Not, like, forever. They get to come back. We can do it in rotations.
When astronauts come back from space, they commonly report something called the Overview Effect, which is a shift in perspective resulting from seeing the Planet Earth, their home, suspended against a backdrop of black stardusted infinity with nothing more than a thin film of gases protecting it from the harsh friction of nothingness.
For some astronauts, this is a cognitive shift, for others it is more emotional or spiritual, but even people around these astronauts have reported a difference in their demeanor upon returning. Carl Sagan honors the poignancy of the Overview Effect in this excerpt from his PBS series, Cosmos:
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different… That's here. That's home…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.” (You can watch the whole three minute video here). Highly recommended; good stuff.)
The Overview Effect sees us all as connected, as coinhabitants of a shared home. As custodians of the planet, and of each other. Buckminster Fuller called it Spaceship Earth. Astronauts report (excellent documentary here: here) they can see the impact that we make on the planet through lines of mining and deforestation. Like it or not, we all have to live on this big blue ball, and there’s not much more that could make one realize and appreciate that more than looking down on it from a tiny floating capsule.
So who could benefit the most--or benefit society the most--from the mind-blowing nature of the planetary vision? This is just my opinion, but something that kind of bothers me, especially after a recession triggered by reckless greed, that the rampant income inequality in America today, where 1% of the people own more than 20% of the wealth and more than 45 million people are in poverty, isn’t congruous with the whole human family thing. It causes widespread suffering and struggle because of a lack of perspective on the part of those hoarding the wealth.
Solution? Strap in and blast off. Show them the whole thing as one. Hopefully they’ll be captivated by how blue the water is or the lights of civilization or that the thing looks like one breathing thing. Hopefully they won’t just be looking for places to log or drill.
It's so difficult for a human being to see far outside the experience of his or her own senses and thoughts and feelings, so difficult to see outside the cultural blinders and limitations of language. How can we expect the ultra-wealthy to be able to empathize with the impoverished when they have no clue what those people have gone through? Expecting that would be us not trying to empathize with them. That said, that lack of empathy, or inability, could be rectified with a little perspective expansion, which might grease the wheels of our economy a little bit and get some dollars flowing into education and jobs for the lower middle class.
Blast those billionaires into space. Get them tripping on the seeing-us-all-as-one train. They own (enough of) everything and can benefit the most people by decreasing the worker mistreatment, environmental destruction, and economic damage mega-wealthy CEO capitalism causes when the wealth is centered in communities that aren’t thinking anywhere beyond their own self-interests (i.e. profit) because the wealth-holders haven’t been exposed to the true emotional third-person impacts of their actions that they are usually totally ignorant of through potentially no fault of their own. (Or you could just say that they don't care and are evil, but for the exercise of this essay let's just suspend that in favor of some optimism.)
Capitalism is the most powerful economic system as of yet invented by humans. It can greatly raise the standard of living for whole societies. For that, it’s a beautiful thing. However, as a system based in quid pro quo-fueled competition (and especially with little regulation), someone is always excluded or marginalized. Because it's not really quid-pro-quo if you would never make a deal you'd lose money on. What people earn or sell things for and what they deserve are not equal, they are what people can get away with. And with more money and political power you can get away with more and more till someone mixes in a complete disregard for ethics and you've run away from the rest of the economy with all the loot.
Maybe a trip to the moon will get more people feeling more warm and fuzzy inside to lubricate society's wealth chutes. Not so they can make a society where everyone is rich or even equal. I’m talking about a society where we’re able to ensure the bottom levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to the population. Food, shelter, warmth, education, and health care. Ensured. Civilization has evolved to the point that that’s what we should be able to give people. Because those things aren't entitlements, they are basic human rights, and we need to begin constructing economic systems that are riding the seeing-us-all-as-one train. The amount of wealth in this country is ridiculous compared to those who have so little, and the way the wealth is distributed isn’t even fair either. Men still make far more than women and minorities make less than whites. Is the free market racist? Doesn’t even make sense.
But the best counterargument defenders of the free market like to point to here are the freeloaders who suck services out of the government and mooch off welfare. Never mind that many (probably most) of those people have been given less opportunities and resources due to their race or class, there are still people who don’t work hard enough and rely on welfare instead of getting a job. Again, notwithstanding that the unemployment rate can never be zero, I have an idea for those people as well. First, welfare-to-work is not a bad idea for those who can work. Some people need treatment or mental health services, and we can definitely a little better as a whole about getting those to people. Also, we have to accept that not everyone is going to be able to work. Tough. Still, we have to figure out how to take care of them.
But for those who can work and don’t, the lazy ones that champions of capitalism are really afraid of, click off their TVs and load them on the school bus because it’s time for community service. Landscaping for nonprofits, serving food to the needy, cleaning community centers, visiting children’s hospitals and hospice wards. Perspective expansion. I’m in too.
Honestly, there are far easier ways of expanding your empathetic outreach than going to space or volunteering in hospice. Travel. Read. Understand people who are different than you, especially if they disagree with a strong personal belief of yours. See the human commonalities. How they survive, who their family is, what they enjoy and why. That stuff’s more important than so much of what we believe anyway.
But going to space couldn’t hurt, especially if you can pay for it. And if you happen across an extra ticket you want to sell cheap, please let me know. I'd like a window seat please.
