Jörg@#2: Nathan J. Robinson’s article ‘Critics of “Don’t Look Up” Are Missing the Entire Point ‘
Yes, that sounds right. I’m going to have to see the movie, now. I’m afraid that it’s going to be like Idiocracy – not depressing in and of itself, but depressing in its implications.
I would buy a larger telescope.
That’s a good one!
Are you a telescoper? I’ve wondered before, if a prosumer telescope is capable of imaging some of the asteroids that whizz by. There are websites always announcing stuff like “a rock the size of new jersey is going to just miss us!” but I assume it’s outside of the moon’s orbit and going really fast, and not very well-lit. But why don’t professional astronomers have the gear and post the pictures? Are they just uninteresting?
Jörgsays
Marcus @#3:
Are you a telescoper?
So far, I have only a very cheap one with which e.g. I can see the Galilean moons as dots wandering around Jupiter.
asteroids that whizz by … But why don’t professional astronomers have the gear and post the pictures? Are they just uninteresting?
Even if the rocks are inside the Moon’s orbit, they are indeed “not very well-lit”. Their pictures are at most a few pixels large and are sometimes posted online on astronomy sites, but provide excitement only for a tiny target audience.
Well, if it’s only a couple pixels it can’t do much damage if it hits something, right?
I know, I know, it’s not the pixels its how fast they are moving ;)
sonofrojblakesays
Maybe make a start on my kill list. Likely nobody would care.
brucegee1962says
I watched the movie last night. I liked the Robinson article.
One of the main points of the movie was, “When facing a civilization-ending catastrophe, the most rational reaction is to scream at the top of your lungs at the people with actual power to DO SOMETHING! PLEASE!!!!!!”
And the movie demonstrates this by screaming itself. The critics who complain that its screaming is off-putting are very much missing the point, which is that if you have any power at all, and you are not also screaming, then you are Part Of The Problem.
lurker753says
Without active optics, even with good-to-very-good seeing conditions, atmospheric distortions limits resolution to ~1 arcsecond, or “any object with a distance-to-size ratio of greater than ~200,000:1 is going to be a point source” . So 1km diam halfway to the moon *just* might be a slightly-larger-than-point-source. And that’s at closest approach.
Also: professional astronomers (a) have to use their extremely limited telescope time to grab what science they can, and (b) *publishing* non-relevant images might give the wrong impression to some grant agency or telescope time allocation committee. So, yeah, anything interesting (e.g. comets) will be observed if the opportunity arises, but the images are mostly (I think) not publicised, or only long after the fact.
Well I can tell you one thing for damn sure: the Partner would not be going to work. I’d stop worrying about whether or not the house was clean, or painted, or finished. I think the Partner would be playing a lot of music and I might just put a whopping big warp on my loom.
I’d also spend time wondering about how things would all end. Would the atmosphere go away, so nothing could breathe? Would everything just catch on fire? etc.
billseymoursays
I’d want to finish Mano’s The Great Paradox of Science before I died.
I think I’d try to get my hands on a lot of heroin. Why not? It’s not like I’d be dying of the stuff. I hear it’s amazing except for the downside.
brucegee1962says
My answer to the OP: I think the movie (and Epicurus) got it right. There is nothing on this green earth that is better than a good meal with good friends and/or family, good wine, good conversation, and pie. That’s the way to go.
At least in Marcus’ question, the end would be quick. But it looks like what’s going on is just unstoppable. Much of the blame these days for inflation seems to have been towards supply chain issues, but the rapidly changing climate, and its associated disasters, is hitting the “supply” right at its sources.
I could be (hope) I am wrong, but my latest vision of the way we are screwed is that screaming about inflation will elect more Republicans, whose steps to supposedly counter it will include their usual litany of prescriptions that will only increase CO2, exacerbating both inflation and global weirdness.
rrutis1says
I would do a bike trip with my wife and ride to see as much family and friends as I could in that month. Then to top it off finish up someplace with a good view, maybe a mountaintop or coastline, and have a good meal and a beer together for the last time.
rrutis1says
Sonofrogblake @6
With a little luck some of them will commit suicide early and leave you some spare time.
billseymoursays
ahcuah @14
… screaming about inflation will elect more Republicans, …
Yes, I too fear a positive feedback loop. Indeed, we seem to be in it already.
