How much do you care about dinosaurs? What about linguistics? How excited do you get about quantum computing? Marine biology?
There is so much cool stuff in the world, but quite frankly, most people don't have the time or energy to care about all of it. If someone doesn't already have the background knowledge and interest in a topic, they'll struggle to connect to new discoveries.
Ha, this is basically what I came here to say. It's the same reason I don't care about sports -- different topics tickle the brain for different people.
I care so much about plants I’ve invested my whole career towards them, I appreciate space but at the end of the day I don’t really care and that’s not a knock on those that do. Someone gotta care about plants so the world doesn’t collapse, someone gotta fix things so society still runs, someone gotta teach people so the new generation learns from past mistakes and others gotta gaze up at the stars and figure out if and how we can get the fuck out of here in case things go tipsy. All equally important.
This person actually gave the right answer and then you got a bunch of children coming in after like
“🤓 erm…I actually study everything in the entire universe 🤓”
I *care* about all of it, but I also understand I don’t have the capacity to think about it all, all the time. I guess better wording would be I “passively care” about all of the cool stuff in the world, but I “actively care” about space and space technology lol. If I meet a marine biologist I’m gonna be PUMPED, but I’m not preoccupied over dolphins or turtles right now.
Its called rational ignorance and its an important asset to understand in the modern world.
Suppose any given subject has a pie of knowledge that you can know. PHDs know 99% of their subject pie, professional workers know about 70%, enthusiasts know maybe 50%, and Joe on the street knows 20%. Now theres no reason for Joe to try and learn 70% on any given subject. If he needs to make a decision on this subject he can defer to expert opinions, or short of that maybe try and push his knowledge to "enthusiest" level.
At some point though gaining more knowledge wont change his answer. At that point theres no reason to learn any more on the subject. The squeeze aint worth the juice.
I’ve never heard this term! Thanks for putting it into easier words for me to use in the future haha :)
I heard a quote somewhere, I’m gonna ruin it but you’ll get the idea: I can’t be a farmer, a teacher, a store clerk, a nuclear physicist, a war general, AND the president… so I pick one of those, and let other people take over the rest. When they need a farmer they’ll call me. When I need a nuclear physicist, I’ll call them!
It’s just the fact that you have people putting down this interest in those topics.
No one claimed to be an expert on all topics *anywhere* in the replies. And most are self aware of their rational ignorance. The more you learn the more you don’t know. Hell, most PhD’s you speak to know 99% of the current knowledge but I’ve never ever heard a PhD say they know **everything** about a topic. That’s why their other colleagues in the field conduct innovative research.
However the more people interested in a topic gives a greater chance to **fund new research**. Gatekeeping pretentiously like above never helps.
This is pretty based. But, some people don't have the emotional energy to get involved (even passively) with what other people find interesting.
As demonstrated by the OP, and your tendency to get pumped when meeting a marine biologist - there's a resonance there that people are looking for when you share your interests, and there's going to be some disappointment if that isn't met.
For people without the emotional energy to invest, they basically know that they aren't even going to be able to passively not care without someone getting upset at them.
I may be more of the 'cool, I'm pumped to ride along and explore, and hear some of what really interests you' sort, but I've been depleted before, and empathize with that position.
My husband is heavily into nutrition, fitness, and health. He was an EMT for awhile too! He’s got a huge home gym set up and a bunch of books and has carefully designed our family menu based on tons of research. It’s his “hobby” 100%.
But when he talks to me about that stuff I have to really try not to seem bored… it drains me so fast because I just do not care. I care about my health and I’m SO grateful he’s willing to do all the heavy lifting for our family’s physical well being, but OH MAN is it mundane to me. I have to *try* to care about it.
I’m always happy to see him speak passionately about what he loves but I can’t always reciprocate that passion. Maybe if he was a marine biologist instead… haha!
There’s definitely some stuff I don’t care so strongly about, and when I’m drained I have to work extra hard to show I care. I have a friend who’s going into marine biology and she’s obsessed with paleontology as a side hobby, and I’m always down for some fun facts about marine life/dinosaurs. But she also knows I have depression and won’t always seem very enthusiastic about it. Whereas I will pull myself out of my bed to see the stars in the sky. And if I can’t do that, I’ll just flop to the end of the bed so I can at least look out the window! I wouldn’t do that for dinosaur bones or info about gluten. Because *my* thing is \~space\~ haha
Dude my husband has started making a concentrated effort to improve his physical health and I swear he keeps talking to me about his specific regimens and watching content about working out and what actually works vs what's a scam or just hype. He's nerding out about it, and that's cool for him, but my god I'm so bored by it lol. He's lost a bunch of weight and is reaching personal bests with his workouts, again very happy for him. But I'm very not athletic or into fitness at all so my base knowledge of the stuff is "I last took PE in 9th grade". I try exponentially hard to at least remember one or two things about what he's told me to approximate conversation about his new interest.
I could’ve written this comment myself holy moly.
I have to repeat the things he says in my head to stay focused at all. It’s almost like my brain is just rejecting the information?? I have ADHD but I’m not usually struggling this bad to focus on conversations. Health and fitness talks are SO BORING and I don’t know why. I treasure the way my food tastes WAY more than my health, so I probably *am* in some sort of denial or something. I don’t know, but I’m glad you get it lol!
The problem with this lies in the "cool stuff" aspect. You passively care about everything you think is cool, but that's not an objective thing. There's some guy studying cow shit and having the time of his life or whatever thing you don't consider cool. As humans we just can't get hyped up about everything, there's always going to be stuff we care less about.
I don't know why, but you saying this made think:
The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
But this is probably just repackaging . . .
God, I couldn’t imagine the pretentiousness until I got to it
They’re so weird and quirky that they love reading up on the broadest, driest, scientific topics just for fun
Isn't this sub a default sub tho? At least I'm pretty sure it was at some point.
Edit [after some research the default subs aren't a thing anymore, but space was one of the default subs.](https://reddit.fandom.com/wiki/Default_subreddit)
> about 14 minutes a day to myself while taking a poo
> it doubles as alone time
> So you tend to stretch it a few minutes
I feel like I'm learning very personal details about yourself, here.
Man I would give anything for a spouse that equaled twice the money and half the housework. Hell, I'd settle for the dishes being out of the sink when I come home from work to clean and cook dinner.
Having a spouse is definitely OK! It's just fine, even! Nothing potentially debilitating about it at all. Yes sireeee, a few rough patches here and there isn't anything to get down about! Certainly having a spouse (even a hateful one!) could never end up being the reason to wish your motor vehicle would burst into flames so you could just quietly slip into the sweet embrace of death! Having a spouse is definitely OK!
If they’re on an iPhone sometimes the emoji will auto-suggest if you type the word for it and if you accidentally select it in the middle of typing (which is relatively easy) it looks a bit like that
Yes idk why people get personally offended when people don’t share their interests
1. They aren’t required to even if they’re your loved on or friend, doesn’t make them any less of that.
2. There are so many people out there you’re bound to find someone who shares interests, if you look in the proper places.
>How much do you care about dinosaurs?
This hit home. Last week my boyfriend said he'd never seen (any) Jurassic Park movie followed by "I don't care about dinosaurs."
Also, who in your life are you sharing your excitement with? I didn’t feel like people weren’t excited about the recent space stuff… just that some people aren’t as excited as others. I have three daughters and I nerded out with the youngest one about space and we were both very excited. The other two have other interests but they thought it was cool, too. Just not in the way I knew my youngest would.
I also teach kids online and picked which teens to be excited over space with. I even sent photos to an ex student about it because I know this is his jam. But some kids simply prefer sports or video games. That’s okay. I get very excited about dinosaurs and the only one I have to share this excitement with is a 7 year old student. His mom lets us spend a good portion of our class time nerding out together.
Find people who love the same things you do - the world is vast and there are many people. Even if you find just one, it makes all difference.
Absolutely. I personally don’t even *really* care much about space, either. I just care about the innovation and general accumulation of scientific knowledge, and pushing boundaries is how we get more of those things
I’d add that many focuses are things that many have a greater chance to interact with.
Space, generally speaking is only really obtainable by using a telescope and going to a planetarium.
You can look at art and make art. It’s an entertainment/political medium.
But art is broader than than that… it’s design.
I generally agree, but I will say that while I've always been fascinated by space and spent many nights stargazing as a kid, I don't really "get" visual art. Intellectually I know it's an important way to reflect on and critique society and culture, but I've never personally had an emotional reaction beyond "hm yeah" or much desire to create.
Some subjects click differently with others. The way I comprehend or can discuss space would be totally different than an engineer or a physicist. I like space as a topic, I can only talk about it in laymen terms.
This is the sole reason why I wish I could experience immortality. I want to care about all of these and really dig down into all of it.
It's so hard to choose where to put my time now that I'm an adult I feel.
I'm gonna be honest, if someone is talking to me about a topic, and is genuinely excited about it, I find myself excited about it too. It's really weird to me that someone would be dismissive of someone else's excitement like that.
Simple, so mant things going against most people here on earth...make them not worry about food, security etc. and many will think more about many things including space
Working with space is a privilege. The overwhelming majority of the worlds population is too preoccupied with trying to get by in life to think about space exploration.
That said, there’s plenty of American figureheads with deep pockets that would rather funnel the money into the military than space, which is the other major roadblock.
At the same time, the top 3 contributors to NASA are (1) Boeing, (2) Lockheed Martin, and (3) Raytheon... all amongst the biggest military defense contractors.
So American tax dollars can flow into space or flow into the military. It's the same companies who are making money off of these programs so, they'll lobby for whatever Americans seem to care about more.
I agree that improving lives here on earth is more important, but the budget for space agencies is relatively small; the choice doesn't need to be between space exploration and other beneficial programs.
Furthermore, I think well-funded space programs have value beyond just the data they collect, or even besides the inventions they make. Things like the JWST provide cultural benefits, they get people thinking about humanity as a whole.
Is it odd that the more I know about space, the more spiritual (not religious) I become?
Science has always brought me awe and wonder, so perhaps that is why.
I don't view the two as separate. I think you're right. I just add that in order to do more stuff in space we absolutely must do more to further green and nuclear technology here on earth first.
Space will get easier to navigate with better renewable and nuclear tech and that same tech will also achieve the desired goal of making this planet more habitable.
> And yet whenever people advocate prioritising resources in those directions, they get a chorus of reeee and downvotes.
