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Post by pim on Jan 1, 2016 18:47:17 GMT 10
I think I'd like to see the movie but s/f isn’t a taste I share with my S/O so I'll go on my own sometime. I really wonder about the idea of humans venturing to other planets. I've always rejected the notion put about especially by Americans that there's an "exploration gene" that hard wires humans to do that thing with the split infinitive that starts episodes of Star Trek. My own studies of history brought me to the conclusion long ago that "push" factors have always been more important in movements of humans than "pull" factors. As for the space race, the "push" factor through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s was the Cold War in exactly the same way that Anglo/French rivalry was the "push" factor in 1770 in the British Admiralty ordering one of its junior officers to undertake a 3 year expedition to the South Pacific.
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Post by pim on Jan 1, 2016 20:26:03 GMT 10
The gold rushes can't be equated with Burke & Wills. I was fed the "heroic epic" narrative about Burke & Wills and the other explorers when I learned about them in primary school. Ever been to Bathurst in NSW? Founded in 1813 after the Blue Mts were crossed. First inland town etc etc, beginning of the further settlement of the Australian mainland beyond Sydney blah blah blah. To complete and underscore the "heroic epic" (split infinitive) theme of "to boldly go where no man has gone before" with all of the sexism and racism the phrase implies, there's a statue in Bathurst of John Oxley who explored a lot of outback NSW. What's interesting about the statue is the suitably heroic pose of Oxley as the fearless intrepid whitefella boldly going where no one had gone before - except of course for the Wiradjuri nation who'd lived there for millennia - and his blackfella "Tonto" character to whom one presumes he (Oxley) had been some sort of "kemo sabe", squatting submissively at Oxley's feet. Powerful stuff, this "heroic epic" theme! We all got fed it. I did and I'm sure you did. It's crap. The whitefellas who crossed inland Australia, and yes there were tragedies such as Burke & Wills and also Leichhardt, were sent out there to look for country that could be converted to pasture land. Plenty of heroic stuff in the actual expeditions undertaken by the guys who actually did it, nothing heroic in the motivations of the people who bankrolled them. The gold rushes weren't about "Let’s see what's out there!" Nothing of the "heroic epic" there. Just "get rich quick!".
As for outer space, I don't believe for a moment that the governments/corporations who will have to bankroll the trillions of $$$ in outfitting a manned mission to Mars will be motivated by the sort of stuff we're fed by Capt's Kirk and Picard. Sure, I agree it'll take guts on the part of the people who actually go there. But I can tell you this: I don't know what the "push" factor will be in outfitting and resourcing a manned expedition to Mars, but it'll involve such a huge outlay of money and resources that whatever the "push" factor might be it'll trump the "pull" factor in spades.
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Post by pim on Jan 1, 2016 21:03:46 GMT 10
Dies hard with you, this "heroic epic" thing, dunnit! Man "conquering" nature where "man" = intrepid whitefella. C'mon! Who do we hear about? The whitefella Kiwi who ended up getting a knighthood, or the darkie "native" who only ever has been called ... quick Yorick! What's his name! Five seconds ... tick tick tick tick tick bwaaaap! I'm sorry the guy's name was Tenzing. Who gives a shit what the bloody whitefella's name was ... Sir Lord Muck of Turd Island. Who sent them running up & down that bloody mountain? Who bankrolled them and what did Tenzing get out of it apart from a few beads and trinkets? For the whitefella it was a career-defining move. The Kiwis still brag about him. Fair enough I guess, but wasn't it a British expedition? So what British interests thought it worth their while to bankroll the £££ and what was in it for them? I'd wager quite a lot. A darned sight more than Tenzing ever got out of it.
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Post by pim on Jan 2, 2016 8:10:59 GMT 10
You're equating modern "adventure" tourism with exploration à la James Cook or Burke & Wills? I guess you are. I'm sure you'll find some angle and play "100 posts" worrying at it like a terrier
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Post by pim on Jan 2, 2016 8:13:30 GMT 10
Having said the above, I'm sure I'll see the movie sometime. I'm a sucker for sci fi too. But maybe on dvd rather than on the big screen.
