If you follow the link about Koons, you'll see that his sculptures were small steel spheres — "moons" — each named after a famous Earthling, e.g., Ada Lovelace, Plato, and Billie Holiday. I guess they must all have some connection to the moon. Plato, for example, I learned from Grok, wrote that "the moon, along with the sun and the planets, are part of the visible gods, designed to move in a circular orbit, which reflects the eternal and perfect nature of the cosmos."
I asked Grok "What would Plato think about travel to the moon, particularly travel that leaves behind a small steel ball with his name inscribed on it?" The answer, to put it briefly, was that he would have mixed feelings. Really? I didn't think of Plato as a mixed feelings kind of guy.
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Plato would object because it is misogynistic to use balls as a symbol.
The language and “data” of the AI bots, including Grok, which is Musk’s baby, are absolutely saturated with DNC assumptions and buzzwords assumed to be “facts.” It’s impenetrable. The welfare state is assumed to be beneficial and logical. The need for “systematic” solutions is assumed to be obvious.
Is it now permissible to say there are fine people on both sides of this monuments debate?
Rich people shifted from Mt. Everest to Titanic visits, and will go to the moon as soon as possible. They'll find new ways to take selfies on the edge of a cliff, freeze to death a la Green Boots, and accidentally kill wild animals when they "rescue" them from wild nature.
Following history, they'll also scarf up every artifact they can for museums and private collections. Today this includes chunks of the Titanic and grave-robbed art from all over the world. The ancient Egyptians robbed dead pharoahs graves soon after they were buried.
People remain people. Rich jerks remain rich jerks. Thieves always supply the market.
My first instinct is to not care about lunatic heritage sites, but Jeff Koons? Really? His so-called art is a blight on any landscape.
Fear Of Other's Liberty
Ada Lovelace? Why does she rate?
World Monuments Fund needs to stay in their lane.
Someone suggested we make Moon our 51st state. (This was before Canada and Greenland became the latest fad.) The arguments for it, although tongue-in-cheek, were pretty good.
She was involved with Charles Babbage and is often elevated to being his partner in the development and application of his mechanical computer.
…at least change the name…
"...where Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon's surface..." Lol
Where was the WMF when statues were being torn down, the Lincoln Memorial was vandalized, images of Buddha were being destroyed? They've been around since the Sixties. Also, "World" Monument Fund? Maybe they intend to be the Interplanetary Monument Fund.
Agree. Don't space tourists (regular humans!! on the moon) TRUMP a landmark sign.
Maybe Other World Monuments Fund?
I agree. But I think Greenland's minerals/oil/magic beans will be easier to obtain.
Matt....you aren't a moon landing truther, are you?
One human's monument is another's litter.
"Humans can't pass through the Van Allen Belt" is as dumb as "Fire can't melt steel".
We can always send these people to the to defend the sanctity of these historical sites.
Problem solved.
Plato would be too glued to another fellow’s behind to contemplate “men on the moon”.
Billie Holiday - Blue Moon
I certainly hope somebody is considering the environmental impact of all these unnecessary moon landings. Protect our craters!
At least the World Monuments Fund didn't say the moon monument is at risk due to climate change.
..."“The moon seems so far outside of our scope,” said Bénédicte de Montlaur, the organization’s president and chief executive. “But with humans venturing more and more into space, we think it is the right time to get ourselves organized.”..."
I mean, don't we need a MOA to manage all this, write rules and notify of infractions? What about obelisks? And if we don't find an obelisk, can we just all throw rocks and bones at old Bénédicte instead?
Plato was a man on “the moon”, as were many other Greek males.
World would be a better place without all these self-described experts and advocacy groups.
"Space tourism" is a thing now? Did we wake up in 2060?
A helpful hint from Consumer Reports: It's cheaper to go to Rekal, Inc. and let them implant the memory of a trip to the moon in your mind than to actually go there.
I never understood why people are always quoting pluto. He's just a cartoon character.
Koons and Plato’s metal versions of visible gods made me think of Judas Priest’s Metal Gods.
It would be so metal to put a big neon sign on the moon, visible from earth.
I’m certain the Chi Coms plan to do it.
JSM
"woof!" - Pluto Disney
Which means Musk and Trump will do it first.
Metal! MAGA!
JSM
Save the Moon!
"while a SpaceX rocket lifted a lander that carried 125 miniature sculptures by the artist Jeff Koons to the moon’s surface last year."
This is a site that needs protection? I can see Apollo 11, but they blow their whole argument with this example of lunar littering.
And how many divisions does the World Monuments Fund command, to enforce their mandates? How are those Afghan Bhuddist sculptures doing, WMF? Got them reassembled yet?
Eventually, a meteor will strike and destroy every single one of these heritage lunar sites within the time frame of human existence.
Exploit every last resource it has and then turn it into a prison colony.
Grok is a guy?
Wait a minute. We’re worried about monuments on the moon when we’re ripping them down all over the U.S.?
Sorry, WMF, but Luna is a bit outside your juristiction.
Imagine permanently preserving the detritus left by the first visitors to...everywhere.
...a lander that carried 125 miniature sculptures by the artist Jeff Koons to the moon’s surface
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
I am looking forward to Musk getting us back on the Moon. I hope one of the early landings would be near the Apollo 15 landing site. The first reason for this is just to prove that, yes, we really did go to the Moon. The second is to show the Lunar Rover, which was used for the first time on that mission. I am sick and tired of the idiots showing up in my feed on X or FB claiming it was all faked on a movie set and the Rover is proof of that because it was impossible to get something like that on the Moon. I will enjoy laughing at all those idiots if this were to come to pass.
AI does not make "assumptions", or consider "facts". AI attempts to produce a new document having a certain sort of resemblance to a preponderance of the vast collection of existing documents it has been "trained" on. The First Law of Computing still holds; "Garbage In, Garbage Out".
They will also discover that passing through the Van Allen belts kills you.
Humans can pass through the Van Allen belts. They just won't survive it. And fire can certainly melt steel. Just not a fire fueled with jet fuel and office furnishings. You need thermite.
This is old news. Some time back, NASA had a contest for kids (natch!) to design robots to dig up the Moon. But someone got the idea of a mobile robot, that could go find the Apollo landing sites. That got NASA's knickers well and truly twisted. I am not sure how high up you have to be at NASA to be officially in on the secret. I suppose it's like how high you have to be at CIA to get the limited hang-out on JFK. But they scurried about, and got Congress to pass a law, the "One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act".
" yes, we really did go to the Moon." What do you mean, "we"? You got a Moon rock in your spacesuit pocket?
I remember the Honolulu Advertiser "Man Walks on Moo." Unfortunate fold in newsstand. I "watched" the landing on a TV set up in the lobby of the Reef Hotel on Waikiki beach, on a business trip layover.
@Dave Begley, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, is regarded as being the world’s first computer programmer. She was the first, even ahead of Charles Babbage himself, to recognize that the Babbage machine did not merely perform mathematical calculations but actually engaged in symbol manipulation.
Just not a fire fueled with jet fuel and office furnishings.
The steel didn't melt. The fire weakened it to the point it could no longer support the building's structure.
I've got a good friend who's a Truther. He simply refuses to see what's right in front of his face. He came to a conclusion and then cherry-picked unrelated details to reach it. Like all Truthers do.
The SIMPLE way to prove we went to the moon is to direct a laser toward the huge honking reflector we left on the moon to measure the earth-to-moon distance.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/laser-beams-reflected-between-earth-and-moon-boost-science/
https://wtop.com/science/2019/07/the-experiment-still-running-on-the-moon-and-tv-re-runs-50-years-later/
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