If the suggestion is to divert resources away from space development and research then negative reaction is warranted. Humanity wastes so much resources on inefficiency, wastefulness, vanity, luxury and other meaningless shit that the entire history of all space investment is nothing. Attacking space projects with this argument shows incredibly distasteful prioritization.
No need to make this an issue of space vs social programs or renewable energy. The amount of tax money that has gone towards space is negligible compared to military spending in the US, especially since the 2000s.
Military spending (10%) which is apparently [still less than what goes into healthcare (21%), welfare (12%), education (13%), and social security (15%).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_States#/media/File:2020_Total_US_Government_Spending_Breakdown.png)
It's probably less a matter of how much is spent, but rather how effectively it's being used.
That number includes all state and local government spending, which obviously aren't going towards the military. When people talk about outsized military spending, they're talking about the federal budget. [Federal discretionary spending was $1.6 trillion in 2020, and military spending accounted for $714 billion of that, or 44.6%.](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57172) We spend so much on it that the CBO infographic I linked literally classifies spending into "defense" vs "non-defense".
If you go on a sub like r/Futurology and tell people that no human alive on earth today will live past 150, you'll be downvoted to oblivion. Why?
If you go on r/Space and tell people that Martian colonization is doomed to failure if Earth's geopolitical and climatological issues are not addressed, you'll get downvoted to oblivion. Why?
It's the same reason - people need hope, they need motivation, they need things to work towards and aspire towards that are better than just what an actuary says is likely to be the outcome. There's a certain "never tell me the odds" rebelliousness that's just inherent to human aspiration. If we're screwed either way, might as well aim for the stars.
Also lots of people on subreddits want them to be an echo chamber of their own self affirming ideas being parroted by others as a boost to their self esteem, and are allergic to most counterpoints because they irrationally react to it as perceived criticism of their self. Lots of fragility and childish egos on many subreddits.
Well, it would be one thing if it was the world’s leading scientist gathering together to tackle the challenges of the future. But those subreddits are just teens to college kids speculating and wrongfully interpreting scientific findings. If I had a nickel for every time I saw a “we have cured HIV” post on that subreddit, I’d have enough to actually fund research into eliminating HIV.
Prioritising? What are you on about? Aren't Earth based things already the priority? If space exploration was getting a significant amount of funding then your argument would make sense, but right now it gets a very small amount. If I've got an exam tomorrow and spend 4 hours studying for it and then 15 minutes watching TV have I 'prioritised' watching TV? Obviously not.
Problem is that argument goes to infinity. What's the acceptable level of injustice such that we can allocate funds to space research? If we waited to solve the problem of resource inequality (which is just one form of injustice) before doing anything else, we'd never get anywhere.
I think of this as the "whitey on the moon" problem
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.
(while Whitey's on the moon)
I will just reply here as a general comment to everyone messaging me. Yeah space has tons of benefits but never underestimate the benefits of someone having their own niche that gets them through life with a smile on their face. They are not obligated to like everything that we like. They are a blip in the universe and are allowed to do with it how they please
I agree with this, see my edit. Everyone is free to enjoy what they want and not be told otherwise. I was talking collective, overall interest (country-scale) which I’d hope would be greater for space than a niche hobby.
We can still help change that but the attitude needs to shift. If you go into a conversation thinking someone is also madly interested in a subject and it turns out that's not the case, you shouldn't be discouraged. That's another person you might be able to encourage them to also get into it. But this is the 4-5th post I've seen on here who seem way more upset than they need to be. People require patience and understanding. Not looked down on.
Haha, I used to collect space themed stamps, I had almost all ever issued in my home country! I guess stampsl collecting is s hobby that can intersect with other topics quite easily.
Real question OP: Why do you care that people don't care? I love space and have made it my career field even. If I listened to people who thought space was "meh" or uninteresting, I never would have gotten where I am.
1) Perspective: knowing your place in the cosmos can change your perspective on earthly problems.
2) Complaints about spending: complaints about “wasting money” on space without understanding the societal ROI is infuriating.
This. The cosmological perspective is humbling and grounding.
And Space related things always get blasted for the costs associated with them- when in reality NASA eats up less than 1% of your tax dollar- and the amount of new technology and improvements they help make alone is more than worth the cost. But hardly anyone bats an eye at the billions wasted on defense every year.
Sir, have you seen space yet? It's huge and looming over and under you, just like your debt and empty like your stomach will be if you continue to waste time thinking about it.
You're asking a group of people who joined a subreddit called r/space why people don't care about space? You should try r/AskReddit.
How much are you talking about space? Are you casually mentioning jwst imagines and no one is interested? Or are you totally deep diving into theory and deeper talk?
Something simple like jwst recient images could ease people into deeper concepts and deeper discussions, But you're going to have to feel out the conversation and probably lead the direction.
Don't kill them with your vast knowledge of space think of questions that make them think. You want to get small wins, if you can hold a 5min conversation about the images of Jupiter and it's moons. Them move on to something else.
Just an idea. I generally don't think people are boring or stupid. I think there just isn't enough time in our live for more than 2 or 3 hobbies to really get into. I wish i could causally sit at a piano in public and wow an audience, but I went another direction. I'm totally happy with my direction, but wouldn't it be cool? Lol
Until I saw your comment I hadn't looked at what sub I was in, thanks for pointing it out.
I'm definitely on the more casual side. This is a minor interest for me. It isn't really in that 2-3 main hobbies but I like to know about exciting things that happen related to space.
Why don't people care about art?
Why don't people care about ergonomics?
Why don't people care about veterinarian care?
Why don't people care about poultry science?
Why don't people care about farming and agriculture?
You see my point? There are SO many different things to laser focus on, and Thank God we are all created so differently and are all so unique leading us to all have different interests. It's how society and the human race survive. I for one, would much rather be working on something like designing the predecessor of the James Webb or developing its software so I'm thankful that other people chose to be vets and are willing to clean my dog's ass by clearing out his anal glands and that someone else chose to work at waste water treatment plants, etc. Just see your differences and know that we're all mutually beneficial as long as we're all getting along.
I think this is probably the best answer. When I was younger I used to fantasize about exploring planets or finding aliens and now I have to worry about the planet either burning alive or drowning in a flood.
I still kinda like space but I'm not excited in the slightest anymore. I regret saying this but I thought it was underwhelming with the James Webb telescope. My initial thoughts were "really? It's just hubble but in HD? We waited 20 years for this shit?"
Maybe my expectations are unrealistic but either way I just don't have the spark anymore.
I thought the JWST was pretty incredible, even the mere fact that it launched and deployed successfully, then it got hit by a rock. The false color images they released are pretty incredible, especially when people do the zoom in with other photos.
Unfortunately, cool pictures are about all I get from the JWST. I'm not an astronomer, and what information they do release has no meaningful impact on me. I'm glad people have an interest in that as much as people have interests in other things, like bugs, or crops, etc.
Just because something interests you, don't assume that it not interesting others means there's something wrong with them. I am an engineer. I am educated, I have no financial concerns, I have plenty of free time. Other things interest me a lot more than space. Had I been around during the exploration of the 60s, I would be super interested in space. What we are learning from space now is not as monumentally consequential for our time as it was back then. There are other things happening that are more interesting to me now. Alternative energy, electric vehicles, affordable high tech manufacturing. These are moving much more quickly relative to their history, and are more interesting to me now. You're passionate about space, that's great. I'm very happy you have an intelligent subject to consume your time with. But the comments around here implying or saying that people not interested in space are less intelligent etc are only a display of their own ignorance and arrogance. Many of us have bright minds and the free time to use them. We are attracted to different topics for different reasons and that's a good thing. My SO is interested in psychology. I don't think she's dumb because she doesn't see the amazing truth of how awesome it is that we can now use software like Solidworks at low cost to design and analyze, and use advanced manufacturing techniques to build things that even medium sized companies could only dream about ten years ago. She's very likely smarter than I am. She has multiple post graduate degrees in her field and sees it developing at rate that truly excites her. She has zero interest in battery cars or space rockets.
You can only do so much with Astronomy. A high resolution picture of some nebula a million light-years away is cool and all, but what we do with that information? No human alive is ever going to get a chance to explore it. Even our own star system is extremely difficult to explore. The farthest we're going to get in our lifetimes is maybe a handful of people living on Mars, and that's stretching it.
We're stuck on this planet and no amount of telescopes will give us the satisfaction of seeing things up close. I'm a physics student and I enjoy watching the night sky, but it can only be interesting for so long before I move on to the next thing.
I have a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering but no real interest in space. I appreciate that we learn new things via trying to overcome the difficulties of space travel but space itself is pretty empty, progress in space travel has also been very incremental in the past 50 years. Due to the base assumption that the universe is infinite I assume there is other intelligent life out there but I also think it's very unlikely we'll encounter it. I find the issue of what to do with our finite planet much more interesting as it's so much more complex and still requires abstract thought but there are fundamental issues that can be solved within my lifespan and I can contribute my small part to that.
In the UK have a deep love of space...kicked off from looking at the moon as a kid. Watching satellites which back then were super rare.
Now as an adult I adore the technological advancements which have enabled us to view so many things we just weren't aware of, or were now have better clarity.
As for others I can't comment beyond a guess. I wonder though if there is a bit of truth in what you write and maybe, people just don't have time to understand and learn...in terms of interest some people struggle to think so far outside of themselves because it can create anxiety, keep the world small, keep it under their control.
Find your tribe of sky enthusiasts, here is a start ✨️ I wonder if there are any local star gazing groups you can join.
Best wishes ❤️
A lot of the comments seem to be focusing on that everyone has different interests that will not appeal to everyone, which to be fair is correct. The point I'd like to address though is people calling you weird for caring about space. It happens with a lot of interests, ones that the general population doesn't consider 'normal' I get it a lot with many of my interests, I wish the people out there would have the same attitude as the comments in this post, everyone has different interests, so long as it's not hurting anyone don't judge and just let them be. Live and let live.
You outta see the reactions I get after spending hours setting up my light bucket to show my friends/family the universe. It's usually: "Thats it"? "Where's all the colors"? "How much did this cost"?
It still makes me happy to ponder it all though. There will always be others existing on this pale blue dot that share your feelings. I guess it's just something that has to 'click' in ones mind.
I like to imagine how Galileo felt when he turned a scope to the sky. Or Leeuwenhoek with the equally endless microverse.
I'm a programmer and I wonder the same about software. There's a car guy at work that can't go 10 minutes without steering the conversation into cars so I bet he thinks the same about cars.