StevoRsays
@ 10. Kestrel : “I’d also spend time wondering about how things would all end. Would the atmosphere go away, so nothing could breathe? Would everything just catch on fire? etc.”
starting properly from about the 50 seconds mark if you want to skip to that.
astringersays
Well, I expect society as a whole would rather collapse for that month, (who is going to go to work?) so you would have no electricity. So 1st step, get a small generator & fuel to keep the freezer going (which is already stocked in case of covid-incapacity). A very quiet generator.
Then a month of holiday walking in the local hills, kayaking, reading, snogging (not necessarily in that order). No more worries about early-onset dementia leaving you dribbling in a care home while a faceless corporate vulture takes your house and savings and throws your ektachrome slides into landfill.
Oh, and do more dancing, even if its to acoustic stuff with bagpipes…
sonofrojblakesays
@16: none of them are that sort of person. If they were, they wouldn’t be on the list….
GenghisFaunsays
A lot of cannabis and eating whatever I like without regard to health implications, provided you can even access ingredients under this scenario (if all the [fill in the blank]-denialists keep things running due to their sincerely held beliefs that sky daddy will save them).
Also, mountain biking and taking the dogs on hikes.
Likelier, though, we’ll all be trying to survive the looters and sociopaths who decide to have a field day living out their Grand Theft Auto/Call of Duty fantasies IRL. At least here in the US of A(rseholes).
Rob Grigjanissays
GenghisFaun @21:
Likelier, though, we’ll all be trying to survive the looters and sociopaths who decide to have a field day living out their Grand Theft Auto/Call of Duty fantasies IRL.
My thoughts exactly. And you might be on someone’s kill list!
The idea of enjoying the last month is certainly appealing, but I suspect I’d find Impending Doom somewhat distracting. There would be drinking.
I’m reminded of David Brin’s The Postman – there never was a disaster so bad that someone wasn’t eager to make it worse. That does make me wonder if we all had a month before the asteroid hit, the white supremacists would go “woo hoo the south rises again!” and have their stupid race war. You just can’t reason with some people.
The christians would all be calm though, right? God’s will, obviously.
Jörgsays
Marcus@#23:
The christians would all be calm though, right? God’s will, obviously.
StevoR@#26:
I don’t know what happened. I see no un-approved comments by you, and no duplicates.
Aaaaaah OK there is a comment by you which is approved and so forth, which does not show up for some reason. Verrrrry interesting. There are a bunch of URLs it that I am going to edit lightly and see if there is some HTML garf
If I understand correctly, the ground shock wave would be severe; anyone on the same continental plate as the impact would probably get thrown violently through the air. When the Chixculub impact happened, the ridge of displaced material was briefly as tall as Mt Everest – anyone near anything like that would be dead instantly. People farther away would get thrown, then farther still would basically be dealing with burning hot waves of atmosphere and chunks of flying burning lava stuff.
There is a site I wrote about here before, which appears to be (!!) an area where the Chixculub impact threw a bunch of critters into a heap. Now, I am having trouble finding that posting. But, anyhow, there are fossils of dinosaurs that are horribly shattered and have fossilized fish rammed into their bodies. It sounds as though everything hit so hard it was turned into instant scrapple.
i wouldn’t have faith that it would kill me quickly, so find some way to die painlessly before then. also do the same for the various animals i’m responsible for.
StevoRsays
@27. Marcus Ranum : Thanks but that seemed to be visible before – it was this later one .. hmm .. Take III didn’t work. Trying without the links buit adding title / author info. Let’s see if this works now..
