Carl Sagan sadly still dead

But all experiences you have, by definition, are subjective experiences. You can’t have an objective experience- you are your own subject.

2 Likes

Isn’t contrarian factualism the very definition of being pedantic?

Edit: as much as I admire his lectures, probably a third of everything Tyson tweets is just him being pedantic.

Nah, he completely misses the point and comes across like one of those privileged people who richsplain stuff to the poor. Even though average North Americans are insanely rich compared to most of the world, most of them will not be able to travel to see the next solar eclipse. Or any other. Not even taking in account the many happening when the sky is likely grey or that you’d need a ship. So yes, eclipses to be observed by common people, directly, not in front of a TV, are a rare thing.

The comparison to the olympics is downright stupid, because the ability to participate doesn’t change measurably because of where it happens, neither for the athletes nor the spectators in the stadiums. For the vast majority of the interested people, like with the Football World Cup, it’s just a matter of time zones and scheduling sleep accordingly. And perhaps having a boss who puts up a TV screen and allows breaks, on the understanding that you’ll catch up on your work!

It’s not rare. Wow, what a great fact! Here’s another fact: Human kids aren’t rare either, it’s not like there is a shortage. And many are just plain average. Doesn’t stop us from developing vaccines even for the youngest ones who don’t represent a big investment.

Another fact: Humans die. All of them. So it’s pointless to try saving one, to mourn their death or to talk about them.

Please, that’s why we have Spoiler Alerts.

I guess the comparison to the Olympics is pretty apt since people in the vicinity of wherever the Olympics are taking place do tend to get pretty excited (both negatively and positively) about them. And we do hear about where they’ll be taking place next years in advance.

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.