My first short, angry, rant.

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Dec 14, 2008
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Through out my journey on the Inter-webs I have come across many different personalities that many people cannot stand, and this rant is about the most prominent and most annoying.

The "Realist"

Now, you may be thinking "A realist is just a person that judges things with probable odds." But that is not the case. The realist I am refering to does not only judges things probably, but works to make sure improbable things stay that way.

If you said to a Realist "If we fund NASA well we could reach Mars in 15 years." They would respond "That money would be better suited for the military or medical purposes." (To some of you this would seem to be a reasonable respones, so just wait till the examples over to complain.) If you said "A cheap and effective way to travel in space has been discovered." They would say in turn "We should deal with domestic problems before going to the stars."
Even if its something as small as a silly prank, the Realist will look down upon it for not having an impact on their life.

The Realist is a result of extreme cynicism and a loss of faith in the Human race, which the last time I checked was 97% of the Escapist.

Disclaimer:I know the first examples are critical on people that oppose space travel, and I don't care.
 

thethingthatlurks

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The Mars expedition example sounds suspiciously like the rantings of the local Nobel laureate, who is still pissed that the ISS got funding over the Superconducting Supercollider in Waco. Yeah, he's a tosser...

But regardless, what makes realism so bad? Somebody has to be the voice of reason, even if it sucks. But realism also means planning for the long term. What is improbable now will be crucial later. So no, I'm not a true realist, I spend too much time lost in my own mind for that...
 

SlowShootinPete

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Only 97% of us are humans? Holy crap.

Those examples don't really do much for me, I don't understand what's so bad about them. Could you explain further?
 
Dec 14, 2008
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thethingthatlurks said:
But regardless, what makes realism so bad? Somebody has to be the voice of reason, even if it sucks. But realism also means planning for the long term. What is improbable now will be crucial later. So no, I'm not a true realist, I spend too much time lost in my own mind for that...
Realism isn't bad per se, but when you don't allow unrealistic to be tried it becomes a problem. And the Realist I speak of only deals with whats in front of them at the moment, so something like the idea using up all the planets resources would not occur to them.

Sleekgiant said:
Soooo woopee, that was a short rant alright.
Its late and I'm tired, what more do you want?

SlowShootinPete said:
Those examples don't really do much for me, I don't understand what's so bad about them. Could you explain further?
The idea is that a realist would stand in the way of progress, because they don't want such things to become their problem, because they don't care.
 

Ashtovo

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philosophicalbastard said:
Through out my journey on the Human race, which the last time I checked was 97% of the Escapist.
Hey! we told you not to talk about us!
 

Lust

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You know, finding ways to live on other planets sounds interesting. I don't think it would be a waste of money. Only because we can start anew with what we already have now.
 
Dec 14, 2008
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Ashtovo said:
philosophicalbastard said:
Through out my journey on the Human race, which the last time I checked was 97% of the Escapist.
Hey! we told you not to talk about us!
That has to be the oddest way you could have snipped my qoute(and the most accurate T-T).
 

Dags90

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That doesn't sound much like the realism I've ever heard of. I mean, I don't think it's fair to go on making fact based claims like "Spending on X will be better than Y" unless you have evidence, the only evidence for that claim would involve some form of clairvoyance. For the latter scenario, a real pragmatist would instead ask the possible benefits of what we may find on other worlds, if they could be easily reached at minimal human cost. They may agree on sending teams to Mars to terraform it or some such sci-fi, but disagree with exploration for the sake of exploration with no foreseeable incentive.
 

Marmooset

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philosophicalbastard said:
Disclaimer:I know the first examples are critical on people that oppose space travel, and I don't care.
I'd be more in step if you just said you hated folks against space travel. Sooner or later, be it from a blossoming crop of mushroom clouds, the odd chance that global warming is real (it is) and past solving (quite possibly), or if a heavenly body bigger than Stone Mountain decides to park in our space before we've pulled out, our lil' planet will have given up the ghost, at least from a habitable perspective.

Whether or not we snuff it with this rock, or become the galaxy's cockroaches, depends upon space travel.
 
Dec 14, 2008
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Dags90 said:
That doesn't sound much like the realism I've ever heard of. I mean, I don't think it's fair to go on making fact based claims like "Spending on X will be better than Y" unless you have evidence, the only evidence for that claim would involve some form of clairvoyance. For the latter scenario, a real pragmatist would instead ask the possible benefits of what we may find on other worlds, if they could be easily reached at minimal human cost. They may agree on sending teams to Mars to terraform it or some such sci-fi, but disagree with exploration for the sake of exploration with no foreseeable incentive.
Well its not the real Realist I'm talking about, just the name I've given them (hence these:""). And the examples I used were just a few things people who I defined as a "Realist" are opposed to and their arguments.


