The Desert Mermaid

This is originally a tweet thread I did in response to a tweet declaring that "male" and "female" are "natural categories." This fascinates me with my Space Place job; people are STILL indignant about the reclassification of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet. I think The Pluto Thing is a really useful abstract example of how categories are the ways HUMANS conceptualize nature--and how it affects things socially.

I like that we anthropomorphize Pluto--humans seem to be built sociably, evidenced by our readiness to treat objects as people. And, I hasten to point out, humans do not always treat people well.

So people's indignation at the "disrespect" for Pluto does show a subconscious worry that now that Pluto's in a different category, it will be treated differently.

Which is, frankly, kind of ridiculous. Like, what the fuck are humans gonna DO to Pluto? invalidate it? Stuff it in a locker? Deny it healthcare? Make it illegal for it to open a bank account? Bomb it? (Okay, we could totally bomb it, but WHY.)*

But Pluto's defenders don't really think it through; they just perceive it's in a "lesser" category now (even my fellow Space Placers refer to its reclassification as a "demotion"), and that's as far as they go because they know that humans treat different categories differently.

I've had kids ask if Pluto blew up. It kind of makes sense if they hear adults complaining about how Pluto's "not a planet anymore." Last night a family member asked if it's still included in the solar system if it's not a planet.**

But Pluto's the same thing it's always been; and we've just changed how we're talking about it!

I think the reclassification reflects our expanding knowledge--we've discovered a bunch of things like Pluto and unlike the things we call planets, so this is a whole new category! And we're willing to change it! But our change in its categorization, people perceive, is a change in social status.

People who argue about there being "natural categories" or "scientific reality" seem to ignore the point that it's all humans interpreting it, with our dumb little caveman brains that are still trying to work out if this reality is going to kill us or not.

"It's a FACT" okay, what are you gonna do with that fact, bruh.


*Though astronomers did joke that it's a good thing the New Horizons mission was already underway because it would have been a lot harder to sell a Kuiper belt object than "It's the only planet we haven't visited." Which just goes to show the recategorization changes how we interact with it!

**Answer: Yes, it's just in a different category of Solar System Objects!

The Book: The Martian by Andy Weir, a breakaway hit. Maybe you've heard of it.

The Basics: Things have not gone well for the third manned mission to Mars. Just six sols into their thirty-sol mission, a dust storm threatens their ascent vehicle to such an extent that that they have to abort. But as they're fleeing to the vehicle, the storm takes out the communications array, and its collapse kills astronaut Mark Watney super fucking dead. Unable to go back for his body, the crew is forced to leave it behind. And thus, the crew is going to spend the ten-month trip back to Earth very dispirited.

But not nearly as dispirited as Watney is when he WAKES THE FUCK UP STRANDED ALONE ON MARS.

OH SHIT: Yeah, so, he may not be as dead as previously indicated.

So, What Now?: Obviously, Mark's situation is the definition of hopelessly dire: he's on a planet with a very thin atmosphere, enough food to last six people seventy days, living in basically a high-tech tent. It will be four years until anybody can rescue him, but because they think he's dead and he has no way to contact them and tell them otherwise, even that is a longshot. He's clearly going to die.

Except that Mark Watney is an awesome astronaut type person, so after his initial Oh Shit response, he immediately begins considering ways he can survive. Using resourcefulness, creativity, humor, and lots of math, he immediately gets to work making his impossible situation possible. Every time an obstacle is flung in his way, he figures his way around it with duct tape or potatoes or something, and you find yourself looking forward to finding out how he's going to get through THIS completely insurmountable mess.

Sometimes NASA Butts In: And the switch from Mark's first-person log entries to the third-person NASA bits is Weir's weakness. Those portions feel a little like a screenplay or script, and the characters seem a bit stock-Hollywood. One particular character, Mindy, does have an arc, but it's an oddly clunky one. Still, it's got some fun stuff--NASA's eventual realization that Something Is Up is pretty entertaining.

Favorite Bit Of Survivaling: The part where he builds water. Yes, he survives some more immediate and alarming things, true, although his water building is explosive as hell. But I just love that he can fucking BUILD WATER out of its components.

