Manifesto of the Committee to Abolish Outer Space

[lajoswinkler]

Quote

They showed us nebulae, big pink and blue clouds draped in braids of purple stars, always resolving themselves at the pace of cosmic infinity... They superimposed puddle-thin quotes over these pictures, so that the galaxies could speak to you in the depths of your loneliness, whispering from across a trackless infinity that you’re so much better than everyone else, because you loveing love science. The words are lies, the colors are lies, the nebulae are lies. These images are collated and pigmented by computers; they’re not a scene you could ever see out the porthole of your spaceship. Space isn’t even ugly; it isn’t anything. It’s a dead black void scattered with a few grey rocks, and they crash into each other according to a precise mathematical senselessness until all that’s left is dust.

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/manifesto-of-the-committee-to-abolish-outer-space/

 

This is intriguing. 

The quoted part is true, but I'm not sure if the rest of the text is supposed to be funny or... I don't know, im confus.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Vanamonde
Language.

[cantab]

Why should the shortcomings of our eyes at seeing the faint and subtle shades of the nebulae make those shades any less true?

[lajoswinkler]

Just now, cantab said:

Why should the shortcomings of our eyes at seeing the faint and subtle shades of the nebulae make those shades any less true?

Those shades are actually artificially colored because they're, for the most part, made in near infrared which passes through interstellar material way better.

So yeah, they are a lie in a sort of sense.

[insert_name]

7 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/manifesto-of-the-committee-to-abolish-outer-space/

 

This is intriguing. 

The quoted part is true, but I'm not sure if the rest of the text is supposed to be funny or... I don't know, im confus.

Their descriptions of the shapes of nebulae are very academic

[Shpaget]

So, when I take an x-ray of my broken bone, does that make the fracture a lie?

An image done by an electron microscope is also a lie?

[p1t1o]

Yeah, I think this might be a humour thing, or some other kind of "art".

 

1 First we will abolish the moon, that smug sack... in the sky, our constant condescending stalker. This should be the easiest step: People have set foot on its surface, and come back, and eventually they stopped going there; they realized how utterly dull it is.

2 Next we will overthrow the fascist institution of the sun, finally achieving the dream of all great revolutionary movements in history.

3 We will disestablish the planets, one by one, leaving them to vanish with Pluto into death. We will sweep up the dusty nebulae, plug up the black holes, drink up the Milky Way, tear down the Great Wall brick by brick.

4 Comets, asteroids, space dust, quantum foam: no more.

5 Finally, when our victory is almost complete, we will abolish low earth orbit, the black depths of the oceans, the wildernesses of the poles, the pulsing core of the human psyche.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Vanamonde
Language.

[RainDreamer]

Quote

 In a movement as strange and senseless as the spinning of the stars, you will have been elected to join the Committee to Abolish Outer Space

Rather interesting piece of writing, and probably a considerable effort has went into writing this, in the most deary and boring way possible and yet still somehow sound rather profound. Basically, the gist I get from that is this: screw the idea of outer space, we are already in space. It is just space. I find it mildly funny 

[cubinator]

"Because it's there."

Why not go to space? What the author is asking is that we keep to ourselves, leading boring, repetitive lives, never bothering to look out the window and see that there is something else out there. This author (if he really believes the things he writes) would make for a great member of the Thought Police.

[HebaruSan]

It's a political message. They want us all to be "trapped" here on earth so the workers can finally win. (Note the stuff about how exploiting the New World saved the ruling class of Europe from roiling peasant rebellions.)

Interestingly, I've also heard nearly the opposite sentiment from some of New Inquiry's comrades-in-arms, that we need communism so we can leave behind this petty preoccupation with profit and fulfill our species' destiny of exploring the galaxy. I guess the two could be reconciled if the idea is to freeze space exploration until capitalism is no longer dominant.

(Note, I am responding to the thread and providing my assessment of what this article is about, not advocating or opposing any particular political view.)

[lajoswinkler]

21 hours ago, Shpaget said:

So, when I take an x-ray of my broken bone, does that make the fracture a lie?

An image done by an electron microscope is also a lie?

No, you've missed the point. The fracture is not a lie. The nebula is not a lie. The presented image is a lie if it's presented with the words: "this is how this thing looks like".

Common people think space looks really great as they imagine all the colorful things out there, those huge c&c  things made of extremely rarified gases.

 

They are fed with this:

 

And this:

 

 

In reality, nebulas are pale, dim objects that would look like this if you approached them.

 

I'm not saying we should put black squares in articles, but general public should at least have something like "infrared image with false color to show compositional differences". That's it.

[RainDreamer]

I think we are too riled up for a satire article.

[Shpaget]

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

I'm not saying we should put black squares in articles, but general public should at least have something like "infrared image with false color to show compositional differences". That's it.

That's exactly what they get, should they choose to read the image description. NASA regularly publishes technical data next to their pretty pictures.

[Whirligig Girl]

I'm sad. I think I need a space hug.

