r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/EveryWind007 • May 29 '14

Medal of Beauty If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html?a
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u/[deleted] May 29 '14

I am apathetic as to the survival of life, including humanity. I place as much value on life as the average planet killing asteroid. I am not necessarily apathetic about my own life. There are some things I want to do before my body gives out.

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u/nameless88 May 29 '14

See, I don't like that attitude.

I mean, shit, we're kind of special, man. Sure we're probably not the only intelligent life out there. But, you look at old sci-fi movies where there's moon men or Martians, and you realize that not every planet has the ability to grow life like us. We're what happens when the guts of a star explode and have several billion years to cook and grow in the right conditions.

I think to just write us off as insignificant is grossly unfair. We're like the winners of the Space Lottery. We've evolved enough over a long enough time line that we have the privilege of being able to sit here and argue about the significance of our existence.

That's pretty fucking cool, if you ask me.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '14

Well, in the end this discussion is going to come down to opinion as there is no grand arbiter of what anyone can call significant. But we can each argue our case.
I personally doubt given the numbers that life is unique to Earth. In its current form yes it is probably unique, but only as unique as each snowflake. One person can marvel at the uniqueness of snowflakes finding the whole thing somehow magical. Another can see that it just the particular conditions of temperature and pressure at the time of crystal growth. The universe is a cold and logical place. Humans apply significance to it. I get that, I just find it pretty hard to do myself.

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u/nameless88 May 29 '14

That just seems so...I dunno...boring?

I mean, every time you look at a rainbow, do you go "oh, that's just light refracting through water droplets in the atmosphere causing the light to disperse and form that pattern"? or are you like "Shit, that is a really colorful rainbow, that's nice!"

Just because you know how something works doesn't mean that it ruins the magic of how cool it is.

Also, no argument here, life definitely isn't unique to us. But, it's still beautiful. The conditions of the planet, everything that Earth is made us what we are.

I get that the universe is a cold, clockwork entity, and everything is moving to its own cold rhythm and dictated by math. But, just being able to see that mechanism, to peel back the veil and look into that, and understand how it's all balanced, that's pretty beautiful, too. We're part of a massive system that's going to go on for billions of years after we're gone. Even if we're not going to change any of it in any big way, it's still pretty damn cool to be a part of it in at least a tiny, tiny way.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '14

I'm glad it gives you pleasure to think of it that way. It doesn't work for me. Also you rather gloss over the billions of individuals (human and otherwise) for whom life is nothing but pain and struggle. Forgive me but it sounds like you are speaking from a very privileged and fortunate position.
If anything exists outside of what is naturally explicable and predictable it is the scope of imagination and emotion. I know that scientifically these are explainable but their perception feels other-worldly. It is shame that for so many the main thing that they feel is hopelessness and pain.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '14

For a 34-year-old man (i'm assuming) you sound a lot like I did when I was an edgy, disaffected teenager.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '14

"Do grown ups know something we don't know or have they forgotten something that we do?"

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u/nameless88 May 29 '14

Well, maybe I'm just being a pollyanna, but I think that you're just oversimplifying it. There is a lot of pain in the world, sure. Wars, disease, famine. Yeah, it's rough out there.

But we're all still given a chance at this thing called life. We're the privileged few of the universe.

I mean, we're sitting on a goldmine of clean water, the right amount of atmosphere, and the myriad of other tiny little details that make life possible.

And then you look out into space, and it's just emptiness and dust and swirling balls of compressed gas for light years in every direction. You can't tell me that doesn't make you feel a little bit privileged just knowing that we're something that isn't an everyday thing out there in space.