Space Place Book Club Time!: So for some reason a whole bunch of us Space Placers independently decided to start reading this last week. I did because my sister's been after me to read it. I think the others did because the movie is coming out. I waited to finish the book before watching the trailer. And while Matt Damon does not look at all like the Mark Watney in my head, hot DAMN I want to see the movie now.

In Conclusion: I am really pleased that OMGSCIENCE! is becoming so popular in media recently. Especially when the stories are as great as this one. I hope the pendulum doesn't swing away from this too fast, because I want more things like The Martian. Go check it out!


DISCUSSION QUESTION: Do Hindus really say "Oh, gods"? I appreciate him diversifying his cast, but I'm seriously wondering if that's a thing.

Had an audience member in the Dome today ask if the Dome program had "all the star names," because his family bought some star names on "the registry."

Um. Sorry, buddy. I have some bad news for you about your star names.

Yeah, don't waste your money, guys. It would be just as official if you went outside and just gave whatever names you liked to the stars,* and much cheaper. Or you can help name exoplanets. But stars? Nope.

Not sure how you'd break that to someone who's already bought a star name, though. I guess "You learned something today!" is about as good as it gets.


*Not that I'm discouraging that. I'm working out a whole astrological system for a constructed culture, which is ... exactly as accurate as our own astrological systems. But it's really fun to come up with new ways to name the stars.

SO I SAW INTERSTELLAR Y'ALL.

I ... hmmm.

Um ...

Huh.

That sure was a movie, that was.

I guess I hadn't really considered the fact that, as a Christopher Nolan movie, the thing could conceivably be made entirely of climaxes. Or that, like pretty much all the Nolan movies I've seen, I'd come away not with a big picture, but a sort of composite of Things I Liked and Things I Didn't Like. And as far as the story goes, the bits I was interested in (I really love the humanistic message that we can transcend ourselves) were fused inextricably with bits that just kind of annoyed me (no, seriously, you are fucking with causality like you're a goddamn Star Trek episode).

It was overwrought. I got really tired of the long, drawn-out climaxes and Hans Zimmer's All-Heartstring Orchestra Score. It was a huge oversell. But then, it's not hard to sell me on OMG SPACE!--I already am all about going and checking it out.* However, I know a lot of The Public is not interested in "wasting" (FUCK YOU) money on space, so I hope it does what it was trying to and inspires some people who aren't so into our spacey future to rethink that stance, because getting to space is ultimately going to be necessary (and awesome) for us. Ultimately I think that's probably a good thing.

But, uh, for my money? Erik Wernquist's three-and-a-half-minute video Wanderers was far more inspiring than this three-hour blockbuster. I am glad others have been inspired by it. But me, I'll stick with those Wanderers.



(Although I may have shrieked in excitment when, almost at the end, Matthew McConaughey ( sees a thing. ) Those things are cool.)


*Though not with Mars One. WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED that Mars One's plans do not appear to be all that well-thought-out?

DAD: Off to work, then?
ME: Yup! Dome shows today.
DAD: I don't know if I ever told you this, but when I was about eleven or twelve, we came down to visit Salt Lake City, and I got to go to the old planetarium.
ME: Did they have the dome running?
DAD: Oh, YEAH. Now, remember, this was the time when I was really into model rockets and had written a letter to NASA requesting information about spaceflight.* So then I get to this theater, and--you know how it feels like you're moving?
ME: I have to assure people they aren't actually moving in all my intros.
DAD: Well, it was like that. And it just--BLEW. ME. AWAY.
ME: No kidding! I always try to get that feeling for the kids in my shows!
DAD: They even let me take the remote that drove to different stars! I WAS LIKE CAPTAIN KIRK!
ME: That's cool! I wonder how they did that with the old projectors. It's all computers now.
DAD: It was absolutely AMAZING. ... Of course, it turned out later that day that my leg was septic from a scrape I had and I had to go to the hospital, so I could have just been delirious, but it was still life-changing.
ME: Hey, don't knock it. I am pretty sure most of the kids oohing and ahhing in my dome aren't battling blood infections.
DAD: Anyway, MY POINT IS, and now you're doing these shows. It's like I have a legacy.
ME: Oh, man, so I'm like Dome Trek: The Next Generation? I'm like Picard? I'LL TAKE IT.


