We really will one day all be as one..

[Fumesucker]

I took my grandchildren to see the 2009 Star Trek reboot, all five of them. About halfway through the scene with Nimoy I realized I had tears trickling down my cheeks and it took me a little while to figure out why. Sitting there with my beloved descendants I didn't and don't believe we have a hopeful future ahead of us like the one in Star Trek, with a benign Federation and an open, egalitarian and post-capitalistic society. I realized that I think my grandchildren will probably not have the same opportunity I had to thrive in an open and relatively free society albeit a less than perfect one in many ways. I think the future is more likely to be Bladerunner or Clockwork Orange or Snow Crash or Rollerball or Elysium or any number of other dystopian films and novels I have experienced. I now think the power of human greed and hate is just too strong as I watch what is happening in this country and in so many places around the world.

I have lost hope.

From the stars our bodies largely come and to our star they will eventually go, we are all starstuff but some of us shine a little more brightly than others. Godspeed Leonard, our atoms will in due time be mixed and we will all indeed be as one.

[AtheistCrusader]

1. I like to think of it like a sine wave.

We go down the apathy road a bit, and people take advantage of us, and then we rally and say 'fuck you' and push back, and things get better, till apathy starts to take over again...

I'm a pessimist, but I still hope...

[Fumesucker]

3. In a couple of Frank Herbert's less well known books stars are conscious beings..

Perhaps that is our fate and purpose, to become part of a conscious star, we're going there sooner or later anyway.

It's as good a theology as any, given what we can see of the complexity of the closest star, our Sun.

Stars evolve along the main sequence and they are incredibly complex with vast knotted and intertwined magnetic and electric fields.

A main sequence red giant eventually shrinks to a white dwarf and they last a very long time, even by geological standards.

[roguevalley]

6. Optimus Prime says until all are one. I love him as

much as I love Leonard. Thank you for this.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Going to be another sad day, some day, when we lose Peter Cullen.

Another story that probably reached as many kids as Star Trek ever did.

( I was a bit sad when Leonard Nimoy played Sentinel Prime in Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, being a bad guy. George Takei got a part in the show Transformers Prime though, as the character Alpha Trion.)

[roguevalley]

8. It will be terrible when Peter Cullen goes.

What a bunch of remarkable men and their beautiful voices. They really are wonderful. I am a fanatic transformers fan because my first graders brought their toys to school in the early 1980's and when they played with them during math, I would put them on my desk. I played with them too. You should see my toy collection. I still collect.

The only thing bearable about Sentinel was his voice. I hear you on the sad.

Until all are one, AtheistCrusader.

[Mnemosyne]

2. Word... K&R nt

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. To quote Jim Carrey in his commencement speech to the Maharishi University of Management last year

"Give faith a chance. I don't believe in hope. Hope walks through fire. Faith leaps over it"
(OK, probably more of a paraphrase)


Worth the 26 minutes to watch;

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Meh.

From where I'm standing, faith is zero effort. Hope requires I get my hands dirty.

[cbayer]

9. I am sad that you have lost hope.

I hope that you are able to spend a lot of time with those grandchildren. I find few things that offer me the kind of hope that children do.

Leonard Nimoy was a good man and will be missed.

[Fumesucker]

10. You remember the cartoon I posted a little while back with the defiant mouse?

That's my attitude about 95% of the time.. Loss of hope doesn't necessarily imply despair.



I'm about back to normal now..

[cbayer]

11. Glad you are getting back up.

I noticed that you had done a lot of personal posting lately, and I hope that it was helpful and cathartic for you. You did get a significant amount of support.

I'm not the defiant mouse. While I will stand up for myself, the ones I love and issues that are important to me, I tend to avoid conflict IRL.

I did raise my voice with some particularly obnoxious dog owners yesterday.

[Fumesucker]

12. Defiance doesn't have to be loud necessarily

More like damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead..

I learned celestial navigation a long time ago, it was something the astronomy club had a seminar on and they had a sextant we could practice with.. I always liked the idea of setting my course by the stars.

Even today if you drop me off anywhere I can see the sky at night I can have a fairly good idea of the latitude without any instruments at all.

I found the book "Longitude" to be fascinating..

http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-Problem/dp/080271529X

[cbayer]

13. I have celestial navigation on my list of things I want to learn.

We are in an anchorage with some really excellent astronomy buffs. They get on the VHF radio at night and give lessons on the sky. I think you would really enjoy it and probably have a lot to contribute.

"Longitude" looks like a great book. GPS and digital charts have made things so easy, but having someone around who can do the job if they failed would be great.