Ridiculous Project

[beso]

This project plans to send copies of texts to the Moon for preservation. They are starting with a copy of the Torah. I can't think of anything more worthless to preserve or to represent humanity to any future space travellers.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229702.500-earths-backup-sending-religious-texts-to-the-moon.html#.U38jS_mSxfM

[sandyRoe]

I see no mention of the Koran.

[ludwig]

On the plus side though beso, the moon is the best place for it.

[AB Editor]

What would you like to send Beso? Say you could send three books - which would they be?

[Graham-W]

1/ Brave New World. Aldous Huxley
A more positive book than 1984 and a pointer towards where we are going if more care is not taken.

2/ Catch 22. Joseph Heller.
Will we never learn the futility of war?

3/ Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Robert M. Persig.
Not only will you read some philosophy, but you'll have a smile along the way and a knowing grin at the end.

[AB Editor]

Graham - often advanced peoples make the asusmption that less advanced and ancient peoples are a bit stupid and completely literal. With this in mind, would you want Brave New World to be considered "the history of the blue and green planet too near the sun"?

[Khandro]

It's anyway an improvement on the sending of a Damian Hirst painting as they did in the British Beagle II Space Probe in 2002.

[ludwig]

// It's anyway an improvement on the sending of a Damian Hirst painting as they did in the British Beagle II Space Probe in 2002. //

Once again, I'd prefer to see that from a glass half full perspective, and just be happy there's one less Damien Hirst painting on the planet.

[naomi24]

Let's hope aliens don't stumble across it. How embarrassing!

[jim360]

Perhaps you could look on the bright side and see it as a sure-fire way to put off any unwelcome visitors!

[naomi24]

... or to encourage any that were wavering before they found proof positive that we're backward!

[Khandro]

The really ridiculous project was going to the moon in the first place, however, sacred texts which have (and still do) meant so much to so many people for thousands of years, must have something going for them, wuntcha say?

[jomifl]

If religious groups cannot get their publicity to the moon without the help of technology based on an atheistic philosophy then I think there is a degree of irony that they must have missed. But then they do take themselves just a bit too seriously.

[jomifl]

My suggestion is that all religious texts be ground to a fine dust and blasted into space so that the solar wind can waft them to all parts of god's 'creation'. I'm sure that would be more beneficial, at least to the inhabitants of Earth.

[Khandro]

jomifl; Perhaps you would like to pass that bit of wisdom on to these people
:-)

[jomifl]

Jews were not the only people that died in WW2, sadly there are no jewish memorials for the Roma and homosexuals that were also persecuted let alone the innocent bystanders. A bit of selective blindness?

[mibn2cweus]

Always nice having some sort of explanation for what apparently went wrong.

[pixie373]

An atlas, a dictionary and a good food guide would be most useful.

[Mamyalynne]

It's going to end up like the loft, old Xmas trees and the dressing up box - broken umbrellas and Gran's old dressmakers dummy.

[Khandro]

mibn2cweus
//Always nice having some sort of explanation for what apparently went wrong.//
How do you mean?

[Peter Pedant]

Ab Editor
you are absolutely right

one prof of history would take time out to point out the initial scientists in the Royal Society 1680-1700 were as bright as we are ( besides Newton who was brighter and on his own )

so beating epileptics - they mmight do it once see it really didnt work and then do something else and perhaps not write about it.
Hence accounts of medical treatments then may not represent what common practice actually was......