*You'd think that NASA would've had some sort of ready-made information package available for kids at that point, what with the Space Race and how they were insisting to kids (well, boys) across the nation that they had to bone up on science and math and engineering in order to beat those darn commies into space, but apparently whoever got Dad's letter at NASA was taken totally by surprise that a kid actually WANTED any information. He got back a package consisting of a whole bunch of random rocket specs and technical information that seemed to be cobbled together from whatever copies they had lying around.

Happy Earth Closest To The Sun Day, y'all! I love teaching kids about this. They get to feel all smart when they tell everyone about how we're actually closest to the sun in (Northern Hemisphere) winter!

Hey, this is pretty cool: Curiosity found a big burst of methane on Mars!

Because my brain is wired for sci-fi, my natural first response is "COULD THAT BE LITTLE FARTING MICROBES," which is only one possibility out of a lot of "probably not life" possibilities, so this isnt conclusive. But it sure is interesting, isn't it?

Oh, hey, guys, don't forget--about 9 hours from now (4-5 a.m. my Mountain Daylight Time) there's gonna be a total lunar eclipse. If you're in a place where the moon's still visible at that point you'll be able to see it turn a terrifying blood red for a while. Perfect Halloween moon, no?

My first Space Place live presentation went AMAZINGLY well! The guy who's been coaching me said the only thing I need to do is work through a few more just to get the feel for it, and other than that it was the best first time he'd ever seen. And bear in mind, this guy taught my acting classes when I was a kid, so that's GREAT to hear!

Man, I'm having a good week. Next up: Talk Like A Pirate Birthday!

It is Day Camp Week at the Space Place! Oh, god, kill me now.

A few observations:

1. I have very little patience for rowdy third-grade boys. This might be unfair to them, but at least it makes me consistent, since I really had no use for rowdy third-grade boys back in third grade. I was the kid furiously wishing these other little fuckers would just settle the hell down so we could get some learning done or, ideally, so I could read my damn book in peace. Jeezus, school was exhausting.

2. Earnest nerd kids, though, are my favorite. The whip-smart ones who want to tell you all about X-TREME SPACE! or announce that their favorite planet is an exoplanet just make me all warm and fuzzy inside.

3. When I was a kid, I dreaded those scavenger hunt worksheets they sometimes gave you on field trips. They were a painful, anxiety-laced way to learn things. Now that I am older and wiser and able to observe younger kids, I can tell you that they still seem massively inefficient. The aforementioned rowdy kids are too busy hollering fart jokes at each other* to even pay attention to the exhibits, and the neurotic nerds get so hung up on filling out the sheet correctly that they miss the parts of the trip they'd otherwise find enthralling and thus secretly educational.

It did kill 20 minutes, though.

4. There's a nice teenage volunteer helping with the day camp. She has decided that we're friends. So she sits next to me, deep inside my personal space bubble, preferably at about my four o'clock. When I try to move--say, get up to get a drink of water and sit back down in a chair farther away from her, she immediately comes over and sits next to me in the new location. I think I'm managing to be nice, though I'm not sure. I have managed not to side kick her in the pelvis upon catching her over my shoulder AGAIN, so that's something.

5. Why the fuck does Pluto appeal so much to kids? These little bastards were still in diapers when it got reclassified as a dwarf planet, and yet they still say it's their favorite planet and that it's getting a bum rap. I always thought it was a space rock far less interesting than, say, Mars or Neptune, but kids seem to really identify with it or something.

And yes, I was glad when it was reclassified, mostly because of my sense of order. Its reclassification happened because we found a lot of other similar objects, which means that we are refining our definitions as further information comes to light. I found that highly satisfying. But when I talk to kids about it, I am more likely to say that I'm happy it's been reclassified because how would you like to go to a big family reunion and be the only kid at the grownups' table? That's boring! Maybe that's how Pluto felt when it was considered a planet, instead of a dwarf planet like its friends.

Anyway, yeah. That was Day 1. Tune in to Day 2, to see if I punt anybody through the wall! I just hope the nerds stay enthusiastic enough to counter that.


*Okay, yes, when I say "fart jokes," I pretty much exclusively mean they yell the word "fart" a lot.