Marmooset said:
philosophicalbastard said:
Disclaimer:I know the first examples are critical on people that oppose space travel, and I don't care.
I'd be more in step if you just said you hated folks against space travel. Sooner or later, be it from a blossoming crop of mushroom clouds, the odd chance that global warming is real (it is) and past solving (quite possibly), or if a heavenly body bigger than Stone Mountain decides to park in our space before we've pulled out, our lil' planet will have given up the ghost, at least from a habitable perspective.

Whether or not we snuff it with this rock, or become the galaxy's cockroaches, depends upon space travel.

I put that up there so I wouldn't get a bunch of people pointing out my bias, it seems to work except in your case.

And this thread was meant to be about my problem with a certain philosophy and the debate of it, not of space.
 

Kollega

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Well, what can i say? I hate those too. They are the ones who impede progress, and they're also boring. So i agree.

I remember JFK and his incentive to put man on the moon and return him safely just because they could. It seems that this kind of additude has been lost somewhere, and now all people care about is "here and now" (or nothing at all), without any desire to explore other planets or even invent something. It's really quite sad.
 

Blueruler182

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Christ, I hate cynics. And I hate that they call themselves realists. I used to have depression, I wasn't happy until I stopped being a "realist" and viewed life from both sides. Cynicism isn't realism, it's stupidity wrapped in logic. It's alarmist, not realist.
 

Blindswordmaster

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Though I consider myself to be a realist I support space travel and any genetic technology that will give me wolverine-like regenerative abilities. I've long considered a realist to be someone who prays for the best, but prepares for the worst. Apparently, you and I have very different dictionaries. Mine's better, by the way.
 

Kollega

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Blueruler182 said:
Christ, I hate cynics. And I hate that they call themselves realists. I used to have depression, I wasn't happy until I stopped being a "realist" and viewed life from both sides. Cynicism isn't realism, it's stupidity wrapped in logic. It's alarmist, not realist.
I'm Kollega, and i endorse this message - because it accurately reflects my point of view. Very, very well said.
 

Pimppeter2

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Because space travel will clearly save us all correct?

You may find cynics annnoying, but what exactly is wrong with realists? That they like to deal with their problems?

All realist are not cynics, and cynics are not realists. The words are not interchangeable.
 

RUINER ACTUAL

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Realists are the people who were not allowed to tell Obama he couldn't make so many promises during his campaign.

Realists are a vital part of everyone's lives. Everyone has a realist part of their brain:
The adventurous part of my brain tells me to drink a fifth of Jack. The realist part of my brain tells me to stop because that could kill me!
 

Kapol

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May 2, 2010
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I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by 'realist,' but the points you made seemed fairly bad. Now, this is really going to turn into a debate on space travel I'm sure, but both of the responses seem correct in my mind. We shouldn't go to Mars just to go to Mars, and who cares if Space Travel is cheap if it really has no benefit besides allowing people with money the ability to go into space for a bit? Exploration for the sake of exploration is really sort of pointless. It'd be like paying someone else to get in their car and drive around instead of using the money to work on your house. Yes, they might bring back some interesting things, but most of those things would prove largely useless.

That doesn't mean the idea of moving into the 'final frontier' should be abandoned though. If it's to do something like search for resources (which would only require machines) or find colonizable planets or build space stations, then it makes sense. But then you are going into space just to dick around either.
 

GRoXERs

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philosophicalbastard said:
And this thread was meant to be about my problem with a certain philosophy and the debate of it, not of space.
The "philosophy" you describe is not realism. It's conservatism - real, hard, old-school populist conservatism. I'm a realist, and an optimist. The two are not mutually exclusive.

EDIT:
CORRODED SIN said:
The adventurous part of my brain tells me to drink a fifth of Jack. The realist part of my brain tells me to stop because that could kill me!
No, the realist part of your brain tells you to stop because that's a waste of perfectly good bourbon and you could switch to cheap horrible vodka a quarter of the way through and not notice the difference. Tally ho!
 

MrRuler

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Jun 7, 2010
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Yea having someone reality put in front of your face is annoying but if your going to rant please look at this rant to learn a thing or two.http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=711267 (warning many curses)