(no subject)

[omorka]

Oh, my fucking gods . . .

Composite satellite photo of the Earth at night

*shiver*

*shudder*

I cannot even begin to describe the sheer revulsion this image invokes in me. Just . . . looking at it makes my gorge rise. (Not that that's difficult, but that's not relevant.)

And there's nowhere that's safe. A few interior deserts are as close as it gets. Just . . . that ugliness as far as human eyes can see.

Gods. How can we be so stupid? Of all the things I've seen in the past ten years, honestly, even more than the personal human cruelties and the idiocy of war . . . this makes me feel the most hopeless about our future as a species. How could we possibly do that to the world?

Are we so deeply in thrall to the Light that we cannot leave blessed darkness anywhere?

Now I'm seriously tempted to buy a gun and learn to use it, if only to try and fight that, one lightbulb at a time . . .

Comments

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

I used to stay up all night as a child,
under my covers, trembling.
I would hold the flashlight and watch,
as the bulb got dimmer,
and dimmer,
and dim. . .

I was afraid of the dark. I didn't know why.
The batteries would always fade before morning, leaving me alone.
That's what it was!

Alone.

I was afraid of being alone, because I didn't like myself.

Now I light my home with a few flourescent bulbs. Each room lit with as little power as that little bulb I clung to as a child. I often turn even those few lamps off after dinner. What was I afraid of?

What is everyone else afraid of?

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by the density shift for almost all of north america west of the texas panhandle... The eastern network of lights (on one of the higher-res images) is far more dense than through the rockies, etc. But I know there's more in the west than just mountain ranges. (Well, there's desert too...)

[theoldone.livejournal.com]

Ya gotta burn a lotta oil to make all those bulbs light up . . . .

[briareos.livejournal.com]

6,446,301,004
6,446,301,005
6,446,301,006
6,446,301,007
...
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague..."

[memeslayer.livejournal.com]

I'm no fan of light pollution, but given what the light distribution means from a socioeconomic standpoint...

I think it's pretty myself, but then, I think humanity is the best part of Earth.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

That's actually how I stumbled across it - bradhicks had linked to it in one of his older posts, saying how beautiful and calming he found it. I bounced it off of Flyboy last night, and he thought it was beautiful, too. I suspect most people find it beautiful, or at least pretty.

That I don't is, I suspect, just another way in which I'm grossly abnormal. The best I can think of it is that it's a grotesque parody of a starfield . . .

[memeslayer.livejournal.com]

*shrug* It makes me feel less lonely. Kind of like listening to air traffic control when I'm flying in a plane.

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

For me it shows that only saltwater can hold back the growth of the human disease. One of things that makes me shiver is to try and imagine this same map 50 years from now, and how it will reflect the human expansions which will either fill in the remaining holes on land, or create vast new structures above and around what we already see.

The worst part is when the lights cover the moon. When I measure the waxing and waning of the moon by seeing which city is covered in shadow. . .

a long walk...

[kansas-dave.livejournal.com]

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.


By Frost