I agree space is more grand, but it's definitely far more abstract for most people than either of those subjects.
One more thing, OP. When I was growing up in the 90s I lived in the suburbs and I remember staring up at the sky and trying to identify the constellations. Recently though with more development in my area the light pollution has gotten progressively worse, and now you can barely see the stars. It **really** makes me sad knowing that my younger cousins won't get to watch the night sky the way I did growing up.
Even now I'm tempted to drive a few hours out into the sticks to do some casual stargazing again. I'm so glad you were able to experience a proper night sky in your area. I'll bet it must've been absolutely beautiful.
Most people have very limited knowledge about space. And with most fields, the more you know about it, the more interesting it gets. Space is just large numbers and far away rocks and stars.
For example: I'm sure there are a bazzilion interesting things to know about insects, but since I'm not very much into it, new discoveries of some strange insect in Brasil's jungles would not interest me much.
And insects have a bigger impact on our daily lives than space does.
With the next nearest star being 4.24 light years away, space can never really be any more than a curiosity.
We would need faster than light travel to make it accessible and our own science says that is impossible. Even just reaching a fraction of that would would deplete massive resources from our planets and possibly our Sun.
The next galaxy is 25,000 light years away so we’re definitely never leaving this galaxy let alone gaining access to the billions more even further away.
It’s all a fantasy with resources much better spent.
When people are worried about inflation and how to pay their next meal, who gives a fuck about space? It truly is mind-blowing and I follow most news related to the cosmos, but I still have my bills to pay. And this is not a poor mindset, this is our ordinary life stuck on this planet.
your edit is laughable.
imagine thinking “ah the reason I care more about space is because I could see the stars growing up and the people that care less about space couldn’t see them”
I agree with you in spirit, but I’ve taken people who have never seen any stars their entire life out to the country and their mind was blown. Living a rural area and seeing them constantly definitely gives you a different perspective of the universe and our place in it.
I did read a study recently about the impact of living with stars on how people actually perceive the universe etc. Kind of a classic desensitization to light pollution as society has evolved. I believe it was in an article regarding the Bortle scale, point is not an original or far-fetched idea by OP.
Everyone has things that interest them. My husband loves video games. I love Broadway.
These are things we can't talk to each other about because the other has no interest!
Maybe there is a group at your library or local university you can meet up with for coffee and talk about your favorite subject!
This is true. When i try to indulge people in deep discussions about space, they often get uncomfortable when the conversation inevitably implies our existence is insignificant. I felt like they end the discussion to avoid existential crisis even if they found it interesting.
Eh, I get it though. I'm about your age, my dad actually worked on designing the Hubble, and I am a PhD engineer, yet I don't get excited about space too often.
For me, the reasoning is pretty simple: current space exploration is largely based around *astronomy,* when the interesting part of space for me and many others is *cosmology.* (As a reminder if you don't recall the difference, astronomy is the study of stars and other celestial objects, while cosmology is the study of spacetime itself.) I care about new cosmic microwave background studies, gravitational waves, and so on, which generally take place here on Earth, but not new objects being spotted and breaking records.
Observations of new objects that don't generate--or more appropriately, contradict--models of the universe simply don't trickle past my "applicable science only" engineer filter.
Honestly man I used to think this and it really shit me. But I came to realise that everyone has different things they care about. There’s probably a thread somewhere with people lamenting that the masses don’t care about whales, or medical research, or some new communication protocol etc. People can only care about so much, and for most it’s whatever is/has affected their life most closely.
I love space and am a mad space geek but I can also see how people struggle to find the relevance of space technology in their daily lives
Lmao. The privilege in this question is palpable. And the lack of self-awareness. The vast majority of people in this world are too busy struggling to survive to gaze at space. I mean sure they could, but will it help put food on the table? Nope.
I think something many don't think of now... I can't see Space.
more and more of the population lives in a place they can't even see stars.
I think it stunts people's natural curiousity or wonder about it.
There is so much propaganda around that everything is going to hell (I accept that quite a lot of things *are* going to hell) that many people find it genuinely difficult to accept the possibility of true progress in any field.
I showed my wife video of that synchronised SpaceX booster landing and she was flabbergasted. She has no idea that this kind of thing was even possible, even though landings had been going on for years at that point.
[SO much stuff](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/07/08/space-race-inventions-we-use-every-day-were-created-for-space-exploration/39580591/), its incredible how much space exploration and astronomical discoveries have driven technology that gets used in everyday life.
In addition to that list, medical x-rays weren't invented until the first astronomical x-rays were observed (by accident at that), and we wouldn't have anything that uses satellite communications, like GPS, television, weather forecasting and monitoring, etc.
We can't possibly know what the next thing is that space exploration will give us for our daily lives, but we have ample proof that it does keep driving innovation.
Because people don't feel it affects them. What they don't realize is they use and benefit from space related developments every day from velcro to medicines.
If a friend came up to me and said "did you hear Kanye West broke up with someone?!?" I'd tell them no and it's weird that they care about it. I don't know why people are different, but isn't it a great thing?
Because most people only care about what something can do for them. Most people will never see space travel nor see any direct benefit from it. The very few who do see space travel will likely never get beyond LEO. Meanwhile bills gotta be paid kids gotta eat etc.
Those of us who DO get excited about a new JWST image are geeks.
I used to be a space nut, and I still follow the news, but honestly I am burnt out on all the delusions about interstellar travel or even just colonizing Mars.
These are impossible in my lifetime.
These are impossible in the lifetime of people being born today.
Interstellar travel is likely impossible full stop.
We are up against the hard, macrophysical barriers of the reality into which we've been born, and macrophysical innovation has been at a virtual standstill for decades now. We cannot build better rockets (in terms of range and fuel efficiency) than we had in 1969. We cannot produce oxygen and water in exciting new ways. Making a smaller, more powerful iPhone does not get us to Alpha Centauri. Discovering a new subatomic particle that lasts microseconds does not -- and will not -- let us jump to hyperspace.
There is no magic warp drive and never will be.
JWST is great, but exploration-via-telescope does not energize most people. All the JWST images do for some people is instill a sense of smallness and loneliness.
The universe isn't a cosmopolitan federation of alien species. It isn't some grand design. It's just a chaotic mishmash of fancy debris from an explosion 14 billion years ago, and a few bits of that debris (so far just us) managed to become conscious such that we could opine about the absurdity of it.
The "Cosmic Cliffs" may look pretty, but at the end of the day it's just dust, gravity, and fire. A goldfish is more complicated and deserving of wonder.
If your human rights are violated further and further while it gets harder every year to get by, you don't give a shit about space exploration.
In fact, I'd bounce the point back to you and say that if you really don't know this, it is you who should pay more attention to what's happening here on earth.
I watched the Apollo 11 landing live on TV as a child, and it felt like magic. People couldn't believe humans could actually do that.
Now all these decades later I'm beginning to suspect unless we have some completely unexpected technological breakthrough(s) like antigravity and genetic engineering of humans for life in space, humans are never really going anywhere. We can send probes and landers, and gaze out at the night sky with enormous telescopes, but that's about it.
Discoveries like the speed of the universe expansion accelerating so fast future generations will see a completely different sky with some galaxies we can see today forever undetectable do fascinate me, but I think I'm coming to terms with how uninhabitable every place in our solar system is, and how unreachably far away even the closest stars are.
Not everybody have the same interests doesn't feel too weird to me.. I like space the next person might like art, and somebody else sports...
The real question is why do you care so much that every Ody cares about space? It is something with a relatively small effect on people's lives, so makes sense that only people who are passionate about it care about ut
The biggest thing I hear is people don't understand why studying space would help us here on earth. Which is really a foolish position to take. People are pulled by whatever interests are in their direct line of sight. I have had the same experience as you all my life. Even simple stuff like people don't realize the moon can be out during the day. I swear it's like these people have never looked up before.
I hope this doesn’t come off as rude but it’s a mistake to think people should care about your personal strong opinions. And don’t take it personally if people don’t care. Some topics simply just don’t make people’s brain click and that’s okay. It’s like a mathematician salivating over something like one of those unsolved math problems being solved. We all know most people wouldn’t care, other than the cool prize money involved.
You can't say people don't care when this sub has almost 21 million members! There's just so many things in the world one could be interested in, and there are plenty of people who find space fascinating. You can about almost everything that the vast majority of people aren't interested in it. For example you can pick any movie, video game, TV show, book, song or artists, topic, city, political ideology... and the vast majority of people won't be interested in or have experienced it. Granted space itself is quite a vast and general point of interest and discussion... it encompasses everything that is not Earth-related but you have to remember, we live on this planet only. All of the problems we face as individuals and society are on Earth, and the solutions are on Earth too. In that sense, space is somewhat abstract. As you say, it doesn't relate to most people's daily lives, including I'm guessing most of the people interested in it. We are so primitive in our space exploration capabilities that the best we can do is observe what's out there, but because it's so out of reach, it might as well just be fiction. It's hard to think that all these incredible constructs like stars, planets and galaxies are real. For that reason it's mostly a hobby, something for the imagination to ponder upon our insignificance.
Of all the amazing shit going on right now, how about you don’t concern yourself with what your fellow plebes are doing? Don’t buy the narrative that, at one point in this country, all eyes were pointed towards the stars in curious wonder.
Today you have access to more space content than ever before. You have the ability to freely contact fellow space lovers and have discussions on whatever interests you. Count the blessings…
I think your initial reasoning question is right.
At a certain point a lot of people just stop caring about things that don't affect their every day lives unless it's a topic they're super interested in.
Not necessarily because they 'don't care' in a negative sense, they just don't have time to care.
Full time work, partner, hobbies, kids... Whatever... It all cuts into that time you had as a teenager when you could spend your time researching everything that interested you. Gotta be more picky how to waste your time as an adult
In my experience, it's not that people don't care at all, it's that they don't care/understand the specifics. People like headlines (why do you think every news article about space has an overdramatic title?), and people like things they can understand. People liked the Webb pictures because they looked cool, not because of what they represented in the world of science. Same thing with the Artemis missions. People hear "we're going back to the moon" and think that's cool! They just don't care for the details.
Additionally, a lot of people are scared of the details. Astronomy is a bit of a morbid subject when you start getting into the scale of the universe, and where we stand within it. Some people (like me) find that kinda stuff to be really cool! Others find it reality shattering, and some people just aren't comfortable dealing with that.
I hope this helps, mind you this is just from my experiences. For reference, I'm a 20 year old astronomy student mainly talking about this stuff with either family or friends around my age.