Edited April 12, 2016 by GregroxMun

[Wjolcz]

How can you even question something like that if the Orion Nebula IS VISIBLE WITH THE NAKED EYE!!!

[Robotengineer]

I believe this intended to mock the Flat Earthers and extreme religious people who don't believe in space. The acronym (C.A.O.S) bears an uncanny resemblance to chaos, and the essay at various parts sounds communistic, paleo-catholic (i.e. like the catholic church in the time of Galileo and Bruno), fascistic, and nihilistic. It is also self-contradicting, stating that space does not exist and that we should return to the mythic view of space, while at the same time accepting that man landed on the moon and we could do it again. 

So, this is a rather good skewer of the backwards people among us, or the author is a Marxist anti-colonial nihilist who really believes what he's writing.

[lajoswinkler]

5 hours ago, Shpaget said:

That's exactly what they get, should they choose to read the image description. NASA regularly publishes technical data next to their pretty pictures.

It's rarely described, and even then, in most cases you need to dig. 99% of people don't do that. They see the photo in the article and that's it. That's how the things work and that's the fact the authors need to adjust to. The annotation is for those people who are the vast majority.

 

2 hours ago, Veeltch said:

How can you even question something like that if the Orion Nebula IS VISIBLE WITH THE NAKED EYE!!!

It's visible as a pale, dim blob in best conditions.

[HebaruSan]

52 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

So, this is a rather good skewer of the backwards people among us, or the author is a Marxist anti-colonial nihilist who really believes what he's writing.

New Inquiry is a left wing political site, and the author seems to be a bit of a surrealist from his blog. I think he's more interested in how the popular presentation of science affects culture than what the nebulae actually look like. He's got a more recent entry that may provide some additional context for the previous one.

https://samkriss.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/neil-degrasse-tyson-pedantry-in-space/

[Robotengineer]

6 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

New Inquiry is a left wing political site, and the author seems to be a bit of a surrealist from his blog. I think he's more interested in how the popular presentation of science affects culture than what the nebulae actually look like. He's got a more recent entry that may provide some additional context for the previous one.

https://samkriss.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/neil-degrasse-tyson-pedantry-in-space/

So probably the latter. I really wish all these people who complain about science would stop reaping the benefits of it. He can write his essays and blogs on clay tablets. 

[Xorth Tanovar]

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

It's visible as a pale, dim blob in best conditions.

Ah, how quickly we all forget the days of hyper-sensitizing camera film, and long-term exposures of same thru a telescope with attached camera and color wheel, hours spent in a darkroom developing the resulting images. You can indeed see the "natural" colors of nebulae in this fashion.

You cannot see it via naked eye because the light itself is so weak. At best, you MAY get a glimpse of bluish tinge in Orion's nebula on a dark night with a large enough 'scope and a wide field eyepices and using indirect viewing.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Xorth Tanovar

[lajoswinkler]

32 minutes ago, Xorth Tanovar said:

Ah, how quickly we all forget the days of hyper-sensitizing camera film, and long-term exposures of same thru a telescope with attached camera and color wheel, hours spent in a darkroom developing the resulting images. You can indeed see the "natural" colors of nebulae in this fashion.

You cannot see it via naked eye because the light itself is so weak. At best, you MAY get a glimpse of bluish tinge in Orion's nebula on a dark night with a large enough 'scope and a wide field eyepices and using indirect viewing.

I haven't forgotten about it, but our eyes are what they are. We see what we see and that's it.

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

I haven't forgotten about it, but our eyes are what they are. We see what we see and that's it.

Someday soon we'll have the technology to make ourselves better eyes...

[daniel l.]

Need i say more?

[lajoswinkler]

8 hours ago, daniel l. said:

Need i say more?

No, that's:

1) false color near infrared

2) enhanced visible

 

Infrared has no color.

[wumpus]

As I commented on another thread that mentioned this title, it appears more or less the exact same decision that lead to the "Krikket Wars" in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (actually quote from Krikket after breaching their thick cloud cover "it'll have to go").

The US anti-science movement simply assumes that nothing beyond their little villages (and what extremist News and many-told-(and forwarded)-tales say).  They wouldn't be interested in destroying such (well not paying much to destroy it anyway) as they simply won't believe it exists.  On the other hand, pretty much the entire population works similar to this in practice.  Like Shelock Holmes (who had to be informed of Copernican theory by Dr. Watson), information on astronomical data is plugged away in "stuff that won't effect me" and as such has low barriers to belief (this also leads to believing conspiracy theories).  Tell a man that a chair has wet paint and he has to see for himself.

[Bill Phil]

You'll never see a nebula like that out of your spaceship, unless you're lightyears away and have an awesome telescope.

Galaxies, on the other hand, if you're far away enough... Andromeda would look bigger than the Moon if it's light wasn't drowned out by the rest of the solar system and our own Galaxy.

12 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

No, that's:

1) false color near infrared

2) enhanced visible

 

Infrared has no color.

Yeah it does. It's black. A lack of color.