At 10. Kestrel : See also :
The Day the Dinosaurs Died – Minute by Minute by
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
On youtube
Incidentally whilst the KT impactor – the asteroid or comet that wiped out the dinosaurs was probly one of the largest objects to collide with Earth in almost the worst possible case scenario; it could potentially be even worse with even larger objects hitting our planet :
WILL MERCURY HIT EARTH SOMEDAY? by Ken Croswell on Sky& telescope dot org
although this is extremely unlikely in any case and only happens after billions of years by which time life on our world would be probly be destroyed by our daytime star as our Sun balloons into a red giant.
Astronomically speaking there’s also the (very remote) possibility of “rogue planets” :
Rogue Planets, Loners of the Universe by SciShow Space channel on youtube.
entering our solar system, disrupting our planets orbit (& the orbital stability of other planets in our solar system) and colliding with us in order of increasing unlikeliness.
StevoRsays
Incidentally, feeling headachy and bit crook so tried to get a covid test this morning .. wasn’t able to since the Aldinga testing place shut down with cars lined up – and I heard about it on the radio news with no warning or sign from the people there. (Scroll down to private labs close.)
One of four sites where this happened. Self-isolating at home now and looking to book test online but seems SA has been at least partly overwhelmed by the surge in Omicron cases already..
StevoRsays
Scott Manley on China’s Mars mission successes – well worth viewing in full & rather impressive really :
Why shouldn’t I get emotional? The Bush is sacred. It actually is -closest thing to it anyhow if you are in and experience it quietly Numinously. As Saga (?) put it in one of his books. You get it or something like it being in nature. I hope. Maybe? Not religious here. Nor even spiritual. Just ..awed,.
I wish the mix was a bit more balanced, but the guitar bits really hit me.
Whale meat again under the sun
Every twelve minutes and another one’s gone
His meat’s in your make-up, his flesh is on your lips
As a nuclear warhead explodes in his hips
Scientists are saying : ‘Now we’ve got to do something soon’
But sitting around talking about it ain’t gonna stop that harpoon
Oh, whale meat again, when will it end ?
Not ’til everything is dead, alright
etc.
StevoRsays
@ ^ Marcus Ranum : Cheers.
To say Jim Wright is sums things up brilliantly would be a supermassive understatement :
Which could still have some disturbing consequences unfolding as I type..
StevoRsays
Anniversary today. On this day (the 18th January) back in 1788 (234 years ago) the first ship of the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay – the brig HMS Supply whose captain was Henry Lidgbird Ball, and which was also commanded by the Master / Commander David Blackburn and carried surgeon James Callam.
They were far from the first Europeans to set foot in Australia, many previous Dutch and other explorers having charted mainly the western and northern coasts and two mutineers from the shipwrecked horror story that was the Batavia already having been marrooned permanently on what is now the West Australian coastline.
However, this marked the beginning of the first permanent European settlement in Australia. The following weeks, months and years would mark the founding of the penal colony of New South Wales – which then extended in concept from what is now Victoria to what we call today Queensland (where NSW was actually named following Cook’s repair job on the Endeavour after hitting the Great Barrier Reef) – and the start of the Frontier Wars and the Dispossession of hundreds of Indigenous Peoples in Australia.
The First Fleet carried aboard vials of smallpox and soon after the Fleet’s arrival, an outbreak of that deadly disease broke out devastating the local population although there is no official – or other – known record of whether and if so how and by whom those vials were used.
“The surgeons brought smallpox in vials,” Mr Mear said. Before vaccination, doctors commonly kept jars of smallpox scabs which they would grind up so that they could be sniffed up through the nose or rubbed into scratches in the skin, in a process called variolation.
The aim was to cause a mild case of smallpox, triggering immunity to a more serious infection.
Watkin Tench, the great chronicler of the First Fleet, confirmed doctors brought smallpox with them.
&
In April 1789, just 15 months after the arrival of the First Fleet, smallpox ripped through Sydney’s Indigenous population.