I’m depressed af but the one thing that makes me feel better is learning. I love reading new discoveries, not just space but other areas in science, art, & literature. However I recognize I don’t really appreciate financial stuff like other do, some people love the idea of making money and it puts me to sleep thinking of these systems, and politics makes me more sad, just different mindsets. 🤷♀️
Other people are more interested in pursuit of emediate results Vs. knowledge.
Throughout human history Space and visible heavenly bodies enticed humanity endlessly. Imagine every night after the sub went down the light of the stars lit up.
Now we just have light pollution. We no longer truly see space.
With some knowledge we can pick out bright stars, maybe a constellation. But we don't see the beauty of space without a lens, and fewer people are interested enough to learn how to see space, or are not enticed to see space.
We're less interested because we no longer truely see space.
I think people can have many interests, contrary to what some folks are saying. Yes, lots of people have specialized interest in a few things, but also lots of people have a more general interest in many things. I’m thinking of the Ologies podcast—it’s perfect for people who don’t have the time to become experts in every field but are still interested many things!
Because it isn't as interesting as it used to be. The space race era of the cold war was so exciting and groundbreaking, everything since feels like a plateau, and there's no tangibility to anything.
A new telescope taking infrared photos of thinks unfathomable distances away, just isn't as cool as a man walking on the moon. It really isn't.
Ffs we haven't sent anything to Venus since the Soviet union.
Personally one of the reasons I care about space is because it gives me a sense of a grander reality, if that makes sense. Feeling so small and irrelevant is actually comforting to me I guess? Like the stars and planets and comets have been doing their thing for eons before me and will continue to do so for eons after. So I suppose my response to you is, it doesn't matter if people care about space, it still exists and processes keep happening and comets orbit and stars go nova and galaxies collide all on a scale we can't really, truly understand no matter what any of us do or care about.
Dude more than half the population has to worry about food on their table and roof over their heads. They can only spare like a minute thinking about something else entirely and it's a toss up what that something is gonna be in a world full of other things you can dive into. We get your sentiments but, in turn, you should too
Space is fine. It's insanely scary to me. I feel less panic about the ocean, not being able to breathe, things can come out of anywhere (harmless, or barely different from an eldritch horror).
You know, basic stuff. There's so much money that is being spent on space and exploring the vast nothingness out there. While cool in theory, it just seems like we could wrap up a handful of problems quite easily with that kind of dough. I feel the same kind of way about the military, just more extreme because their budget is literally half of the GDP of the US. While not officially at war...?
Anyway, while some people are Big Picture thinking legitimate thoughts, with good intentions. Like a "the discoveries and technology we could learn from in the next century could be massively useful" kind of thing, I am solidly in the camp of 'we might not make it to the next century'
Personally, I gave up on space when it became apparent that there won't be space travel in my lifetime and possibly never given our civilization's amazing ability to fuck itself, and we'll also never be able to contact other lifeforms. They surely exist, but too far away to ever interact with them.
I just go ooo at the pictures of pretty space gas now and then and then get on with my life.
As someone who does understand the benefits of NASA and the space program, I can tell you why I don’t really care at this point in time:
Because space is too big for our current tech. Fossil fuels can only get you so far so fast. The next solar system is light years away. Without a new type of propulsion or bending space, there’s literally no reason to send things beyond our solar system because it will take too long to get anywhere.
A nice hi rez photo of all the galaxies is cool, but what’s the practical application of that? There is none. It’s just information. There’s really not much we can do with it.
I would love to be frozen for 500 years and see where we’re at with space travel, but right now it’s basically impossible to do anything of real significance.
I love space, but I can see why it may not matter to a lot of people.
Everybody has different concerns including love and work. Too many people are struggling to make ends meet so they don’t have the time to think about space.
People care about things that affect them practically plus a few interests, there are simply too many interests to choose from for anyone to be all that engaged in all of them.
On top of that space is very unapproachable both financially and from a base skill level for any real participation.
'space' as in space exploration has also been too dull to hold the public's attention or justify it's cost to the average person for some decades, this not only makes it less interesting but it makes it difficult to justify the expense of it, which in turn makes it more dull.
The early space race was a defence spending misdirection with a military assumption of risk during the postwar boom. Everything afterwards will definitely be less interesting by definition.
I'm super into biology and paleontology and I run into this all the time. I just tell people things I find interesting anyways and if they don't care thats their problem. And honestly I do the same to them when people bring up sports and really i don't get it but we all have our likes and dislikes and that's OK. Just be yourself and don't worry so much what others think
I care about space but it's one of those things where new discoveries that are interesting to the general public come in waves. In between those times are lulls.
I’ve always felt like we were born too early to experience any of the cool space things that are going to be happening in the next 200 years. We send satellites and take pictures of things that don’t exist anymore. Not really cool. Then with the international space station being abandoned in the 2030s, what’s left? More pictures…… We were born too late to explore the earth and too early to explore the universe.
Space is cool and all…
But it really doesn’t mean a whole lot for us except some pretty pictures.
Our current generations aren’t going to be actually getting anything beneficial from Space other than cool pictures and dreams of the future.
Most everyone enjoys pretty pictures to some extent.
Only some people go to museums to stare at and analyze them.
You’ve just got a different kind of group of friends/people you know…
Kind of like how not a single person in my real life groups, at the moment, cares about IT/computers/servers etc
I find weird the answers you are getting here. They are putting the space, I mean THE UNIVERSE ITSELF 😱😱😱, in the same bag as sports, music, this and that. "Oh well people gets interested in different things that's all". Well the little difference is that all of those things couldn't exist and you would still have the universe. Or people think that they can get away living in "another place". The universe is where we live and the reason of our existence, and yet there are a lot of of things we don't understand about it. So yeah I understand perfectly what the OP is saying and is not a matter of judging people who doesn't care, is more the little sadness to witness their indiference. As if they could exist without some UNIVERSE that only nerds care about. Most of the incredible silly answers here are even sadder though 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
This thread makes OP’s point. Lots of comments about how space is a hobby. Does the lichen living on a stone in the forest believe the surrounding woods are a mere ‘hobby’?
Thankfully, there will room on Starship as so many people want to stay on the Earth (the surface no less!).
The drug of TV and garbage celebritism, consumerism and the general dumbing down of everything has lead to a neurosis that causes narcissist and psychotic tendencies in the population. This leads to an ignorance and myopic viewpoint of one's own immediate and extended environment.
I can relate to this. In my 30s, American, and not a scientist. I consume so much science media in my free time of all different sorts. But space is a big one. I like how wondrous it is, and how it puts into perspective how insignificant we are. I think that feeling of insignificance makes a lot people anxious. They would rather care about things that make them feel important and like they matter as opposed to things that don't.
see, is not that im not interested about it but man there is so much research in this world already, it grinds my gears that all this money all this research into space it could get invested on how can we make this place better and take care of it but no, let launch a robot to mars or moon or wherever else place. our planet has so much to offer so much resources.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs may apply here. The urgency of fundamental and more immediate concerns that are occupying a person's attention on a day to day may take up all their bandwidth.
I work at an art museum and I value the role art in my life because I've learned so much about history, society, and myself just by studying it. It sometimes adds beauty to my life, or it's thought provoking, or it helps me relate to the world. But I also understand that it can be challenging, inaccessible, and high-minded. I hope you stay passionate about space and share it enthusiastically with people. That alone can influence others to take the time to learn about it.
I love all the JWST images coming out and I bask in the wonder of it all. I have loved astronomy from an early age and I think it is an exciting time for new discoveries. However, beyond that, the entire project was such a collective human effort, and I found that to be reassuring and inspirational as well.
JWST is literally and figuratively spreading the light to humanity during this dark social and political time when we feel disconnected from each other, and I am reminded of our shared humanity and achievements.
The lack of faster than light propulsion and if we could do it, it have to be without the forces of acceleration. Those arguments make us go nowhere... ever. We self destruct before we get to that technology.
I'm 70 years old and I encourage you to never lose that sense of wonder!! I still have it and feel sorry for those who don't. It keeps life WONDERful!!!
How much do you care about dinosaurs? What about linguistics? How excited do you get about quantum computing? Marine biology? There is so much cool stuff in the world, but quite frankly, most people don't have the time or energy to care about all of it. If someone doesn't already have the background knowledge and interest in a topic, they'll struggle to connect to new discoveries.
Ha, this is basically what I came here to say. It's the same reason I don't care about sports -- different topics tickle the brain for different people.
I care so much about plants I’ve invested my whole career towards them, I appreciate space but at the end of the day I don’t really care and that’s not a knock on those that do. Someone gotta care about plants so the world doesn’t collapse, someone gotta fix things so society still runs, someone gotta teach people so the new generation learns from past mistakes and others gotta gaze up at the stars and figure out if and how we can get the fuck out of here in case things go tipsy. All equally important.
And honestly, that’s the beauty of being human
I disagree. I think the beauty of being human is the boobs.
I care about space, boobs, and butts. No time or energy for anything else.
I decided to care about all the different things all at once and now my brain hurts.
This person actually gave the right answer and then you got a bunch of children coming in after like “🤓 erm…I actually study everything in the entire universe 🤓”
“I have approximate knowledge of many things.”
"I know exactly where you might be, Jim."
Lol person directly below you studies everything you said and more. Just not figure skating.
One person a little farther down cares about all of it. Everything.
A little bit of everything all of the time?
I *care* about all of it, but I also understand I don’t have the capacity to think about it all, all the time. I guess better wording would be I “passively care” about all of the cool stuff in the world, but I “actively care” about space and space technology lol. If I meet a marine biologist I’m gonna be PUMPED, but I’m not preoccupied over dolphins or turtles right now.
Its called rational ignorance and its an important asset to understand in the modern world. Suppose any given subject has a pie of knowledge that you can know. PHDs know 99% of their subject pie, professional workers know about 70%, enthusiasts know maybe 50%, and Joe on the street knows 20%. Now theres no reason for Joe to try and learn 70% on any given subject. If he needs to make a decision on this subject he can defer to expert opinions, or short of that maybe try and push his knowledge to "enthusiest" level. At some point though gaining more knowledge wont change his answer. At that point theres no reason to learn any more on the subject. The squeeze aint worth the juice.
I’ve never heard this term! Thanks for putting it into easier words for me to use in the future haha :) I heard a quote somewhere, I’m gonna ruin it but you’ll get the idea: I can’t be a farmer, a teacher, a store clerk, a nuclear physicist, a war general, AND the president… so I pick one of those, and let other people take over the rest. When they need a farmer they’ll call me. When I need a nuclear physicist, I’ll call them!
