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In terms of science communication and space exploration advocacy, Elon Musk has sent us back into the fucking Stone Age.

It’s hard enough to encourage the public to see the value in space exploration, especially when the problems facing society right now are so intense that space exploration seems frivolous and needlessly expensive by comparison (keyword “seems”) but now that this clown is the face of the future of space, it’s doubling, hell, tripling down on the idea that space exploration is a fantasy for bored billionaires that would rather fuck off to mars and escape the problems of earthly society (problems that they had a starring role in creating) rather than spend a penny of their wealth to help remedy them. Tale as old as time for a science communicator. Heard it a million times. But now it’s so much harder to get people to understand the other side of the coin because the nightmare scenario is already here and his name is elongated muskrat

To add a little bit of context as to what that value actually is… The thing I hear the most in this conversation is “we need to take care of this planet before we start thinking about other ones.” Yes, I agree. The well-being of our planet and it’s people should be out top priority. But we can’t properly take care of our planet if we don’t fully understand it.

The Earth does not exist in a bubble. It’s part of a dynamic and ever-evolving solar system, and galaxy and universe. He have to look at the earth in that context to be able to know and care for it. To care for a planet, we have to know how planets work. When doctors treat patients they look at the medical record, they look at family history, they look at symptoms and compare them to known diseases to find a diagnosis.

How did the earth form? What was it like in the past? Why did it change? That’s the medical record.

We’ve got the earths siblings in the neighborhood. Why is Mars a frozen desert? Why is Venus a molten hell scape? Could those things happen here? That’s the family history.

What kinds of things are floating around our neighborhood? Could they affect us? All this is necessary to diagnose the Earths problem, to anticipate the direction it’s going, and to help it heal.

And the minute we get an asteroid scare, that’s when folks start asking why we weren’t looking up 🙄

As a science communicator at a well known establishment, 10000x this. We have a student program that talk about Earth systems and how missions like Landsat were so useful to understand our own planet better FROM SPACE. I could go on and on but just, like, reread OP's thoughts, they're perfect.

This feels way too plausible

The United States Disappeared Tracker is “tracking persons politically arrested, detained, or disappeared by the Trump regime since March 9, 2025”.

In addition, We Are Higher Ed and Forward are tracking campus abductions specifically.

Tons of mileage to be had out of this image so thought I'd share it

studying roman history is a fucking nightmare

the student said, "i'm reading a zen buddhist cookbook. with no recipes." and the teacher replied, "ah, dogen's instructions for the cook, written in 1237?" "yeah," said the student, "it's saying not to let rats fall into the rice pot"

letting rats fall into the rice pot violates the buddhist concept of nonviolence, ahimsa. and this is one of the more dauntingly advanced cookbooks i've ever seen

ingredients: 1 grain of dust.

step 1 turn the Wheel of Reality within the grain of dust

"There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: These horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead.

"No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness. Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul."

Here’s dril’s candles on a graph for reference.

learning music theory taking me places i don't feel safe in

“One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. *** He “began to whimper,” as his head was roughly shaved, “folding his hands in prayer as his hair fell.” He “asked for his mother & cried as he was slapped again.”

Story below the cut to avoid a paywall.

👉🏿 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-detained-us-immigration-jasmine-mooney

when i say yall need to be wearing masks NOW, do you think i don't mean it?

you think im doing it for the haha?

x x ignoring it will not protect you or your loved ones from disability

x it won't stop you from infecting and ruining a persons life, possibly killing them

x get. a grip. find some solidarity and common sense within you. put on a mask