My dad was a contingency engineer during the Apollo moon shots and worked for JPL most of my life. I was sold the dreams as a toddler of reaching for the stars, Seeking out new life and civilizations etc.
And I’m really sore that we gave up that for a global religious supercult and a slow death killing the global ecology.
The assholes stole the future from us. We need to take it back.
the best part (and I mean that with extreme sarcasm) of this farce we find ourselves in in the US, of course, is that any future I can imagine is going to be bleak regardless of what happens.
oh hey trump’s out of office – one way or another? great, what about all the criminal fucks surrounding him that have enriched themselves and furthered their political careers because of him? the neo-nazi ideas that are gaining acceptance because we watched the world’s richest man make two Nazi salutes at a presidential inauguration, and not one fucking major news outlet could bring themselves to call a spade a spade? how’s all that goin’?
you’ve dealt with all of that? fantastic. now you just have to convince the American population that healthcare isn’t socialism, trans people don’t want to turn their kids gay, oh, and that rich people are actually their enemy. Well, them, and the Russian and Chinese governments (no, tankies, this comment isn’t for you either, blow me). you know, instead of just constantly having asinine culture wars with ourselves. Good luck with that.
oh yeah by the way in a little while Taiwan’s probably getting invaded because their independence hurts China’s fee-fees and that’s gonna fuck the global electronics industry really bad for… a not insignificant amount of time, lets say. And that’s probably a conflict we’re actually going to get tied up in, unlike invading Greenland (hopefully).
oh hey you’ve dealt with all of that? … somehow??? that’s cute, hey, by the way, the climate is so totally fucked now that in the near future, wars over access to food and clean water are now almost all but inevitable. and the ocean (and everything else) is full of plastic. glhf!!
When I see young kids nowadays, I feel so depressed knowing what they’re going to have to grow up dealing with.
We could have had Star Trek instead we get Mad Max.
NASA is about to have its budget slashed, which will be devastating for space science. Private industry does not and cannot fill the gap. Please write to your congressman to save NASA and science funding: https://www.planetary.org/advocacy-action-center#/53
…back to the future was WAY off…
Back to the Future 2 nailed it.
…i hate having to upvote you…
This one hurt a bit too close to home.
In high school and college I did believe that in my lifetime humanity would really start space exploration and colonization.
I studied engineering and did everything I could to contribute to this great advancement of humanity. I got a double master degree in aerospace manufacturing, specialized in the machining of exotic alloys used in aerospace, worked on rocket engines, developed new machining techniques that unlocked new possibilities for aircraft engines performances and was working my way up to be one of the few people in Europe highly specialized on machining technique for these alloys used in aerospace.
Then in 2016 I read more and more about “Collapse”, more specifically the collapse of our thermo industrial civilization. We are not going to colonize space, we will be lucky if most of humanity does not die in the coming century.
So rather than contributing to the future of humanity with my work I was contributing to worsen the condition of life on earth by accelerating climate change and the uses of resources.
I had a bit of an existential crisis at this point.
Innovation is good. The issue is mass use of plastics and excessive consumption, not advanced aerospace engineering
One of the worst thing you can curse someone with: “may you live in interesting times”
Yeah, Star Trek reference, still fits
Its also a curse on the discworld
Reminded me of Terry Pratchett, personally.
Yeah, the Star Trek claim doesn’t sit well with me. Rightly so it turns out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times
But Terry Pratchett made it a trilogy:
The phrase “may you live in interesting times” is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue “may you come to the attention of those in authority” and finish with “may the gods give you everything you ask for.” I have no idea about its authenticity.
Interesting, I thought it was something the Voyager writes made up
It’s been around a while; as evidenced by the Wikipedia article the other commenter provided, at least since 1936, with unsubstantiated claims of it being an older Chinese saying / curse.
I’ve pretty much only heard it from Pratchett books or fellow Pratchett fans, though.
It’s shockingly often that I think to myself, “what are kids gonna read about this in history books when I’m an old man?”
Bold of you to assume we’ll have books. Or a future…
Hopefully the truth.
But seeing how history still needs to be retold in some places, it might take a while.
It depends on who or what takes over the failed USA, I guess, because “history is told by the victors”, at least initially.
I no longer need the movies to titillate me. Fucking reality is just insane.
Who needs The Onion anymore?
I’ve imagined a history book with one of trumps dumbass fucking quotes in it too many times.
School children in the future being forced to include “covfefe” in their reports.