When astronauts come back from space, they commonly report something called the Overview Effect, which is a shift in perspective resulting from seeing the Planet Earth, their home, suspended against a backdrop of black stardusted infinity with nothing more than a thin film of gases protecting it from the harsh friction of nothingness.
For some astronauts, this is a cognitive shift, for others it is more emotional or spiritual, but even people around these astronauts have reported a difference in their demeanor upon returning. Carl Sagan honors the poignancy of the Overview Effect in this excerpt from his PBS series, Cosmos:
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different… That's here. That's home…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.” (You can watch the whole three minute video here). Highly recommended; good stuff.)
The Overview Effect sees us all as connected, as coinhabitants of a shared home. As custodians of the planet, and of each other. Buckminster Fuller called it Spaceship Earth. Astronauts report (excellent documentary here: here) they can see the impact that we make on the planet through lines of mining and deforestation. Like it or not, we all have to live on this big blue ball, and there’s not much more that could make one realize and appreciate that more than looking down on it from a tiny floating capsule.
So who could benefit the most--or benefit society the most--from the mind-blowing nature of the planetary vision? This is just my opinion, but something that kind of bothers me, especially after a recession triggered by reckless greed, that the rampant income inequality in America today, where 1% of the people own more than 20% of the wealth and more than 45 million people are in poverty, isn’t congruous with the whole human family thing. It causes widespread suffering and struggle because of a lack of perspective on the part of those hoarding the wealth.
Solution? Strap in and blast off. Show them the whole thing as one. Hopefully they’ll be captivated by how blue the water is or the lights of civilization or that the thing looks like one breathing thing. Hopefully they won’t just be looking for places to log or drill.
It's so difficult for a human being to see far outside the experience of his or her own senses and thoughts and feelings, so difficult to see outside the cultural blinders and limitations of language. How can we expect the ultra-wealthy to be able to empathize with the impoverished when they have no clue what those people have gone through? Expecting that would be us not trying to empathize with them. That said, that lack of empathy, or inability, could be rectified with a little perspective expansion, which might grease the wheels of our economy a little bit and get some dollars flowing into education and jobs for the lower middle class.
Blast those billionaires into space. Get them tripping on the seeing-us-all-as-one train. They own (enough of) everything and can benefit the most people by decreasing the worker mistreatment, environmental destruction, and economic damage mega-wealthy CEO capitalism causes when the wealth is centered in communities that aren’t thinking anywhere beyond their own self-interests (i.e. profit) because the wealth-holders haven’t been exposed to the true emotional third-person impacts of their actions that they are usually totally ignorant of through potentially no fault of their own. (Or you could just say that they don't care and are evil, but for the exercise of this essay let's just suspend that in favor of some optimism.)
Capitalism is the most powerful economic system as of yet invented by humans. It can greatly raise the standard of living for whole societies. For that, it’s a beautiful thing. However, as a system based in quid pro quo-fueled competition (and especially with little regulation), someone is always excluded or marginalized. Because it's not really quid-pro-quo if you would never make a deal you'd lose money on. What people earn or sell things for and what they deserve are not equal, they are what people can get away with. And with more money and political power you can get away with more and more till someone mixes in a complete disregard for ethics and you've run away from the rest of the economy with all the loot.
Maybe a trip to the moon will get more people feeling more warm and fuzzy inside to lubricate society's wealth chutes. Not so they can make a society where everyone is rich or even equal. I’m talking about a society where we’re able to ensure the bottom levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to the population. Food, shelter, warmth, education, and health care. Ensured. Civilization has evolved to the point that that’s what we should be able to give people. Because those things aren't entitlements, they are basic human rights, and we need to begin constructing economic systems that are riding the seeing-us-all-as-one train. The amount of wealth in this country is ridiculous compared to those who have so little, and the way the wealth is distributed isn’t even fair either. Men still make far more than women and minorities make less than whites. Is the free market racist? Doesn’t even make sense.
But the best counterargument defenders of the free market like to point to here are the freeloaders who suck services out of the government and mooch off welfare. Never mind that many (probably most) of those people have been given less opportunities and resources due to their race or class, there are still people who don’t work hard enough and rely on welfare instead of getting a job. Again, notwithstanding that the unemployment rate can never be zero, I have an idea for those people as well. First, welfare-to-work is not a bad idea for those who can work. Some people need treatment or mental health services, and we can definitely a little better as a whole about getting those to people. Also, we have to accept that not everyone is going to be able to work. Tough. Still, we have to figure out how to take care of them.
But for those who can work and don’t, the lazy ones that champions of capitalism are really afraid of, click off their TVs and load them on the school bus because it’s time for community service. Landscaping for nonprofits, serving food to the needy, cleaning community centers, visiting children’s hospitals and hospice wards. Perspective expansion. I’m in too.
Honestly, there are far easier ways of expanding your empathetic outreach than going to space or volunteering in hospice. Travel. Read. Understand people who are different than you, especially if they disagree with a strong personal belief of yours. See the human commonalities. How they survive, who their family is, what they enjoy and why. That stuff’s more important than so much of what we believe anyway.
But going to space couldn’t hurt, especially if you can pay for it. And if you happen across an extra ticket you want to sell cheap, please let me know. I'd like a window seat please.
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