“Every boat that went down the harbour found them laying dead on the beaches and in the caverns of rocks,” First Fleet seaman Newton Fowell wrote. “None of the people arriving in Sydney in early 1788 had smallpox.
“The long sea voyage meant that either people would have died or got better. So they didn’t carry smallpox from Britain.”
&
“When the settlers moved into the interior, they were meeting communities that were still suffering the demographic effect of the smallpox epidemic,” Mr Reynolds said.
“So the populations were much smaller than they had been. And that undoubtedly made the push of the Europeans into the interior of South Eastern Australia, much easier.
Mr Mear goes one step further, wondering if the First Fleet would have survived without the pandemic.
“Aboriginal people were certainly becoming much more aggressive towards the settlers.
“The settlement could have been wiped out without the smallpox. So in my reading of it, yes, it changed the course of history.”
***
Elizabeth Warren was awesome in this interview on Colbert a few nights ago which is on youtube here :
OTT title – don’t think Iraq is dying just yet but interesting youtube video here especially on the dams of Turkey, Syria and Iraq and Kuwaiti history references :
I would buy a larger telescope.
Btw., I like Nathan J. Robinson’s article ‘Critics of “Don’t Look Up” Are Missing the Entire Point ‘:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/12/critics-of-dont-look-up-are-missing-the-entire-point
Jörg@#2:
Nathan J. Robinson’s article ‘Critics of “Don’t Look Up” Are Missing the Entire Point ‘
Yes, that sounds right. I’m going to have to see the movie, now. I’m afraid that it’s going to be like Idiocracy – not depressing in and of itself, but depressing in its implications.
I would buy a larger telescope.
That’s a good one!
Are you a telescoper? I’ve wondered before, if a prosumer telescope is capable of imaging some of the asteroids that whizz by. There are websites always announcing stuff like “a rock the size of new jersey is going to just miss us!” but I assume it’s outside of the moon’s orbit and going really fast, and not very well-lit. But why don’t professional astronomers have the gear and post the pictures? Are they just uninteresting?
Marcus @#3:
So far, I have only a very cheap one with which e.g. I can see the Galilean moons as dots wandering around Jupiter.
Even if the rocks are inside the Moon’s orbit, they are indeed “not very well-lit”. Their pictures are at most a few pixels large and are sometimes posted online on astronomy sites, but provide excitement only for a tiny target audience.
Well, if it’s only a couple pixels it can’t do much damage if it hits something, right?
I know, I know, it’s not the pixels its how fast they are moving ;)
Maybe make a start on my kill list. Likely nobody would care.
I watched the movie last night. I liked the Robinson article.
One of the main points of the movie was, “When facing a civilization-ending catastrophe, the most rational reaction is to scream at the top of your lungs at the people with actual power to DO SOMETHING! PLEASE!!!!!!”
And the movie demonstrates this by screaming itself. The critics who complain that its screaming is off-putting are very much missing the point, which is that if you have any power at all, and you are not also screaming, then you are Part Of The Problem.
Without active optics, even with good-to-very-good seeing conditions, atmospheric distortions limits resolution to ~1 arcsecond, or “any object with a distance-to-size ratio of greater than ~200,000:1 is going to be a point source” . So 1km diam halfway to the moon *just* might be a slightly-larger-than-point-source. And that’s at closest approach.
Also: professional astronomers (a) have to use their extremely limited telescope time to grab what science they can, and (b) *publishing* non-relevant images might give the wrong impression to some grant agency or telescope time allocation committee. So, yeah, anything interesting (e.g. comets) will be observed if the opportunity arises, but the images are mostly (I think) not publicised, or only long after the fact.
(IANAA, but most of my colleagues are.)
Astronomer photographs Webb telescope:
https://www.newsweek.com/astronomer-captures-video-james-webb-telescope-gliding-through-space-1664307?amp=1
Well I can tell you one thing for damn sure: the Partner would not be going to work. I’d stop worrying about whether or not the house was clean, or painted, or finished. I think the Partner would be playing a lot of music and I might just put a whopping big warp on my loom.