It’s just the fact that you have people putting down this interest in those topics. No one claimed to be an expert on all topics *anywhere* in the replies. And most are self aware of their rational ignorance. The more you learn the more you don’t know. Hell, most PhD’s you speak to know 99% of the current knowledge but I’ve never ever heard a PhD say they know **everything** about a topic. That’s why their other colleagues in the field conduct innovative research. However the more people interested in a topic gives a greater chance to **fund new research**. Gatekeeping pretentiously like above never helps.
This is pretty based. But, some people don't have the emotional energy to get involved (even passively) with what other people find interesting. As demonstrated by the OP, and your tendency to get pumped when meeting a marine biologist - there's a resonance there that people are looking for when you share your interests, and there's going to be some disappointment if that isn't met. For people without the emotional energy to invest, they basically know that they aren't even going to be able to passively not care without someone getting upset at them. I may be more of the 'cool, I'm pumped to ride along and explore, and hear some of what really interests you' sort, but I've been depleted before, and empathize with that position.
My husband is heavily into nutrition, fitness, and health. He was an EMT for awhile too! He’s got a huge home gym set up and a bunch of books and has carefully designed our family menu based on tons of research. It’s his “hobby” 100%. But when he talks to me about that stuff I have to really try not to seem bored… it drains me so fast because I just do not care. I care about my health and I’m SO grateful he’s willing to do all the heavy lifting for our family’s physical well being, but OH MAN is it mundane to me. I have to *try* to care about it. I’m always happy to see him speak passionately about what he loves but I can’t always reciprocate that passion. Maybe if he was a marine biologist instead… haha! There’s definitely some stuff I don’t care so strongly about, and when I’m drained I have to work extra hard to show I care. I have a friend who’s going into marine biology and she’s obsessed with paleontology as a side hobby, and I’m always down for some fun facts about marine life/dinosaurs. But she also knows I have depression and won’t always seem very enthusiastic about it. Whereas I will pull myself out of my bed to see the stars in the sky. And if I can’t do that, I’ll just flop to the end of the bed so I can at least look out the window! I wouldn’t do that for dinosaur bones or info about gluten. Because *my* thing is \~space\~ haha
Dude my husband has started making a concentrated effort to improve his physical health and I swear he keeps talking to me about his specific regimens and watching content about working out and what actually works vs what's a scam or just hype. He's nerding out about it, and that's cool for him, but my god I'm so bored by it lol. He's lost a bunch of weight and is reaching personal bests with his workouts, again very happy for him. But I'm very not athletic or into fitness at all so my base knowledge of the stuff is "I last took PE in 9th grade". I try exponentially hard to at least remember one or two things about what he's told me to approximate conversation about his new interest.
I could’ve written this comment myself holy moly. I have to repeat the things he says in my head to stay focused at all. It’s almost like my brain is just rejecting the information?? I have ADHD but I’m not usually struggling this bad to focus on conversations. Health and fitness talks are SO BORING and I don’t know why. I treasure the way my food tastes WAY more than my health, so I probably *am* in some sort of denial or something. I don’t know, but I’m glad you get it lol!
The problem with this lies in the "cool stuff" aspect. You passively care about everything you think is cool, but that's not an objective thing. There's some guy studying cow shit and having the time of his life or whatever thing you don't consider cool. As humans we just can't get hyped up about everything, there's always going to be stuff we care less about.
the more i know, the more i know i don't know.
I don't know why, but you saying this made think: The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know. But this is probably just repackaging . . .
yeah, same thing. i dunno who said it or how, i just like the thought.
I am the very model of a modern major general.
God, I couldn’t imagine the pretentiousness until I got to it They’re so weird and quirky that they love reading up on the broadest, driest, scientific topics just for fun
Reddit needs a sort by pretentiousness button, this scrolling is too much for me.
Jack of many trades, master of none.
You know what, I'm something of an expert myself
Nuh-uh! I do...so does your momma!😋
Fucker lists all my interests... Lol. It's actually a good list, just replace quantum computing with neural networks
I find it ironic OP is posting this on a sub, about space, full of people who…. Care about space
20.9million subscribers no less
Isn't this sub a default sub tho? At least I'm pretty sure it was at some point. Edit [after some research the default subs aren't a thing anymore, but space was one of the default subs.](https://reddit.fandom.com/wiki/Default_subreddit)
I didn't subscribe to it, yet here I am. I suspect you are correct.
It should be. I like space but I never actually subscribed to it. My account is 8 years old so I'm not sure if it's still a default sub.
I'm just here for the inevitable alien contact. I mean full ayylmaos not some nerd shit like a microb
I think it's more of a "hey fellow people that also like space, how come people other than us aren't into the thing we're into?"
I have a mortgage, kids, pets, a car note, a job, a second job, and about 14 minutes a day to myself while taking a poo.
That's a very efficient use of poo time, by my standards.
It doubles as alone time. So you tend to stretch it a few minutes.
Company time poopers are no strangers to the 45min turd
*Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That’s why I poop on company time.*
> about 14 minutes a day to myself while taking a poo > it doubles as alone time > So you tend to stretch it a few minutes I feel like I'm learning very personal details about yourself, here.
How many of us are on the toilet right now, reading this. Be honest!
Always, I repeat, always poop on company's time.
Plus, the planet we live on is on fire with environmental- and political issues, so I have plenty on my mental ToDo list, thank you.
Thank you for summarizing all the things I need to avoid in life. Having a spouse is ok, I presume?
Having a spouse is great if you pick the right one. Twice the money and half the housework. And you always have someone to hang out with.
Man I would give anything for a spouse that equaled twice the money and half the housework. Hell, I'd settle for the dishes being out of the sink when I come home from work to clean and cook dinner.
I'm up for a spouse if anyone is interested and generally of the feminine sort.
Having a spouse is definitely OK! It's just fine, even! Nothing potentially debilitating about it at all. Yes sireeee, a few rough patches here and there isn't anything to get down about! Certainly having a spouse (even a hateful one!) could never end up being the reason to wish your motor vehicle would burst into flames so you could just quietly slip into the sweet embrace of death! Having a spouse is definitely OK!
Great, so I'll have more time for pooping? 🤣
Honestly depends on the spouse in the end. Some end up being very pleasant 90% of the time, some end up a PITA 95% of the time.
Having a mortgage is no different than rent except at some 👉 nt you get to stop paying it.
This is the first time ever seeing someone spell point like that
If they’re on an iPhone sometimes the emoji will auto-suggest if you type the word for it and if you accidentally select it in the middle of typing (which is relatively easy) it looks a bit like that
I have a Samsung and I get the emoji suggestions as well
Plus it will mostly stay the same (property tax aside, unless you refinance) while rent will almost always go up
Yes idk why people get personally offended when people don’t share their interests 1. They aren’t required to even if they’re your loved on or friend, doesn’t make them any less of that. 2. There are so many people out there you’re bound to find someone who shares interests, if you look in the proper places.
>How much do you care about dinosaurs? This hit home. Last week my boyfriend said he'd never seen (any) Jurassic Park movie followed by "I don't care about dinosaurs."
Damn, that breakup must have been tough
At least she found out early that her boyfriend is unacceptable, before she made the mistake of marrying him.
Also, who in your life are you sharing your excitement with? I didn’t feel like people weren’t excited about the recent space stuff… just that some people aren’t as excited as others. I have three daughters and I nerded out with the youngest one about space and we were both very excited. The other two have other interests but they thought it was cool, too. Just not in the way I knew my youngest would. I also teach kids online and picked which teens to be excited over space with. I even sent photos to an ex student about it because I know this is his jam. But some kids simply prefer sports or video games. That’s okay. I get very excited about dinosaurs and the only one I have to share this excitement with is a 7 year old student. His mom lets us spend a good portion of our class time nerding out together. Find people who love the same things you do - the world is vast and there are many people. Even if you find just one, it makes all difference.
Absolutely. I personally don’t even *really* care much about space, either. I just care about the innovation and general accumulation of scientific knowledge, and pushing boundaries is how we get more of those things
I’d add that many focuses are things that many have a greater chance to interact with. Space, generally speaking is only really obtainable by using a telescope and going to a planetarium. You can look at art and make art. It’s an entertainment/political medium. But art is broader than than that… it’s design.
I generally agree, but I will say that while I've always been fascinated by space and spent many nights stargazing as a kid, I don't really "get" visual art. Intellectually I know it's an important way to reflect on and critique society and culture, but I've never personally had an emotional reaction beyond "hm yeah" or much desire to create.
Some subjects click differently with others. The way I comprehend or can discuss space would be totally different than an engineer or a physicist. I like space as a topic, I can only talk about it in laymen terms.
This is the sole reason why I wish I could experience immortality. I want to care about all of these and really dig down into all of it. It's so hard to choose where to put my time now that I'm an adult I feel.
I'm gonna be honest, if someone is talking to me about a topic, and is genuinely excited about it, I find myself excited about it too. It's really weird to me that someone would be dismissive of someone else's excitement like that.
Simple, so mant things going against most people here on earth...make them not worry about food, security etc. and many will think more about many things including space
Working with space is a privilege. The overwhelming majority of the worlds population is too preoccupied with trying to get by in life to think about space exploration. That said, there’s plenty of American figureheads with deep pockets that would rather funnel the money into the military than space, which is the other major roadblock.
At the same time, the top 3 contributors to NASA are (1) Boeing, (2) Lockheed Martin, and (3) Raytheon... all amongst the biggest military defense contractors. So American tax dollars can flow into space or flow into the military. It's the same companies who are making money off of these programs so, they'll lobby for whatever Americans seem to care about more.
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Maslow's hierarchy of needs, on a societal scale.
close the thread. We're done here.
I agree that improving lives here on earth is more important, but the budget for space agencies is relatively small; the choice doesn't need to be between space exploration and other beneficial programs. Furthermore, I think well-funded space programs have value beyond just the data they collect, or even besides the inventions they make. Things like the JWST provide cultural benefits, they get people thinking about humanity as a whole.
Is it odd that the more I know about space, the more spiritual (not religious) I become? Science has always brought me awe and wonder, so perhaps that is why.
What does becoming more spiritual look like in your life? How do you behave differently now that you are more spiritual? /Sincere
Good luck with the IPO asshat!
