best that I walk away for at least an hour, clear my head, and then when I return, I find I can summon up what I had been lacking.
Good luck!
Oops, I should have mentioned, all that started as a comment on ‘Ever had a hell of a time trying to say something just right?’
Ha! And I thought I’d be first.
I got distracted writing a post of my own. I’m ADD like that.
On topic, the video is so very cool, I’ve shared it with several others via email already.
Humanity is mired in contradictory ideas. It’s this penchant to wallow in intellectual bullshit that has primed us for religion so well. Every human holds vast numbers of ideas many flatly opposing the others, and we honestly believe in all of them. Good solid proof that there was no designer. Who the hell would make us this way on purpose?
It makes you wonder how we’ve made it this far.
Baby steps, buddy. Baby steps.
“Who the hell would make us this way on purpose?”
That’s what I loved about “Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind” by Gary Marcus. He shows just how spliced, slapdash, and kluged together we are–and how if we are evidence of a Designer, He must have slept through all his engineering and CAD/CAM classes…
Actually, KK, I haven’t seen a thing, beyond brief mentions of the US elections. And that was only because my DH had the telly on. (cough, hack, sniff, wheeze–caught my daughter’s cold–waah!) So I’m glad you posted that–lovely. That, and that bit from Pale Blue Dot by Sagan–that’s just how I feel, too. That’s why I notice everything around me the way I do–why I want to know the names of things. Makes me feel less like a Faceless Big-City Dweller, and more like a neighbor. The more I know about the natural world, about the universe, the more I feel At Home In The Universe.
Even if it is not important, I would like to understand the meaning of most of the images after “30…billion…years” (at 12:00). Being already impressed by the first time, I will certainly watch this video at least once again. Thanks for posting it!
This is amazing. I feel so incredibly small. Thanks for posting this.
~wjs