I’d also spend time wondering about how things would all end. Would the atmosphere go away, so nothing could breathe? Would everything just catch on fire? etc.
I’d want to finish Mano’s The Great Paradox of Science before I died.
I think I’d try to get my hands on a lot of heroin. Why not? It’s not like I’d be dying of the stuff. I hear it’s amazing except for the downside.
My answer to the OP: I think the movie (and Epicurus) got it right. There is nothing on this green earth that is better than a good meal with good friends and/or family, good wine, good conversation, and pie. That’s the way to go.
Let me point folks to another article of (disaster) interest: Extreme Weather Now Plays a Big Part in Inflation.
At least in Marcus’ question, the end would be quick. But it looks like what’s going on is just unstoppable. Much of the blame these days for inflation seems to have been towards supply chain issues, but the rapidly changing climate, and its associated disasters, is hitting the “supply” right at its sources.
I could be (hope) I am wrong, but my latest vision of the way we are screwed is that screaming about inflation will elect more Republicans, whose steps to supposedly counter it will include their usual litany of prescriptions that will only increase CO2, exacerbating both inflation and global weirdness.
I would do a bike trip with my wife and ride to see as much family and friends as I could in that month. Then to top it off finish up someplace with a good view, maybe a mountaintop or coastline, and have a good meal and a beer together for the last time.
Sonofrogblake @6
With a little luck some of them will commit suicide early and leave you some spare time.
ahcuah @14
Yes, I too fear a positive feedback loop. Indeed, we seem to be in it already.
@ 10. Kestrel : “I’d also spend time wondering about how things would all end. Would the atmosphere go away, so nothing could breathe? Would everything just catch on fire? etc.”
It would depend on a few things – specifically the mass and velocity of the comet impact – but think KT Extinction Event:
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-an-asteroid-caused-extinction-of-dinosaurs.html
and
https://www.rocketstem.org/2020/05/30/ice-and-stone-special-topic-23/
video form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK4s1mIoIsE
starting properly from about the 50 seconds mark if you want to skip to that.
Well, I expect society as a whole would rather collapse for that month, (who is going to go to work?) so you would have no electricity. So 1st step, get a small generator & fuel to keep the freezer going (which is already stocked in case of covid-incapacity). A very quiet generator.
Then a month of holiday walking in the local hills, kayaking, reading, snogging (not necessarily in that order). No more worries about early-onset dementia leaving you dribbling in a care home while a faceless corporate vulture takes your house and savings and throws your ektachrome slides into landfill.
Oh, and do more dancing, even if its to acoustic stuff with bagpipes…
@16: none of them are that sort of person. If they were, they wouldn’t be on the list….
A lot of cannabis and eating whatever I like without regard to health implications, provided you can even access ingredients under this scenario (if all the [fill in the blank]-denialists keep things running due to their sincerely held beliefs that sky daddy will save them).
Also, mountain biking and taking the dogs on hikes.
Likelier, though, we’ll all be trying to survive the looters and sociopaths who decide to have a field day living out their Grand Theft Auto/Call of Duty fantasies IRL. At least here in the US of A(rseholes).
GenghisFaun @21:
My thoughts exactly. And you might be on someone’s kill list!
The idea of enjoying the last month is certainly appealing, but I suspect I’d find Impending Doom somewhat distracting. There would be drinking.
I’m reminded of David Brin’s The Postman – there never was a disaster so bad that someone wasn’t eager to make it worse. That does make me wonder if we all had a month before the asteroid hit, the white supremacists would go “woo hoo the south rises again!” and have their stupid race war. You just can’t reason with some people.
The christians would all be calm though, right? God’s will, obviously.
Marcus@#23:
Theoretically, if their faith were strong, Christians should eschatologically rejoice about the 2nd Coming of Christ.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+13:24-27
Btw., Happy New Year to all! Live long and prosper!