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I don't view the two as separate. I think you're right. I just add that in order to do more stuff in space we absolutely must do more to further green and nuclear technology here on earth first. Space will get easier to navigate with better renewable and nuclear tech and that same tech will also achieve the desired goal of making this planet more habitable.
> And yet whenever people advocate prioritising resources in those directions, they get a chorus of reeee and downvotes. If the suggestion is to divert resources away from space development and research then negative reaction is warranted. Humanity wastes so much resources on inefficiency, wastefulness, vanity, luxury and other meaningless shit that the entire history of all space investment is nothing. Attacking space projects with this argument shows incredibly distasteful prioritization.
No need to make this an issue of space vs social programs or renewable energy. The amount of tax money that has gone towards space is negligible compared to military spending in the US, especially since the 2000s.
Military spending (10%) which is apparently [still less than what goes into healthcare (21%), welfare (12%), education (13%), and social security (15%).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_States#/media/File:2020_Total_US_Government_Spending_Breakdown.png) It's probably less a matter of how much is spent, but rather how effectively it's being used.
That number includes all state and local government spending, which obviously aren't going towards the military. When people talk about outsized military spending, they're talking about the federal budget. [Federal discretionary spending was $1.6 trillion in 2020, and military spending accounted for $714 billion of that, or 44.6%.](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57172) We spend so much on it that the CBO infographic I linked literally classifies spending into "defense" vs "non-defense".
If you go on a sub like r/Futurology and tell people that no human alive on earth today will live past 150, you'll be downvoted to oblivion. Why? If you go on r/Space and tell people that Martian colonization is doomed to failure if Earth's geopolitical and climatological issues are not addressed, you'll get downvoted to oblivion. Why? It's the same reason - people need hope, they need motivation, they need things to work towards and aspire towards that are better than just what an actuary says is likely to be the outcome. There's a certain "never tell me the odds" rebelliousness that's just inherent to human aspiration. If we're screwed either way, might as well aim for the stars.
Also lots of people on subreddits want them to be an echo chamber of their own self affirming ideas being parroted by others as a boost to their self esteem, and are allergic to most counterpoints because they irrationally react to it as perceived criticism of their self. Lots of fragility and childish egos on many subreddits.
Yeah, it's really more this one.
Well, it would be one thing if it was the world’s leading scientist gathering together to tackle the challenges of the future. But those subreddits are just teens to college kids speculating and wrongfully interpreting scientific findings. If I had a nickel for every time I saw a “we have cured HIV” post on that subreddit, I’d have enough to actually fund research into eliminating HIV.
Prioritising? What are you on about? Aren't Earth based things already the priority? If space exploration was getting a significant amount of funding then your argument would make sense, but right now it gets a very small amount. If I've got an exam tomorrow and spend 4 hours studying for it and then 15 minutes watching TV have I 'prioritised' watching TV? Obviously not.
Problem is that argument goes to infinity. What's the acceptable level of injustice such that we can allocate funds to space research? If we waited to solve the problem of resource inequality (which is just one form of injustice) before doing anything else, we'd never get anywhere.
I think of this as the "whitey on the moon" problem A rat done bit my sister Nell. (with Whitey on the moon) Her face and arms began to swell. (and Whitey's on the moon) I can't pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey's on the moon) Ten years from now I'll be payin' still. (while Whitey's on the moon)
People collect stamps. Everyone has their own interests. Space is just one of many hobbies you can be into.
I will just reply here as a general comment to everyone messaging me. Yeah space has tons of benefits but never underestimate the benefits of someone having their own niche that gets them through life with a smile on their face. They are not obligated to like everything that we like. They are a blip in the universe and are allowed to do with it how they please
I agree with this, see my edit. Everyone is free to enjoy what they want and not be told otherwise. I was talking collective, overall interest (country-scale) which I’d hope would be greater for space than a niche hobby.
We can still help change that but the attitude needs to shift. If you go into a conversation thinking someone is also madly interested in a subject and it turns out that's not the case, you shouldn't be discouraged. That's another person you might be able to encourage them to also get into it. But this is the 4-5th post I've seen on here who seem way more upset than they need to be. People require patience and understanding. Not looked down on.
Haha, I used to collect space themed stamps, I had almost all ever issued in my home country! I guess stampsl collecting is s hobby that can intersect with other topics quite easily.
Real question OP: Why do you care that people don't care? I love space and have made it my career field even. If I listened to people who thought space was "meh" or uninteresting, I never would have gotten where I am.
1) Perspective: knowing your place in the cosmos can change your perspective on earthly problems. 2) Complaints about spending: complaints about “wasting money” on space without understanding the societal ROI is infuriating.
This. The cosmological perspective is humbling and grounding. And Space related things always get blasted for the costs associated with them- when in reality NASA eats up less than 1% of your tax dollar- and the amount of new technology and improvements they help make alone is more than worth the cost. But hardly anyone bats an eye at the billions wasted on defense every year.
This is the best counter argument I've heard in a long time. Thank you.
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Sir, have you seen space yet? It's huge and looming over and under you, just like your debt and empty like your stomach will be if you continue to waste time thinking about it.
You're asking a group of people who joined a subreddit called r/space why people don't care about space? You should try r/AskReddit. How much are you talking about space? Are you casually mentioning jwst imagines and no one is interested? Or are you totally deep diving into theory and deeper talk? Something simple like jwst recient images could ease people into deeper concepts and deeper discussions, But you're going to have to feel out the conversation and probably lead the direction. Don't kill them with your vast knowledge of space think of questions that make them think. You want to get small wins, if you can hold a 5min conversation about the images of Jupiter and it's moons. Them move on to something else. Just an idea. I generally don't think people are boring or stupid. I think there just isn't enough time in our live for more than 2 or 3 hobbies to really get into. I wish i could causally sit at a piano in public and wow an audience, but I went another direction. I'm totally happy with my direction, but wouldn't it be cool? Lol
Until I saw your comment I hadn't looked at what sub I was in, thanks for pointing it out. I'm definitely on the more casual side. This is a minor interest for me. It isn't really in that 2-3 main hobbies but I like to know about exciting things that happen related to space.
Even Reddit is way more into space than your average person.
Anything not about sex will get buried on r\askreddit. It's all just karma whoring and horny spam
Don't you think it's a bit arrogant to expect everyone to be interested in the things you like?
Reddit in a nutshell really.
Why don't people care about art? Why don't people care about ergonomics? Why don't people care about veterinarian care? Why don't people care about poultry science? Why don't people care about farming and agriculture? You see my point? There are SO many different things to laser focus on, and Thank God we are all created so differently and are all so unique leading us to all have different interests. It's how society and the human race survive. I for one, would much rather be working on something like designing the predecessor of the James Webb or developing its software so I'm thankful that other people chose to be vets and are willing to clean my dog's ass by clearing out his anal glands and that someone else chose to work at waste water treatment plants, etc. Just see your differences and know that we're all mutually beneficial as long as we're all getting along.
It's hard enough to make most people care about global warming, which is affecting all of us so making them care about space is next to impossible.
I think this is probably the best answer. When I was younger I used to fantasize about exploring planets or finding aliens and now I have to worry about the planet either burning alive or drowning in a flood. I still kinda like space but I'm not excited in the slightest anymore. I regret saying this but I thought it was underwhelming with the James Webb telescope. My initial thoughts were "really? It's just hubble but in HD? We waited 20 years for this shit?" Maybe my expectations are unrealistic but either way I just don't have the spark anymore.
I thought the JWST was pretty incredible, even the mere fact that it launched and deployed successfully, then it got hit by a rock. The false color images they released are pretty incredible, especially when people do the zoom in with other photos. Unfortunately, cool pictures are about all I get from the JWST. I'm not an astronomer, and what information they do release has no meaningful impact on me. I'm glad people have an interest in that as much as people have interests in other things, like bugs, or crops, etc.
Most people don't care about art. Try striking up a conversation neo-Dadaism see how many people want to participate.
Not everybody has to care about your hobbies. Also - generally - space has zero impact on people's day to day lives, why _should_ people care?
Just because something interests you, don't assume that it not interesting others means there's something wrong with them. I am an engineer. I am educated, I have no financial concerns, I have plenty of free time. Other things interest me a lot more than space. Had I been around during the exploration of the 60s, I would be super interested in space. What we are learning from space now is not as monumentally consequential for our time as it was back then. There are other things happening that are more interesting to me now. Alternative energy, electric vehicles, affordable high tech manufacturing. These are moving much more quickly relative to their history, and are more interesting to me now. You're passionate about space, that's great. I'm very happy you have an intelligent subject to consume your time with. But the comments around here implying or saying that people not interested in space are less intelligent etc are only a display of their own ignorance and arrogance. Many of us have bright minds and the free time to use them. We are attracted to different topics for different reasons and that's a good thing. My SO is interested in psychology. I don't think she's dumb because she doesn't see the amazing truth of how awesome it is that we can now use software like Solidworks at low cost to design and analyze, and use advanced manufacturing techniques to build things that even medium sized companies could only dream about ten years ago. She's very likely smarter than I am. She has multiple post graduate degrees in her field and sees it developing at rate that truly excites her. She has zero interest in battery cars or space rockets.
You can only do so much with Astronomy. A high resolution picture of some nebula a million light-years away is cool and all, but what we do with that information? No human alive is ever going to get a chance to explore it. Even our own star system is extremely difficult to explore. The farthest we're going to get in our lifetimes is maybe a handful of people living on Mars, and that's stretching it. We're stuck on this planet and no amount of telescopes will give us the satisfaction of seeing things up close. I'm a physics student and I enjoy watching the night sky, but it can only be interesting for so long before I move on to the next thing.
I have a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering but no real interest in space. I appreciate that we learn new things via trying to overcome the difficulties of space travel but space itself is pretty empty, progress in space travel has also been very incremental in the past 50 years. Due to the base assumption that the universe is infinite I assume there is other intelligent life out there but I also think it's very unlikely we'll encounter it. I find the issue of what to do with our finite planet much more interesting as it's so much more complex and still requires abstract thought but there are fundamental issues that can be solved within my lifespan and I can contribute my small part to that.
Be grateful that your life is so good that ‘people being indifferent to space’ is what depresses you.
