Complex Numbers

Lunacy

PROMPT September 15th

Today’s prompt is from reigning 30DBC Champion, Eric Wharton !

In 1969, Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Afterward, people commonly complained, “If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they ______?” How would you finish that statement today?

"...shut up about moon landing hoax 'theories.'"

The ultimate expression of false credulity to finish that sentence was, "...put them all there?" usually uttered by neurotic women at wine-tasting events.

You wanna know why moon landing hoaxers piss me off so much? I'm just drunk enough to tell you, even though it'll give people ammunition to troll me with. So sit back and prepare for typo-laden rambling.

As I've noted before, landing humans on the moon was, by my definition, not only the most significant achievement made by humankind, but the most significant achievement that could ever be made by humankind. While there will, hopefully, be other firsts - first human on Mars, first human to leave the solar system, first human to set foot on a habitable planet other than Earth, first human to freeze to death on Pluto, etc. - the moon thing is significant because it's another world, and you only get to claim that first once.

Damn, I'm still drunk. What I mean is, for as long as we've been conscious, we've wondered about those other lights in the sky, made up stories about them, tried to figure out what they actually were, but were inevitably tied to this hunk of rock with its tissue-thin biosphere. At some point, our curiosity drove us to develop tools, languages, math, science, technology, and, inevitably, being what we are, we had to go and see these things in the sky for ourselves. And our first faltering step in that direction was to put someone under the gravitational influence of a world other than Earth. Considering that we evolved specifically for and alongside this world that we're on now, making the leap to a different world is kind of a big deal. The biggest deal, I think.

So when idiot moron retards try to minimize the accomplishment by claiming it never happened, that it was all a hoax done on a sound stage, that it was a vast conspiracy to play out international mind games, they are denying the greatest achievement of humanity. They are, in effect, denying that humanity can achieve anything great. It's the same kind of anti-hominid mentality that leads people to believe that the pyramids could only have been built with the assistance of space aliens, or that Stonehenge was a flying saucer landing pad or whatever fucking fringe theory that minimizes humanity's accomplishments in favor of believing in some "higher" power.

Other people have thoroughly debunked the moon-landing "hoax," so I'm not going to go into all that (besides... still drunk here), but I will point out that if we'd faked it, a) the Russians would have had to be complicit, meaning they would have had to agree to back us up in a big lie during the height of the Cold War; b) the thousands and thousands of people involved would have had to all manage to shut up about it; and c) it would have taken more advanced technology to make a realistic moon "set" than it did to actually go to the moon.

I kind of get the "denying humanity's achievement" thing. I mean, look at us - we're a bunch of brutal apes more generally concerned with our relative position in whatever social hierarchy than in achieving anything for its own sake. Hell, the Space Race was one massive dick-measuring contest; I can freely admit that. The motivations behind it, though, are irrelevant considering the results. Hell, you might say we achieved this momentous feat because of our primate nature, rather than rising above it. (Incidentally, I'd still consider it humanity's greatest achievement if the Russians had managed to be first in that as they were first in many other space milestones. It's not a nationalist thing; it's a humanist thing.)

But here's the thing about humans: we may be, collectively, a bunch of damn dirty apes, but occasionally we can do impressive things. To deny the achievement of July 1969 is to deny the promise of humanity itself, and I won't stand for it.

Damn, I'm starting to sober up, so I guess I'll quit rambling now.