Well, that’s odd. Did my last comment post or not? Saying duplicate comment already posted but I’m not seeing it here..
Also on things Dinosaurian :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v36PIoLbto&list=TLPQMDEwMTIwMjKKzTarI_KCIg&index=1
Could a whole class of dinosaur just be the young of another type?
Huh? Tried again no luck..
StevoR@#26:
I don’t know what happened. I see no un-approved comments by you, and no duplicates.
Aaaaaah OK there is a comment by you which is approved and so forth, which does not show up for some reason. Verrrrry interesting. There are a bunch of URLs it that I am going to edit lightly and see if there is some HTML garf
It’s here: https://freethoughtblogs.com/stderr/2021/12/30/open-thread-the-end-of-the-world/#comment-46595
If I understand correctly, the ground shock wave would be severe; anyone on the same continental plate as the impact would probably get thrown violently through the air. When the Chixculub impact happened, the ridge of displaced material was briefly as tall as Mt Everest – anyone near anything like that would be dead instantly. People farther away would get thrown, then farther still would basically be dealing with burning hot waves of atmosphere and chunks of flying burning lava stuff.
There is a site I wrote about here before, which appears to be (!!) an area where the Chixculub impact threw a bunch of critters into a heap. Now, I am having trouble finding that posting. But, anyhow, there are fossils of dinosaurs that are horribly shattered and have fossilized fish rammed into their bodies. It sounds as though everything hit so hard it was turned into instant scrapple.
Ah, here [stderr]
Why tankers are terrified of apricots
Tremendous potential for asymmetrical warfare – apricots are much cheaper than tanks.
Canada choosing its next fighter jet
i wouldn’t have faith that it would kill me quickly, so find some way to die painlessly before then. also do the same for the various animals i’m responsible for.
@27. Marcus Ranum : Thanks but that seemed to be visible before – it was this later one .. hmm .. Take III didn’t work. Trying without the links buit adding title / author info. Let’s see if this works now..
At 10. Kestrel : See also :
The Day the Dinosaurs Died – Minute by Minute by
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
On youtube
Incidentally whilst the KT impactor – the asteroid or comet that wiped out the dinosaurs was probly one of the largest objects to collide with Earth in almost the worst possible case scenario; it could potentially be even worse with even larger objects hitting our planet :
WILL MERCURY HIT EARTH SOMEDAY? by Ken Croswell on Sky& telescope dot org
although this is extremely unlikely in any case and only happens after billions of years by which time life on our world would be probly be destroyed by our daytime star as our Sun balloons into a red giant.
Astronomically speaking there’s also the (very remote) possibility of “rogue planets” :
Rogue Planets, Loners of the Universe by SciShow Space channel on youtube.
entering our solar system, disrupting our planets orbit (& the orbital stability of other planets in our solar system) and colliding with us in order of increasing unlikeliness.
Incidentally, feeling headachy and bit crook so tried to get a covid test this morning .. wasn’t able to since the Aldinga testing place shut down with cars lined up – and I heard about it on the radio news with no warning or sign from the people there. (Scroll down to private labs close.)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-04/sa-pathology-says-covid-19-swabs-and-blood-samples-missing/100736868
One of four sites where this happened. Self-isolating at home now and looking to book test online but seems SA has been at least partly overwhelmed by the surge in Omicron cases already..
Scott Manley on China’s Mars mission successes – well worth viewing in full & rather impressive really :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSSs6FfBlgY&list=TLPQMDUwMTIwMjL_H-jfJXJHdA
I reckon anyhow..
Good music I reckon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg0bCpQ7R9E
Why shouldn’t I get emotional? The Bush is sacred. It actually is -closest thing to it anyhow if you are in and experience it quietly Numinously. As Saga (?) put it in one of his books. You get it or something like it being in nature. I hope. Maybe? Not religious here. Nor even spiritual. Just ..awed,.
Still blows me away this clip does :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtVBCG6ThDk
Please just watch.
