The wrong side won WW2.

submitted by radicalcentristNational Centrism from self.debatealtright

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[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

That's more or less it, yeah. I just don't see the point. There's way more interesting and relevant stuff here on earth. There's literally nothing to do in space. Even if we create utopian sci-fi level technology while somehow magically avoiding all the possible threats posed by technological progress, I still do not see what could be gained by venturing into space. It's still just a big, empty void. Space colonisation wouldn't really make that much of a difference as a form of "insurance" either, but it would introduce endless complications to everything about our political and economic life.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

Splendid

[–]NeoRail 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

That's another thing I find strange.

>there's a bunch of gas and some big rocks floating in space

>therefore we are insignificant

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I've always thought of the insignificant part as a matter of scale, i.e. quantitative rather than qualitative.

https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/t_share/MTc0NjQxMzA4OTY1NTQ1OTc0/the-size-of-the-sun-as-compare-to-the-other-stars.jpg

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Sure, but how does that matter? We've got big rocks on earth too, but you wouldn't say they're more significant than us just because they're large.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yes and no. We're far more relative in size to them than some of those astral bodies. The one on the bottom left, Sol, is our sun. I think some people are just in awe of how big some things supposedly are. Like if a man is 2 m, and a mountain is 20,000 m high, you can still proportion yourself to that. But say something is like 20B m in width, it's beyond our scale of comprehension in the same way that mountain is.

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I understand being impressed by the size of stars etc, I just don't see how that ties into questions of significance at all.

Like if a man is 2 m, and a mountain is 20,000 m high, you can still proportion yourself to that. But say something is like 20B m in width, it's beyond our scale of comprehension in the same way that mountain is.

I sincerely doubt this. Can you really imagine something 10 000 - 15 000 times taller than you? Objects that large are already treated only abstractly by the mind, same as the astral bodies.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Can you really imagine something 10 000 - 15 000 times taller than you?

Maybe not taller cause I don't travel vertically that often, but imagining something that is 20 km away isn't so hard is it? I can run a 5k and then imagine what three more would be like.

I'm just trying to put myself in a frame of mind and guessing where the insignificance thing might make sense. I guess I'm just going a few more decimal places where the imagination has a harder time scaling things.

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It seems you are talking about using your sense of distance here rather than imagining any specific object, but I see no point in us getting bogged down on peripheral arguments like this. We can just agree to disagree.

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Neil de grasse Tyson popularized this particular brand of stupidity.