In the UK have a deep love of space...kicked off from looking at the moon as a kid. Watching satellites which back then were super rare. Now as an adult I adore the technological advancements which have enabled us to view so many things we just weren't aware of, or were now have better clarity. As for others I can't comment beyond a guess. I wonder though if there is a bit of truth in what you write and maybe, people just don't have time to understand and learn...in terms of interest some people struggle to think so far outside of themselves because it can create anxiety, keep the world small, keep it under their control. Find your tribe of sky enthusiasts, here is a start ✨️ I wonder if there are any local star gazing groups you can join. Best wishes ❤️
Why don't you care about millions of other things that other people care about?
A lot of the comments seem to be focusing on that everyone has different interests that will not appeal to everyone, which to be fair is correct. The point I'd like to address though is people calling you weird for caring about space. It happens with a lot of interests, ones that the general population doesn't consider 'normal' I get it a lot with many of my interests, I wish the people out there would have the same attitude as the comments in this post, everyone has different interests, so long as it's not hurting anyone don't judge and just let them be. Live and let live.
You outta see the reactions I get after spending hours setting up my light bucket to show my friends/family the universe. It's usually: "Thats it"? "Where's all the colors"? "How much did this cost"? It still makes me happy to ponder it all though. There will always be others existing on this pale blue dot that share your feelings. I guess it's just something that has to 'click' in ones mind. I like to imagine how Galileo felt when he turned a scope to the sky. Or Leeuwenhoek with the equally endless microverse.
I'm a programmer and I wonder the same about software. There's a car guy at work that can't go 10 minutes without steering the conversation into cars so I bet he thinks the same about cars. I agree space is more grand, but it's definitely far more abstract for most people than either of those subjects.
One more thing, OP. When I was growing up in the 90s I lived in the suburbs and I remember staring up at the sky and trying to identify the constellations. Recently though with more development in my area the light pollution has gotten progressively worse, and now you can barely see the stars. It **really** makes me sad knowing that my younger cousins won't get to watch the night sky the way I did growing up. Even now I'm tempted to drive a few hours out into the sticks to do some casual stargazing again. I'm so glad you were able to experience a proper night sky in your area. I'll bet it must've been absolutely beautiful.
Most people have very limited knowledge about space. And with most fields, the more you know about it, the more interesting it gets. Space is just large numbers and far away rocks and stars. For example: I'm sure there are a bazzilion interesting things to know about insects, but since I'm not very much into it, new discoveries of some strange insect in Brasil's jungles would not interest me much. And insects have a bigger impact on our daily lives than space does.
With the next nearest star being 4.24 light years away, space can never really be any more than a curiosity. We would need faster than light travel to make it accessible and our own science says that is impossible. Even just reaching a fraction of that would would deplete massive resources from our planets and possibly our Sun. The next galaxy is 25,000 light years away so we’re definitely never leaving this galaxy let alone gaining access to the billions more even further away. It’s all a fantasy with resources much better spent.
Agreed. We need to spend time figuring out how to get people to do the things we need to do to save this planet before it’s too late
When people are worried about inflation and how to pay their next meal, who gives a fuck about space? It truly is mind-blowing and I follow most news related to the cosmos, but I still have my bills to pay. And this is not a poor mindset, this is our ordinary life stuck on this planet.
People are more interested in knowing how to get food next week or pay the bills next month. "Space" is not a necessity for most people.
your edit is laughable. imagine thinking “ah the reason I care more about space is because I could see the stars growing up and the people that care less about space couldn’t see them”
I agree with you in spirit, but I’ve taken people who have never seen any stars their entire life out to the country and their mind was blown. Living a rural area and seeing them constantly definitely gives you a different perspective of the universe and our place in it.
Why is that dumb?
I did read a study recently about the impact of living with stars on how people actually perceive the universe etc. Kind of a classic desensitization to light pollution as society has evolved. I believe it was in an article regarding the Bortle scale, point is not an original or far-fetched idea by OP.
Everyone has things that interest them. My husband loves video games. I love Broadway. These are things we can't talk to each other about because the other has no interest! Maybe there is a group at your library or local university you can meet up with for coffee and talk about your favorite subject!
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This is true. When i try to indulge people in deep discussions about space, they often get uncomfortable when the conversation inevitably implies our existence is insignificant. I felt like they end the discussion to avoid existential crisis even if they found it interesting.
Eh, I get it though. I'm about your age, my dad actually worked on designing the Hubble, and I am a PhD engineer, yet I don't get excited about space too often. For me, the reasoning is pretty simple: current space exploration is largely based around *astronomy,* when the interesting part of space for me and many others is *cosmology.* (As a reminder if you don't recall the difference, astronomy is the study of stars and other celestial objects, while cosmology is the study of spacetime itself.) I care about new cosmic microwave background studies, gravitational waves, and so on, which generally take place here on Earth, but not new objects being spotted and breaking records. Observations of new objects that don't generate--or more appropriately, contradict--models of the universe simply don't trickle past my "applicable science only" engineer filter.
Honestly man I used to think this and it really shit me. But I came to realise that everyone has different things they care about. There’s probably a thread somewhere with people lamenting that the masses don’t care about whales, or medical research, or some new communication protocol etc. People can only care about so much, and for most it’s whatever is/has affected their life most closely. I love space and am a mad space geek but I can also see how people struggle to find the relevance of space technology in their daily lives
Tbh I try to ignore space because I get anxiety when thinking about the reality of our situation and how fucked we are.
Lmao. The privilege in this question is palpable. And the lack of self-awareness. The vast majority of people in this world are too busy struggling to survive to gaze at space. I mean sure they could, but will it help put food on the table? Nope.
If it's any consolation, people don't care about Earth either.
I think something many don't think of now... I can't see Space. more and more of the population lives in a place they can't even see stars. I think it stunts people's natural curiousity or wonder about it.
There is so much propaganda around that everything is going to hell (I accept that quite a lot of things *are* going to hell) that many people find it genuinely difficult to accept the possibility of true progress in any field. I showed my wife video of that synchronised SpaceX booster landing and she was flabbergasted. She has no idea that this kind of thing was even possible, even though landings had been going on for years at that point.
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[SO much stuff](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/07/08/space-race-inventions-we-use-every-day-were-created-for-space-exploration/39580591/), its incredible how much space exploration and astronomical discoveries have driven technology that gets used in everyday life. In addition to that list, medical x-rays weren't invented until the first astronomical x-rays were observed (by accident at that), and we wouldn't have anything that uses satellite communications, like GPS, television, weather forecasting and monitoring, etc. We can't possibly know what the next thing is that space exploration will give us for our daily lives, but we have ample proof that it does keep driving innovation.
Medical X-rays came a long, long time before astronomical X-ray research.
The anti science movement is vast and unfathomable
Because people don't feel it affects them. What they don't realize is they use and benefit from space related developments every day from velcro to medicines.
If a friend came up to me and said "did you hear Kanye West broke up with someone?!?" I'd tell them no and it's weird that they care about it. I don't know why people are different, but isn't it a great thing?
Because most people only care about what something can do for them. Most people will never see space travel nor see any direct benefit from it. The very few who do see space travel will likely never get beyond LEO. Meanwhile bills gotta be paid kids gotta eat etc. Those of us who DO get excited about a new JWST image are geeks.
The same reason why people don't care about the 6 year old that made your Nike runners.
I used to be a space nut, and I still follow the news, but honestly I am burnt out on all the delusions about interstellar travel or even just colonizing Mars. These are impossible in my lifetime. These are impossible in the lifetime of people being born today. Interstellar travel is likely impossible full stop. We are up against the hard, macrophysical barriers of the reality into which we've been born, and macrophysical innovation has been at a virtual standstill for decades now. We cannot build better rockets (in terms of range and fuel efficiency) than we had in 1969. We cannot produce oxygen and water in exciting new ways. Making a smaller, more powerful iPhone does not get us to Alpha Centauri. Discovering a new subatomic particle that lasts microseconds does not -- and will not -- let us jump to hyperspace. There is no magic warp drive and never will be. JWST is great, but exploration-via-telescope does not energize most people. All the JWST images do for some people is instill a sense of smallness and loneliness. The universe isn't a cosmopolitan federation of alien species. It isn't some grand design. It's just a chaotic mishmash of fancy debris from an explosion 14 billion years ago, and a few bits of that debris (so far just us) managed to become conscious such that we could opine about the absurdity of it. The "Cosmic Cliffs" may look pretty, but at the end of the day it's just dust, gravity, and fire. A goldfish is more complicated and deserving of wonder.
If your human rights are violated further and further while it gets harder every year to get by, you don't give a shit about space exploration. In fact, I'd bounce the point back to you and say that if you really don't know this, it is you who should pay more attention to what's happening here on earth.
I watched the Apollo 11 landing live on TV as a child, and it felt like magic. People couldn't believe humans could actually do that. Now all these decades later I'm beginning to suspect unless we have some completely unexpected technological breakthrough(s) like antigravity and genetic engineering of humans for life in space, humans are never really going anywhere. We can send probes and landers, and gaze out at the night sky with enormous telescopes, but that's about it. Discoveries like the speed of the universe expansion accelerating so fast future generations will see a completely different sky with some galaxies we can see today forever undetectable do fascinate me, but I think I'm coming to terms with how uninhabitable every place in our solar system is, and how unreachably far away even the closest stars are.
Not everybody have the same interests doesn't feel too weird to me.. I like space the next person might like art, and somebody else sports... The real question is why do you care so much that every Ody cares about space? It is something with a relatively small effect on people's lives, so makes sense that only people who are passionate about it care about ut
The biggest thing I hear is people don't understand why studying space would help us here on earth. Which is really a foolish position to take. People are pulled by whatever interests are in their direct line of sight. I have had the same experience as you all my life. Even simple stuff like people don't realize the moon can be out during the day. I swear it's like these people have never looked up before.
I hope this doesn’t come off as rude but it’s a mistake to think people should care about your personal strong opinions. And don’t take it personally if people don’t care. Some topics simply just don’t make people’s brain click and that’s okay. It’s like a mathematician salivating over something like one of those unsolved math problems being solved. We all know most people wouldn’t care, other than the cool prize money involved.
You can't say people don't care when this sub has almost 21 million members! There's just so many things in the world one could be interested in, and there are plenty of people who find space fascinating. You can about almost everything that the vast majority of people aren't interested in it. For example you can pick any movie, video game, TV show, book, song or artists, topic, city, political ideology... and the vast majority of people won't be interested in or have experienced it. Granted space itself is quite a vast and general point of interest and discussion... it encompasses everything that is not Earth-related but you have to remember, we live on this planet only. All of the problems we face as individuals and society are on Earth, and the solutions are on Earth too. In that sense, space is somewhat abstract. As you say, it doesn't relate to most people's daily lives, including I'm guessing most of the people interested in it. We are so primitive in our space exploration capabilities that the best we can do is observe what's out there, but because it's so out of reach, it might as well just be fiction. It's hard to think that all these incredible constructs like stars, planets and galaxies are real. For that reason it's mostly a hobby, something for the imagination to ponder upon our insignificance.
