What do you make of this 4-minute video?

Meh. I enjoyed the video, but it didn’t “put perspective” into my life. It was no new information. I feel like we all know this stuff, even if we don’t act like it.

It was ok, nothing grand.
My take away:

Imagined Self Importance!

Super Hero pissed himself!

This was more noteworthy for me 3 Things I learned while my plane crashed

@ETpro Hilarious. Not even 30 minutes ago I put this video in a paper I was writing, in it I was talking about just how insignificant and small our entire planet is. Everything we’ve ever experienced is nothing when compared to the whole universe. We are ourselves living in the macro world. We are special and we need to take care of what we have here.

The video didn’t play properly for me, but the original is here.

Sagan wrote a book titled Pale Blue Dot, and his Demon-Haunted World reads almost like poetry. To use a phrase from Sagan’s only work of fiction (Contact), “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” He had a way of getting his point across. That it’s both obvious and unoriginal does not diminish its meaning in my life.

I refuse to watch, that’s 4mins of my life i’d never get back.

It’s a hackneyed message for me. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean. It doesn’t change a thing about how we live our lives, nor what is important to us. Are we myopic? Hell yeah! Show me one practical reason why we shouldn’t be. We are where it’s at.

Oops – I meant to say the original is here, though it’s apparently one of several versions

What perspective is that?

@burntbonez You mean, who took the picture?! An explanation is here:

The photo…was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 as it sailed away from Earth, more than 4 billion miles in the distance. Having completed its primary mission, Voyager at that time was on its way out of the Solar System, on a trajectory of approximately 32 degrees above the plane of the Solar System. Ground Control issued a command that directed the distant space craft to turn around and, looking back, take photos of each of the planets it had visited. From Voyager’s vast distance, the Earth was captured as a infinitesimal point of light…actually smaller than a single pixel of the photo…Quite by accident, the Earth was captured in one of the scattered light rays caused by taking the image at an angle so close to the Sun.

There’s a Wikipedia article, too, which notes that the photo was taken at Sagan’s request.

Voyager 1 was in the news just today!

That’s just one perspective, there are others. I thought Sagan’s point was made more effectively when we saw the Earth rising above the moon’s barren horizon back in the 1970’s. It didn’t stop us destroying the planet but it did make a point.

While this was not new to me it may be for some, and it presents a perspective that everyone should keep somewhere in the back of their mind.

I think the imagery invoked is powerful… but I think that too few of us are listening.

@livelaughlove21 I have to think if we really know these things, it changes how we behave.

@blueiiznh That’s a great TED talk. Thanks for the link.

@uberbatman Well there’s a small-world story for you. :-)

@wundayatta Sure about that?

@burntbonez If the 4 minute film didn’t answer that question, I doubt I can in a few words written here.

@gasman GA. Thanks for the alternate link to the film, and also for the great perspective on Sagan’s message and the links to the original “blue dot” photo from Voyager I and the link on its current exploits.

@flutherother Those who would destroy the planet for profit are so focused on money they can see nothing else.

@Bill1939 Amen.

@Linda_Owl Sadly so.