Agreed he can be pompous but I think since he’s an astronomer he is making the point that if you were in space and looked at earth you would wonder why are there borders
Because it turns out sociology, anthropology and politics also exist.
If you were in space and looked at Earth you wouldn’t see any people.
EDIT: Crap, someone is going to point out that you can see lights at night, aren’t they? This thread is for pedants and now I’ve started a conversation about biomarkers you can see from orbit.
The whole point is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can change it if we wanted to, we are participants of sociology anthropology and politics. Oh well social constructs
Yeah, but that’s my point. There’s a tendency, particularly on STEM people, but also on your average normies, to think that “social constructs” aren’t “real”. This is a very bad take that often causes a lot of problems.
Ofc it’s real. Money is a construct and it’s real.
But what we made creates so much suffering and takes lives away. That’s just not necessary.
And ofc changing it will probably take some power away from the previliged, that’s the point. Ideally we want everyone to be satisfied, but not when there’s still people dying of starvation.
I don’t know that I claimed it’d take power away from the privileged. If I had to make an educated guess, the idea that “it’s a social construct so we can change it” tends to lead to proposing easy solutions to complicated problems that only work if we all agree they work.
They normally don’t work.
And if the people proposing them are powerful enough to get convinced that all they need to do is force everybody to agree with them regardless it often ends in tears.
Hell, catch me in a good day I’ll tell you changing natural realities is easier than changing social constructs. On par at best, and nature at least won’t argue about it.
Proposing easy solution to complicate problems is never my point.
My point is we can stop actively reinforcing the construct that hurts people, or at least be open to be more lenient about it. And see where that leads us to. We don’t want to just drop in a complete new construct and have everyone agree to it, I don’t think that’s even possible. But change in a direction we want to and let the rest develop naturally, just like how we developed the current system.
Obviously it’s not easy, it’s complicated as you said. But the current system requires active reinforcement. Doing a little less is a whole lot better than doing more to hurt.
There are heaps of examples of those that aren’t political borders, though. I live between a river and some mountains. The other side of the river is another county but still the same country, and the other side of the nearest mountains isn’t even another county. Egypt is on both sides of the Nile and also on both sides of the Africa-Asia border, Russia is on both sides of the Urals and the Europe-Asia border (wherever you draw it, if you draw it at all), America is on both sides of the Rockies and so on
Part of the other side of the river is Mexico, another part is New Mexico, the nearest mountains have Texas on both sides—it just happened to also fit your description. Kind of wild that there is a part of Scotland that has the same unusual artificial and natural barriers.
Agreed he can be pompous but I think since he’s an astronomer he is making the point that if you were in space and looked at earth you would wonder why are there borders
Because it turns out sociology, anthropology and politics also exist.
If you were in space and looked at Earth you wouldn’t see any people.
EDIT: Crap, someone is going to point out that you can see lights at night, aren’t they? This thread is for pedants and now I’ve started a conversation about biomarkers you can see from orbit.
I’m going to point out that you edited without editing.
Next level pedantry.
You probably would though, there are no single manned space missions far as I know.
But you can see lights on the dark side!!
The whole point is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can change it if we wanted to, we are participants of sociology anthropology and politics. Oh well social constructs
Yeah, but that’s my point. There’s a tendency, particularly on STEM people, but also on your average normies, to think that “social constructs” aren’t “real”. This is a very bad take that often causes a lot of problems.
Ofc it’s real. Money is a construct and it’s real.
But what we made creates so much suffering and takes lives away. That’s just not necessary. And ofc changing it will probably take some power away from the previliged, that’s the point. Ideally we want everyone to be satisfied, but not when there’s still people dying of starvation.
I don’t know that I claimed it’d take power away from the privileged. If I had to make an educated guess, the idea that “it’s a social construct so we can change it” tends to lead to proposing easy solutions to complicated problems that only work if we all agree they work.
They normally don’t work.
And if the people proposing them are powerful enough to get convinced that all they need to do is force everybody to agree with them regardless it often ends in tears.
Hell, catch me in a good day I’ll tell you changing natural realities is easier than changing social constructs. On par at best, and nature at least won’t argue about it.
Proposing easy solution to complicate problems is never my point.
My point is we can stop actively reinforcing the construct that hurts people, or at least be open to be more lenient about it. And see where that leads us to. We don’t want to just drop in a complete new construct and have everyone agree to it, I don’t think that’s even possible. But change in a direction we want to and let the rest develop naturally, just like how we developed the current system.
Obviously it’s not easy, it’s complicated as you said. But the current system requires active reinforcement. Doing a little less is a whole lot better than doing more to hurt.
You know continents, rivers and mountain ranges exist?
There are heaps of examples of those that aren’t political borders, though. I live between a river and some mountains. The other side of the river is another county but still the same country, and the other side of the nearest mountains isn’t even another county. Egypt is on both sides of the Nile and also on both sides of the Africa-Asia border, Russia is on both sides of the Urals and the Europe-Asia border (wherever you draw it, if you draw it at all), America is on both sides of the Rockies and so on
El Paso?
No, I’m in Scotland. Isn’t the other side of the river from El Paso across the Mexican border anyway?
Part of the other side of the river is Mexico, another part is New Mexico, the nearest mountains have Texas on both sides—it just happened to also fit your description. Kind of wild that there is a part of Scotland that has the same unusual artificial and natural barriers.
Your point is?
Earth is beautiful!