War: Deep, deep stuff by Carl Sagan

In light of the events in Ukraine, someone posts this most thought-provoking writing by Carl Sagan:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here.. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

-Carl Sagan

***

Yes, nice, but I would kill the guy who spat in my face like a dog. Well, next time around. I'm even changing minimizing my cycling habits to reduce such incident. Road rage is for savage animals, wishing to kill without a cause.

Then I concluded with my own comment:

"Other heroes are trying to do the most heroic deed, that of riding a bicycle, and we come under attack, we are ignored in the design, we are spat in the face and are told names unprintable here. The minute you see our congested highways, people raging at each other, people mindlessly grabbing a car to do an errand in their community, you know humanity is doomed. Oh, we get no medals. War is more glorious. I just wished I found the right war somewhere."

http://news.yahoo.com/surrounded-reb...mments-postbox


----------------------------------------------------

"The jungle has never been this much fun!"

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

On Wed, 5 Nov 2014 11:39:09 -0800 (PST), "Free Spirit, Chief of
Quixotic Enterprises" wrote:

In light of the events in Ukraine, someone posts this most thought-provoking writing by Carl Sagan:

(cringe-inducing text snipped)

-Carl Sagan

The largest object in the universe - Carl Sagan's ego.

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:37:53 -0500, somebody
wrote:

On Wed, 5 Nov 2014 11:39:09 -0800 (PST), "Free Spirit, Chief of
Quixotic Enterprises" wrote:

In light of the events in Ukraine, someone posts this most thought-provoking writing by Carl Sagan:

(cringe-inducing text snipped)

-Carl Sagan

The largest object in the universe - Carl Sagan's ego.

Carl has been dead for nearly 20 years. Probably not much ego left.

--
Cheers,

John B.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 18:23:21 +0700, John B. Slocomb wrote:

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:37:53 -0500, somebody
wrote:

On Wed, 5 Nov 2014 11:39:09 -0800 (PST), "Free Spirit, Chief of Quixotic
Enterprises" wrote:

In light of the events in Ukraine, someone posts this most
thought-provoking writing by Carl Sagan:

(cringe-inducing text snipped)

-Carl Sagan

The largest object in the universe - Carl Sagan's ego.

Carl has been dead for nearly 20 years. Probably not much ego left.

He was a writer? I think despite low sales and production his record may
well be the most famous one in the world. 6061 gold anodised aluminium
(You can remove the U if you're feeling a bit American.
--
davethedave

On 11/9/2014 6:13 PM, davethedave wrote:
On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 18:23:21 +0700, John B. Slocomb wrote:

Carl [Sagan] has been dead for nearly 20 years. Probably not much ego left.

He was a writer? I think despite low sales and production his record may
well be the most famous one in the world. 6061 gold anodised aluminium
(You can remove the U if you're feeling a bit American.

aluminim?

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Mon, 10 Nov 2014 01:13:57 +0200, davethedave
wrote:

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 18:23:21 +0700, John B. Slocomb wrote:

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:37:53 -0500, somebody
wrote:

On Wed, 5 Nov 2014 11:39:09 -0800 (PST), "Free Spirit, Chief of Quixotic
Enterprises" wrote:

In light of the events in Ukraine, someone posts this most
thought-provoking writing by Carl Sagan:

(cringe-inducing text snipped)

-Carl Sagan

The largest object in the universe - Carl Sagan's ego.

Carl has been dead for nearly 20 years. Probably not much ego left.

He was a writer? I think despite low sales and production his record may
well be the most famous one in the world. 6061 gold anodised aluminium
(You can remove the U if you're feeling a bit American.


Hmmm... aluminium; alminium; aluminim; alminim?

"The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted
aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990
but, three years later, recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant."

:-)

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 09 Nov 2014 20:23:00 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 11/9/2014 6:13 PM, davethedave wrote:
On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 18:23:21 +0700, John B. Slocomb wrote:

Carl [Sagan] has been dead for nearly 20 years. Probably not much ego
left.

He was a writer? I think despite low sales and production his record
may well be the most famous one in the world. 6061 gold anodised
aluminium (You can remove the U if you're feeling a bit American.

aluminim?

That's the stuff.



--
davethedave