This is a picture of it. This thing is on a spaceship they launched in the 1970s. This thing is a record album that contains sounds representative of humanity and Earth such as manmade music and talking and the tweeting of birds and the wind in the trees. I think the idea was that extraterrestrials may find it one day and have a listen and be touched by our world. As you can see it is etched with ostesibly universal symbol etchings as directions for its use, though I can't understand them.
Anyway I'm thinking along these lines- when this object was put out there into outer space, this sort of endeavor was viewed as a noble and heroic undertaking. But if the development of our society demonstrates anything it is that the noble and heroic eventually gets degraded down and made available to the lowest among us as products and amusing diversions. Yeah, I think that launching spaceships will be a backyard thing soon enough, and things like this disc will be shot out into the ether by any fellow down the street like an intergalactic youtube. When Nina Hartley advises the young women that are contemplating on entering porno that once they do a scene it's out there forever, the real implication is made horrifyingly clear by this golden NASA disc. Out there forever. What if a trillion years from now beings of pure thought in the vacuum of space are confronted with a 'Gag Factor' dvd (perhaps #5) that was launched on a jokey whim by some fool countless eons before here on Earth? My mind is boggling right now, I don't know about yours. Actually, I'm fucking walking on air.
worthy...
Previous Topic
Index
