Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M&feature=related



Look again at 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

 

Just a brief moment of perspective.…..

 

Yawn




















































Just kidn'
Cold hard facts.
I try to live my life with this mind-set.
I'm only here once so I want to live it up.

 

Good stuff because ultimately it won't mean a thing in hundred years. Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!

 

blah, blah, blah, blah

If I wan to feel insignificant, I’ll drink the church cool aid.

 

Tell that to the meglomaniacs, the Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, Ho Chi Minhs, Chavez, Saddams, bin Laden's, etc.

 

You think Ho was a meglomaniac?

 

And bin Laden? A relegious zelot, yes. Butt a meglomaniac?

 

I don't care how small and insignificant we are just so long as I get to ride. Eat drink and be merry? My idea of being merry is to be on two wheels as much as possible. Cause when I'm riding thoughts such as those Mr. Sagan has offered don't mean dick to me.

 

Ho decided that he was going to unite VN, no matter how many of the citizens were killed. In that how is he different from Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Kim Il Jung, etc?

 

What does uniting a country have to do with self-importance?

 

When I was young, I too thought it was important to eat, drink and feel Mary. She finally got up and left so I had to actually think about life as it is. :down:

Carl Sagan had a way of really putting things into prospective didn't he? I'm sorry he's gone.

 

and GW Bush

How did this thread get twisted so bad?

I was hoping people would have or could have advanced it.

 

And what's a meGLOmaniac?

Someone hooked on phophorescents?

 

President Bush did not act alone. Our 'representatives' also backed the invasion so I guess you could put forth the arguement that we have a bunch of meglomaniacs in Washington. This allegation would be hard to refute

 

Too true by half.

 

But on the other hand...

AFAWK - Earth is a unique, precious jewel in a sterile, lifeless universe.

 

The odds are quite against that...

 

Probably.

But we have no proof that its not. And even if its not, no other "Earth like" planet will be exactly like this one.

 

I don't need no proof, I believe!