mars rover

Carlisle Sentinel 17 August 1985 p. 22 thanks Trisha used without permission. 

I know I have grizzled about this before but I have to say the news of a new Mars landing really gets my goat not least because, once again, it is framed in the press as a search for life on other planets. Why does this bug me so much? Partly because I suppose if this is what the search is for, then I think that shows an extraordinary lack of imagination or intelligence amongst... amongst everyone who thinks this is a good idea (although I also feel that, if life-on-other-planets was found on the absolute closest planet to Earth, then it would be pretty funny - what are the odds! If the odds are that low, then I guess life on this planet can't be all that special, really). Hey, I'm fully interested in the history of people being interested in life on other planets, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's such a boring topic in a manner of speaking because how people envisage life on other planets (I always think of a Kurt Vonnegut idea in one of his early novels which I probably didn't finish reading, about a silicon life-form that reminds me somewhat of a slinky, that just reproduces a replica of itself in a procession of replicas, whenever resources are available, for no apparent reason and certainly with no conscious principle) says a lot about how people think about their own lives and/or life in general, particularly but not exclusively human life. But for all that, I think the search for life on other planets is futile even if they find it, because it tells us precisely fuck all about how to solve our problems on this planet, or how to bring, you know, peace to the middle east or whatever cliche you want to dredge up. If humanity can't fix what ostensibly seems to be the simplest of problems in its own nominal backyard (or front yard, no geographical relativity here), then what is knowing how life came about in another part of the universe going to tell us? I'm not naively assuming that the sum of human progress should be all about figuring out how to make people (or enable them to) get along, but I am naively assuming that while we can't understand our own behaviour and motivations (yeah, it might be that friction and fear of the other eg racism* is essential - but do we have consensus on that?!) we are not going to get anywhere. 

This is why all resources that might accidentally or purposefully lead to the discovery of life on other planets should be diverted to the study of history, until humanity's own shizzle is comprehensively understood and resolved. 

* This is a hypothetical nonsense, i.e. the idea that everything that happens happens for a reason.