I was expecting it to say “Sir, I do not have the intellectual property rights to play this mixtape to the public.” The golden record is like MLK’s speeches - we know they’re epic, and we’re not allowed to listen to most of it/them without throwing some cash around.
There is an audio drama episode on The Truth in which the Voyager crashes on a distant planet in the back yard of the most milquetoast, generic, submissively mindless young couple. While they discuss what to do about it, it becomes clear that they live in a society of conditioned subservience a la Orwell and suburban HOAs.
“Hello from Earth! Now music from about 25% of the population and landmass.”
I get that Americans, myself included, Beethoven and Bach are important and influence, but if it’s trying to explain all of humanity, include more stuff from the nations of Africa, Asia, South America, and some stuff from the native people of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Americas.
It feels at best stupid to say “this details the best of humanity in a small package” and the best is mostly western.
I do love the “Hello from Earth” in several languages.
I mean, they did do that, include samples from many different cultures around the world, it’s just that I think 3 of Bach’s numbers and 2 of Beethoven’s is overkill. There’s more music out there.
3 Bach and 2 Beethoven, make it one each and now there’s 3 spots for Asia, Africa, and Native populations.
I know it has more, but it has a bias to who made the golden record. Trust me, I’ve been a space/Star Trek nerd since my youth. I know what’s on there. I even have a replica of what’s on it on a vinyl record.
Trust me, I’ve been a space/Star Trek nerd since my youth. I know what’s on there.
I’m not saying you don’t know what’s on there, but your comments kinda make you sound like someone who doesn’t know what’s on there.
include more stuff from the nations of Africa, Asia, South America, and some stuff from the native people of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Americas.
There literally is stuff from all of those places.
You could argue that Bach and Beethoven are over-represented, but I’m sure that a great deal of consideration and deliberation was devoted to deciding what to include.
I’ve often heard that there was a specially recorded song by The Carpenters (usually in the context of jokingly complaining “why The Carpenters? The aliens are going to think we suck”). But it’s not on the list. Is it an urban myth? Were they on a different spacecraft?
After a quick Google - they did a song about sending a song into space. Then they did a weird-ass TV thing about sending that song into space. But as far as I can tell, no Carpenters song has actually been sent into space.
(yeah yeah radio waves whatever. You know what I mean)
I loved how in Stellaris one of the first missions you can get to do is find and destroy voyager since it has too much information other civilizations can use to wipe us out.
I mean if there is alien life that has the ability to reach us, they are technically and socially so much more advanced than we are that we wouldn’t stand a chance or be able to hide either way. They’ll either come in peace and we live or they don’t and we die.
Fun fact! The nudes on Voyager actually got censored because people complained about the nudes on Pioneer, but then they snuck them in anyway with the scientific documents.
After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included. However, the record does contain “Diagram of vertebrate evolution”, by Jon Lomberg, with drawings of an anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs. The person waving on the diagram was also changed: on the Pioneer plaque, the man is waving, while on the “Vertebrate evolution” image, the woman is waving.
It’s so ridiculously short-sighted! Like who’s it going to offend, the endless screaming void of space? Also, imagine if we found a probe from an intelligent alien civilization full of data about them, except for what they looked like which was mysteriously blacked out lol
There is a cover on it. Also a stylus was included. Don’t know how much protection the cover affords, but at least they have a fighting chance of figuring out how to play the record since the stylus was included.
It’s been theorized by some people that the map included showing where earth is could be useless because the arrow used to indicate where earth is could be assumed to be a structure.
The point I am trying to say is, we are potentially dealing with an entirely different thought process than ourselves.
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