Comment by rybosome
6 hours ago
I just came across this poem a few days ago and had the opportunity to think about it.
It’s a valuable perspective to hear. As someone prone to getting caught up in the breathless excitement about science, progress, human achievement, etc., it is a hard truth that these things are abstract and not relevant for people who are struggling with day-to-day life, particularly when those struggles are a result of the same government that is executing this mission.
However, the older I get, the less I bind to the idea of a single, correct truth. This perspective doesn’t invalidate the perspective that the mission is valuable. The complexity of the system in which this is taking place means that these things (moon missions and affordable healthcare) aren’t fungible for one another; his poverty wasn’t the result of the moon mission, it was the result of EVERYTHING that had happened over the 100 years prior.
So it’s useful to hear. It’s a sharp, valid reality check for those of us who like to think in big, abstract concepts. And, it’s one perspective among myriad valid perspectives.
Kind of a false dichotomy. How about medical care as a right for a big abstract concept? He's not anti-science here, he's against the inequality of its distribution.
> Kind of a false dichotomy.
That’s precisely my point. Some stanzas in the poem suggest that there’s a direct connection between the moon mission and his poverty.
> The man just upped my rent last night > cause Whitey’s on the moon
> Was all that money I made last year > For Whitey on the moon?
And my point then was that I can see and empathize with his frustration, but I don’t feel it’s a singularly correct perspective to the exclusion of the perspective that the missions were of great value.
But he's not blaming his poverty on "whitey on the moon" but the lack of healthcare. There is an opportunity cost to war, Moon/Mars missions etc.
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I don't think it's actually a useful perspective at all. The poem is racial resentment repackaged as a means to guilt trip people into feeling bad about adventure, science, and exploration. Unless they were pretty well read at a young age, most millennials probably first experienced this poem in the film First Man, where it is read as a backdrop to Apollo 11 traveling to the moon. It's a great scene because the juxtaposition is stark. We can either hold ourselves back an an endless and futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty and inequality, or we can explore the stars. It's an easy choice.
> We can either hold ourselves back an an endless and futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty and inequality, or we can explore the stars. It's an easy choice.
Wait... Are you suggesting that "exploring the stars" is less of an endless and futile journey than dealing with poverty and inequality?
No, not at all.
I am saying that there we never be a world in which poverty and inequality do not exist, unless we are all dead. Maybe it's because I'm an American, but this perspective that grand adventure and exploration is pointless or not worth it is totally foreign to me.
Solving poverty and inequality is for the short term - they'll come back and need solving again no matter how many times you already solved them. But once the stars are explored, they stay explored forever. So yea, that's moving forwards and the other isn't.
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Is it meant to guilt trip people? Or is it an honest expression of the frustration (and yes, racial resentment) that the author feels?
This is why I consider it a useful perspective to hear. I read this as a human being simply saying “this is how I feel in these circumstances”.
It’s uncomfortable, and I don’t believe that space exploration should be gated on solving poverty and inequality, but it is important to understand that an intelligent, thoughtful human being arrived at this place.
In a sense I feel that this is actually an appeal to the same sense of curiosity that drives space exploration. Why do we explore space? To learn and understand. Why should we consider human perspectives we don’t agree with? To learn and understand.
> an endless and futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty and inequality
It’s very telling that you think poverty can’t be solved.
—
I can't pay no doctor bills
But whitey's on the moon
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still
While whitey's on the moon
The man just upped my rent last night
Cause whitey's on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
But whitey's on the moon
I wonder why he's upping me?
Cause whitey's on the moon?
Well I was already giving him fifty a week
With whitey on the moon.
Rest in peace Gil-Scott Heron.
> We can either hold ourselves back an an endless and futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty and inequality, or we can explore the stars. It's an easy choice.
"Sorry, poor people; but I want to live on Jupiter so you're just gonna have to starve to death".
What a loser
Yea what other technological progress was only wanted by losers? Most of it, by your standard. Yet it's also technological progress that has reduced poverty. You don't care about the people of the future and want to keep them in poverty for the sake of the people of today. I wouldn't call you a loser for that but you do have bad morals.
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