Thursday, August 09, 2012
Thursday Thinking - Curious Priorities
NASA has successfully landed the Curiosity Rover on Mars. It's amazing! What a display of human spirit and ingenuity! What an astounding feat of science, engineering, creativity, and financing!
I should be celebrating, right?
I'll be honest. While I am truly in awe at this accomplishment, I'm having trouble being happy about it. I think it's an amazing thing to do, but I'm having trouble thinking it's the right thing for us to be doing right now. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a spectacularly worthwhile thing to do, but I don't understand why it's more worthwhile than many other things. Why does Mars capture our imagination over other monumental challenges surrounding us?
Where are the op-ed pieces and social commentaries questioning the ethics of this project? I've seen a very obvious media effort on NASA's part to create interest, excitement, and support, and it seems to be working. I've been very surprised, however, at how little questioning or criticism there has been in the news or the blogosphere about all this. Where are the critics? I've tried to find them, but they don't seem to be out there.
Should I really be happy about NASA's Curiosity Mission? Is Mars really the best focus of our best energy, creativity, scientific expertise, and dollars? Why don't we get excited about missions on our own planet to end poverty, cure disease, supply clean water, provide healthy sanitation, end wars, educate children? How is it we can nail a landing on Mars, but we can't fix a healthcare system?
So much of what we humans do--even the best of what we do--seems to be an exercise in missing the point. This Mars project certainly doesn't miss the point as badly as other things we do (wars, movie budgets, Olympics, bottled water, pet toys, etc). Still, should I really be happy about something simply because it's not as wasteful or misdirected as other things? Why should I celebrate great successes if they're the wrong successes.
I'm excited to see what we're able to do. I love scientific advances. I really do want to stand up and cheer for human achievement and success. My hat is off to NASA. Beyond question, this mission to Mars is a tremendous demonstration of what is possible when we humans concentrate our best efforts toward accomplishing the seemingly impossible.
I just wish we would direct our passion and curiosity toward some big challenges right here on earth.
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Did you see Radio Free Babylon's comic on this subject yesterday? It was great!
ReplyDeleteOh please. You can spend billions for people, and you know what you will have? More problems, more wars, more needy people.
ReplyDeleteWhat else could you do? Give out free food? How long will that last?
I think it is a amazing that we got anything off the ground, and you know why? Because most Americans graduating school are too stupid to know how to spell space, let alone try to get a rocket to work. Did you see what composed most of the scientific team? Asians, Indians, etc., but not Americans. We are too busy failing math, and majoring in PE.
Map out a plan to spend billions to feed everyone, or provide housing, and see how far you get.
Well said, as always. RFB did a "Coffee With Jesus" strip yesterday making the same point, which I also shared on my Facebook page. On both the RFB site and my FB share, the comments were split, but for all those who dissented (or "disliked") the overarching viewpoint was that the need to advance science trumps all else. One of my friends said, "...we will wind up technologically backward if we ignore opportunities in the scientific world."
ReplyDeleteWhile that is a fair point it misses the bigger-picture message I think you and RFB have sent. The beginning half of the comment from the friend I quoted above was "There will always be a reason not to pursue science. We can chase down all of our nation's problems for eternity and never solve them..." I think this response is evidence of a pervasive attitude in our culture: resignation with a tinge of dualism. It is the "Well, we have run out of resources, ideas, and frontiers here on earth, so let's find out what we can discover beyond the local realm" sentiment. It is the, "We want to find the next state-of-the-art, but we want a clean canvas to work with...not one dirty and overused," thought process.
Couple those sentiments with the high-powered, media intensified influence of our amazement and wonder at human accomplishments and you end up with insatiable drive of "curiosity". How do we redirect such drive, such passion, to things needing discovery and re-discovery on earth? How does one begin the conversation? How do we place the dirty, used, broken canvas in front of our most brilliant scientists, thinkers, and entrepreneurs and inspire them to refresh, fix, recreate, and heal?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=494265713934310&set=a.329906680370215.92926.167938346567050&type=1&theater
ReplyDeleteEddie Mikell-- So you think science has nothing to offer in the way of addressing systemic problems in our world?
ReplyDeleteThe point I was making is that we might get somewhere toward solving major issues if the smart people (regardless of ethnicity or nationality) and the big bucks were actually committed to mapping out a plan and then executing it.
I think it's a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of smarts or fatalism. I don't think we're too dumb to do better, and I don't think problems on Earth matter less than missions on Mars.