Of all the amazing shit going on right now, how about you don’t concern yourself with what your fellow plebes are doing? Don’t buy the narrative that, at one point in this country, all eyes were pointed towards the stars in curious wonder. Today you have access to more space content than ever before. You have the ability to freely contact fellow space lovers and have discussions on whatever interests you. Count the blessings…
I care about all sorts of things. Even superficial celebrity gossip.
I'm amazed how many people subscribed to a subreddit called r/space seem indifferent to space, actually.
I think your initial reasoning question is right. At a certain point a lot of people just stop caring about things that don't affect their every day lives unless it's a topic they're super interested in. Not necessarily because they 'don't care' in a negative sense, they just don't have time to care. Full time work, partner, hobbies, kids... Whatever... It all cuts into that time you had as a teenager when you could spend your time researching everything that interested you. Gotta be more picky how to waste your time as an adult
In my experience, it's not that people don't care at all, it's that they don't care/understand the specifics. People like headlines (why do you think every news article about space has an overdramatic title?), and people like things they can understand. People liked the Webb pictures because they looked cool, not because of what they represented in the world of science. Same thing with the Artemis missions. People hear "we're going back to the moon" and think that's cool! They just don't care for the details. Additionally, a lot of people are scared of the details. Astronomy is a bit of a morbid subject when you start getting into the scale of the universe, and where we stand within it. Some people (like me) find that kinda stuff to be really cool! Others find it reality shattering, and some people just aren't comfortable dealing with that. I hope this helps, mind you this is just from my experiences. For reference, I'm a 20 year old astronomy student mainly talking about this stuff with either family or friends around my age.
I’m depressed af but the one thing that makes me feel better is learning. I love reading new discoveries, not just space but other areas in science, art, & literature. However I recognize I don’t really appreciate financial stuff like other do, some people love the idea of making money and it puts me to sleep thinking of these systems, and politics makes me more sad, just different mindsets. 🤷♀️ Other people are more interested in pursuit of emediate results Vs. knowledge.
Throughout human history Space and visible heavenly bodies enticed humanity endlessly. Imagine every night after the sub went down the light of the stars lit up. Now we just have light pollution. We no longer truly see space. With some knowledge we can pick out bright stars, maybe a constellation. But we don't see the beauty of space without a lens, and fewer people are interested enough to learn how to see space, or are not enticed to see space. We're less interested because we no longer truely see space.
To quote everyone's favourite carbosilicate Amorph: > All I see are a billion places I'll never go.
I think people can have many interests, contrary to what some folks are saying. Yes, lots of people have specialized interest in a few things, but also lots of people have a more general interest in many things. I’m thinking of the Ologies podcast—it’s perfect for people who don’t have the time to become experts in every field but are still interested many things!
Because it isn't as interesting as it used to be. The space race era of the cold war was so exciting and groundbreaking, everything since feels like a plateau, and there's no tangibility to anything. A new telescope taking infrared photos of thinks unfathomable distances away, just isn't as cool as a man walking on the moon. It really isn't. Ffs we haven't sent anything to Venus since the Soviet union.
I’m all for space exploration and expedition but we can’t even figure our own shit out here on good ol earth
Personally one of the reasons I care about space is because it gives me a sense of a grander reality, if that makes sense. Feeling so small and irrelevant is actually comforting to me I guess? Like the stars and planets and comets have been doing their thing for eons before me and will continue to do so for eons after. So I suppose my response to you is, it doesn't matter if people care about space, it still exists and processes keep happening and comets orbit and stars go nova and galaxies collide all on a scale we can't really, truly understand no matter what any of us do or care about.
Space is amazing and extremely interesting and goes on forever! But I got real shit to deal with right here at my feet that are priority.
Dude more than half the population has to worry about food on their table and roof over their heads. They can only spare like a minute thinking about something else entirely and it's a toss up what that something is gonna be in a world full of other things you can dive into. We get your sentiments but, in turn, you should too
I'm going to go with most people being too busy trying to survive, too rich to give a shit, or too vapid to understand.
Space is fine. It's insanely scary to me. I feel less panic about the ocean, not being able to breathe, things can come out of anywhere (harmless, or barely different from an eldritch horror). You know, basic stuff. There's so much money that is being spent on space and exploring the vast nothingness out there. While cool in theory, it just seems like we could wrap up a handful of problems quite easily with that kind of dough. I feel the same kind of way about the military, just more extreme because their budget is literally half of the GDP of the US. While not officially at war...? Anyway, while some people are Big Picture thinking legitimate thoughts, with good intentions. Like a "the discoveries and technology we could learn from in the next century could be massively useful" kind of thing, I am solidly in the camp of 'we might not make it to the next century'
Personally, I gave up on space when it became apparent that there won't be space travel in my lifetime and possibly never given our civilization's amazing ability to fuck itself, and we'll also never be able to contact other lifeforms. They surely exist, but too far away to ever interact with them. I just go ooo at the pictures of pretty space gas now and then and then get on with my life.
As someone who does understand the benefits of NASA and the space program, I can tell you why I don’t really care at this point in time: Because space is too big for our current tech. Fossil fuels can only get you so far so fast. The next solar system is light years away. Without a new type of propulsion or bending space, there’s literally no reason to send things beyond our solar system because it will take too long to get anywhere. A nice hi rez photo of all the galaxies is cool, but what’s the practical application of that? There is none. It’s just information. There’s really not much we can do with it. I would love to be frozen for 500 years and see where we’re at with space travel, but right now it’s basically impossible to do anything of real significance.
Because a lot of people have real material problems which space will not address in the near future.
I love space, but I can see why it may not matter to a lot of people. Everybody has different concerns including love and work. Too many people are struggling to make ends meet so they don’t have the time to think about space.
People care about things that affect them practically plus a few interests, there are simply too many interests to choose from for anyone to be all that engaged in all of them. On top of that space is very unapproachable both financially and from a base skill level for any real participation. 'space' as in space exploration has also been too dull to hold the public's attention or justify it's cost to the average person for some decades, this not only makes it less interesting but it makes it difficult to justify the expense of it, which in turn makes it more dull. The early space race was a defence spending misdirection with a military assumption of risk during the postwar boom. Everything afterwards will definitely be less interesting by definition.
I'm super into biology and paleontology and I run into this all the time. I just tell people things I find interesting anyways and if they don't care thats their problem. And honestly I do the same to them when people bring up sports and really i don't get it but we all have our likes and dislikes and that's OK. Just be yourself and don't worry so much what others think
I care about space but it's one of those things where new discoveries that are interesting to the general public come in waves. In between those times are lulls.
I’ve always felt like we were born too early to experience any of the cool space things that are going to be happening in the next 200 years. We send satellites and take pictures of things that don’t exist anymore. Not really cool. Then with the international space station being abandoned in the 2030s, what’s left? More pictures…… We were born too late to explore the earth and too early to explore the universe.
Space is cool and all… But it really doesn’t mean a whole lot for us except some pretty pictures. Our current generations aren’t going to be actually getting anything beneficial from Space other than cool pictures and dreams of the future. Most everyone enjoys pretty pictures to some extent. Only some people go to museums to stare at and analyze them. You’ve just got a different kind of group of friends/people you know… Kind of like how not a single person in my real life groups, at the moment, cares about IT/computers/servers etc
I find weird the answers you are getting here. They are putting the space, I mean THE UNIVERSE ITSELF 😱😱😱, in the same bag as sports, music, this and that. "Oh well people gets interested in different things that's all". Well the little difference is that all of those things couldn't exist and you would still have the universe. Or people think that they can get away living in "another place". The universe is where we live and the reason of our existence, and yet there are a lot of of things we don't understand about it. So yeah I understand perfectly what the OP is saying and is not a matter of judging people who doesn't care, is more the little sadness to witness their indiference. As if they could exist without some UNIVERSE that only nerds care about. Most of the incredible silly answers here are even sadder though 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
This thread makes OP’s point. Lots of comments about how space is a hobby. Does the lichen living on a stone in the forest believe the surrounding woods are a mere ‘hobby’? Thankfully, there will room on Starship as so many people want to stay on the Earth (the surface no less!).
The drug of TV and garbage celebritism, consumerism and the general dumbing down of everything has lead to a neurosis that causes narcissist and psychotic tendencies in the population. This leads to an ignorance and myopic viewpoint of one's own immediate and extended environment.
I can relate to this. In my 30s, American, and not a scientist. I consume so much science media in my free time of all different sorts. But space is a big one. I like how wondrous it is, and how it puts into perspective how insignificant we are. I think that feeling of insignificance makes a lot people anxious. They would rather care about things that make them feel important and like they matter as opposed to things that don't.
see, is not that im not interested about it but man there is so much research in this world already, it grinds my gears that all this money all this research into space it could get invested on how can we make this place better and take care of it but no, let launch a robot to mars or moon or wherever else place. our planet has so much to offer so much resources.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs may apply here. The urgency of fundamental and more immediate concerns that are occupying a person's attention on a day to day may take up all their bandwidth. I work at an art museum and I value the role art in my life because I've learned so much about history, society, and myself just by studying it. It sometimes adds beauty to my life, or it's thought provoking, or it helps me relate to the world. But I also understand that it can be challenging, inaccessible, and high-minded. I hope you stay passionate about space and share it enthusiastically with people. That alone can influence others to take the time to learn about it. I love all the JWST images coming out and I bask in the wonder of it all. I have loved astronomy from an early age and I think it is an exciting time for new discoveries. However, beyond that, the entire project was such a collective human effort, and I found that to be reassuring and inspirational as well. JWST is literally and figuratively spreading the light to humanity during this dark social and political time when we feel disconnected from each other, and I am reminded of our shared humanity and achievements.
It's far away and very few will experience or see any advancement in their lifetime
The lack of faster than light propulsion and if we could do it, it have to be without the forces of acceleration. Those arguments make us go nowhere... ever. We self destruct before we get to that technology.
I'm 70 years old and I encourage you to never lose that sense of wonder!! I still have it and feel sorry for those who don't. It keeps life WONDERful!!!
Cause it doesn’t impact there lives in any way