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Post by pim on Jan 2, 2016 9:50:07 GMT 10
Exploration is supposed to be the heroic intrepid whitefella Capt Kirk/Capt Picard "go boldly where no one has gone before" bullshit, not a modern business model of middle class adventure tourism, even of the "extreme" variety. I've heard from ADF people stories of "treks" in the central Australian desert where ADF personnel would pit their survival skills against local indigenous tribespeople. Off would go the ADF guys in full kit for a fortnight's bush bashing to reach a particular destination. Competing would be initiated central Australian desert tribesmen clad only in a loincloth and carrying a couple of spears and a boomarang, and relying on their immense knowledge of bushcraft. The ADF didn't stand a chance. This was done, apparently, to teach the ADF guys that they had a lot to learn and that maybe, just maybe, there was something in traditional indigenous bushcraft that was of value to the ADF. To me the first lesson was a cultural one: in order to learn a different mindset you often first have to jettison a previous contrasting mindset and that can involve a cultural struggle. Whitefella ADF guys going bushbashing in full kit is very much in the old John Oxley/Burke & Wills fearless whitefella explorer conquering the wilderness stereotype. It's been an ecological disaster for this Australian landmass as 200 years of whitefella "pioneers" tried to force this alien landmass to behave in "our" way. We like to think that we've "conquered" it. Read Bill Gammage to see just how much our "heroic" conquer-the-wilderness mindset www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2011/december/1322699456/james-boyce/biggest-estate-earth-how-aborigines-made-australia-bill-g has ruined it. Or better still look at the devastation caused by bushfires. By contrast the blackfella tribesmen with their loincloths, spears, boomarangs and bushcraft didn't set out to "conquer" anything. They succeeded against the ADF because their approach was the direct antithesis of the intrepid-whitefella-explorer mindset. As for the idea behind "The Martian", quite frankly I don't believe it. But I am touched by your faith, Yorick! Faith?? Good God, don't tell me it comes down to faith!!! I'll watch it and probably enjoy it - but as a fantasy. A bit of escapism on a cold rainy winter's afternoon: "What's on Netflix? The Martian? Oh good-oh we haven't seen that yet, let's watch it!"
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Post by pim on Jan 2, 2016 10:27:46 GMT 10
Battery's getting low so I'm gonna have to recharge. What led them to "cross that river" or "climb that mountain"? Not curiosity! If you're into hunter/gathering 40 000 years ago you're too busy hunting & gathering to be curious. And when you're not hunting and gathering you're too busy making sure that your kith & kin aren't being eaten by predators or killed by hostile humans. Whatever the specific reason for crossing that river or climbing that mountain, it would be because "here" was no longer a good place to be so you had no choice but to go "there". Survival is probably the most basic and most powerful of all "push" factors.
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Post by pim on Jan 2, 2016 14:43:40 GMT 10
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Post by jody on Feb 9, 2016 21:51:21 GMT 10
Just watched it...loved it.
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Post by KTJ on Feb 10, 2016 13:33:43 GMT 10
What's interesting about the statue is the suitably heroic pose of Oxley as the fearless intrepid whitefella boldly going where no one had gone before - except of course for the Wiradjuri nation who'd lived there for millennia - and his blackfella "Tonto" character to whom one presumes he (Oxley) had been some sort of "kemo sabe", squatting submissively at Oxley's feet. Powerful stuff, this "heroic epic" theme! We all got fed it. I did and I'm sure you did. It's crap. The whitefellas who crossed inland Australia,... It always amuses me when you read the so-called “epic tales” of white-fella explorers in NZ, such as Charles Heaphy (who explored around the north-west of the South Island into Buller and down into Westland) and there is usually a footnote somewhere in the tale (a very tiny footnote) about the Maori guides who saved the great white explorers from drowning in the rivers, and who provided food when the explorer ran out, and who, when the explorer was totally lost and buggered, showed a shortcut route back across the mountains to where the great white explorer had started from. There were many other examples of that happening too. The so-called wild, unexplored country had been travelled through many, many times before by the Maori folk who were already in Aotearoa New Zealand before those white fellas turned up.
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