Then there is this magnificent fusion of audiao and viusal truths & old songs :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N5ZsCGjUz0
Among my alltime faves & might’ve shared befiore. Still.
Saga = Sagan, Carl. natch
Then too this song so much especially that quote at its end :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40w7nhMFVLk
Then there’s this clip ..not sure you can actaully BBQ snags on the moon but here anyhow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjtMOMUt-GU
Finally~ish for now there’s this which is – ironically – really dated now but; then that gut punch at the very end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxbIU0X-lCI
Gets better as it goes. That ending.. Expletive.
Well, if we’re going for dark music, there’s this:
https://youtu.be/zkbpMJ611iU
I wish the mix was a bit more balanced, but the guitar bits really hit me.
etc.
@ ^ Marcus Ranum : Cheers.
To say Jim Wright is sums things up brilliantly would be a supermassive understatement :
https://www.stonekettle.com/2022/01/insurrection-one-year-on.html
Posting this elsewhere too because this needs broad coverage and signal boosting I reckon.
We don’t really know why its happening but this trend is bad :
https://www.space.com/climate-change-methane-high-despite-reduction-pledges
Latest graphic youtube of where we are, where we’re trending and how much has gone :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1d472MwGiQ
Vale :
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59951255
Breaking(~ish) news :
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/undersea-volcano-erupts-near-tonga-sending-large-waves-crashing-ashore/098c1381-2728-4c19-b7b4-301215c76e4c
Which could still have some disturbing consequences unfolding as I type..
Anniversary today. On this day (the 18th January) back in 1788 (234 years ago) the first ship of the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay – the brig HMS Supply whose captain was Henry Lidgbird Ball, and which was also commanded by the Master / Commander David Blackburn and carried surgeon James Callam.
They were far from the first Europeans to set foot in Australia, many previous Dutch and other explorers having charted mainly the western and northern coasts and two mutineers from the shipwrecked horror story that was the Batavia already having been marrooned permanently on what is now the West Australian coastline.
However, this marked the beginning of the first permanent European settlement in Australia. The following weeks, months and years would mark the founding of the penal colony of New South Wales – which then extended in concept from what is now Victoria to what we call today Queensland (where NSW was actually named following Cook’s repair job on the Endeavour after hitting the Great Barrier Reef) – and the start of the Frontier Wars and the Dispossession of hundreds of Indigenous Peoples in Australia.
The First Fleet carried aboard vials of smallpox and soon after the Fleet’s arrival, an outbreak of that deadly disease broke out devastating the local population although there is no official – or other – known record of whether and if so how and by whom those vials were used.
See also on youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVQg_Sb1e1Q
Plus :
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/28/everyone-falls-quiet-why-blackburns-whip-is-a-shocking-reminder-of-australias-history
As well as :
https://firstcontactsofaustralia.weebly.com/the-eora.html
StevoR@#42:
The First Fleet carried aboard vials of smallpox
Wait. What?!
@ ^ Yup. See :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-29/coronavirus-and-australias-first-pandemic-caused-by-smallpox/12099430
From that article linked above :
&
&
***
Elizabeth Warren was awesome in this interview on Colbert a few nights ago which is on youtube here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqxIh-sZ5SE
& part II here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jInu66a-Lcg&list=TLPQMjIwMTIwMjKKPFjs0O51gg&index=2
Plus part III :
On the hearing and lifestyle of ankylosaurs :
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/ankylosaur-brain-cases-reveal-poor-hearing-ability
OTT title – don’t think Iraq is dying just yet but interesting youtube video here especially on the dams of Turkey, Syria and Iraq and Kuwaiti history references :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkZfmySToZk&list=TLPQMDYwMjIwMjIOIjg654dkfw&index=3
Spot on article here bu=y Lucy Hamilton :
https://theaimn.com/lies-lies-lies-and-the-lying-liars-who-tell-them/
Oh and this song seems apt for some reason on this thread now .. :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrCeoDajPR0
Some nice spaceart there FWIW.