Aug 21

It’s not true.

Besides the 7 other planets orbiting our sun out of which a couple may potentially be habitable for humanity (excluding Jupiter and Saturn’s moons that seem very promising to many astronomers for some form of biological habitability), there are thousands of exoplanets already discovered by humans and perhaps billions that lie undiscovered, possibly the “world” of another civilization looking back at us from their terrestrial night sky.

After all, the sun is but another star, and our best scientific explanations suggest that there are still more planets orbiting these other “suns”, some Earth-like, some unlike any other we have witnessed before.

The popular bumper-sticker quote, “There is no planet b” then is a lie.

And quite literally too: The Kepler Space Telescope, launched by NASA in 2009 specifically aiming at the search for these so-called exoplanets discovered its 452nd planet in 2015 and named that particular planet planet “b”. That planet (Kepler-452b), is also called Earth’s Cousin by some due to its Earth-like characteristics.

Kepler-452 in space — Artist’s impression of Kepler-452b (source)

Turns out that you don’t have to think outside the box. You just need to realize how big the box actually is.

Pretty cool, huh?

“So are you saying we should not care about our planet and go on wasting its resources because we can just magically go to Mars?”

Firstly, I never said anything like that. Wasting is very different from spending. Some people casually accuse us humans of “wasting our Earth’s resources”. Let’s make this very clear: WE ARE NOT WASTING OUR PLANET’S RESOURCES, WE ARE SPENDING THEM.

Now usually, we spend or utilize our resources to make scientific, technological, societal, political, economic, moral or cultural progress. (Or progress in any mix of those areas.) And for that we require “natural” resources that we have cultivated and finely-tuned ourselves to act as a tool for our endeavors. Without our use of them, there would be no cars, no computers, not even fire!

There is nothing bad in optimizing our natural resources.

What is bad is not being able to solve our problems. Climate change, for example, is a problem. And a very real one indeed! We don’t want the Earth to turn anything like Venus.

But that problem CAN be solved.

Instead of saving our resources since “we’re gonna run out of them!” why not use our ingenuity like we have consistently been doing and utilize nature’s gifts to get us out of the problems that face us?

In the long run, not a static state of supposedly zero problems (what some try to seek) but only progress is sustainable. If we let loose, we might be captured by an unforeseen problem—the equivalent to an asteroid-like problem. To solve something like it, we need to better understand the world and broaden our scope of knowledge utilizing resources along the way and solving problems as fast as possible.

There’s always a planet b (to be taken metaphorically as well as literally).

And we won’t magically reach Mars. Not unless you regard the human potential for doing science “magic”.

The Amazing Things & Ideas List

Fascinating intro to stoicism through the lens of cyberspace:

This post is an insightful introduction to the philosophy of stoicism: a two-thousand year old practice that is now more relevant than ever.

It’s easy to get carried away with constant information flow and overstimulation, turning our lives into a series of reflex reactions.

Stoicism allows us to reclaim our agency, kick out the interruptions, and focus on what matters.

Definitely worth the read (for amateur stoics also).

“mind and heart”, a poem by Charles Bukowski

“unaccountably we are alone
forever alone
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way–
and when the death struggle
begins
the last thing I wish to see
is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me–
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let only them be there.
I have been alone but seldom
lonely.
I have satisfied my thirst
at the well
of my self
and that wine was good,
the best I ever had,
and tonight
sitting
staring into the dark
I now finally understand
the dark and the
light and everything
in between.
peace of mind and heart
arrives
when we accept what
is:
having been
born into this
strange life
we must accept
the wasted gamble of our
days
and take some satisfaction in
the pleasure of
leaving it all
behind.
cry not for me.
grieve not for me.
read
what I’ve written
then
forget it
all.
drink from the well
of your self
and begin
again.”