Elitist is elitist

You're right - I'm currently sailing through life on a tailwind of moneyed self-actualization. Other than plague, fascism and the heat-death of the planet it's pretty goddamn delightful. But you're wrong - I spent fifteen years making reality television so while you can complain about the downfall of humanity I can give you the formula. One game we played was "who has the hardest time identifying vegetables" and it started with reality TV contestants failing to identify artichokes, then asparagus, then broccoli. Let's talk about disconnected - grown-ass men who don't know what broccoli looks like. Can you imagine? See, I don't have to: I participated in normalizing that to several million people in real-time. And half the control room didn't get the joke. I was there as the counter-argument to "you're lying" went from "I'm not" to "I'm living my best truth." You're cursing the idiots from the mountaintop. I blessed them from the fountainhead.

But they're still human.

Here's where we differ. You want people to enjoy astronomy your way. I want people to enjoy astronomy.

Of your 1.6 million visitors I wonder how many are there because the Griffin people used to whore themselves out to every movie and TV production they could wedge themselves into. 161 productions according to IMDB. LA is a city of 20 million people, that visitation number is impressive but let's not kid ourselves that the people of Los Angeles give a shit about Griffin, Mt. Wilson or any of these places.

They paid for the fuckin' tickets, bitch. Who cares why they're there? Out of curiosity did you scry IMDb to find other places used in 161 productions? Or did you just assign an n=1 purity test to invalidate 1.6 million visitors a year because you want to call them blasphemers in the True Church? You're right - no one can do a fucking thing about light pollution. I got a dear buddy whose landing page has been APOD for more than twenty years and he can't shut the fuck up about Starlink because given a choice between clear skies and non-DSL uploads, he'll take the broadband, thanks. Takfir AF but there it is.

HERE IS WHERE WE FUNDAMENTALLY DISAGREE

"pretty space picture nobody knows shit about" is 100% valid, should be encouraged, is worth tax dollars, and if you're going to insist that people are liking space the wrong way I get to call you an elitist. And mean it. In every sense. This is me, carving into an astrophysicist with two flown missions over the exact same elitism for the exact same reason. We're still friends, too. If you're gonna be a grumpy old man, I'ma call you out for being a grumpy old man. You deserve nothing less. Neither do I. Here's me realizing I have been utterly and completely wrong about Eurovision, for example.

"PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE SPACE THEY LIKE PRETTY PICTURES" Has that ever not been true? Do you honestly believe that? You think "Martian canals" would be common knowledge for fifty years without art?

If you had a Facebook, you would bemoan the fact that 90% of the "space" images shared by your "friends" are conceptual art, 90% of those being from NASA itself. The art sells the science. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever shall be. And the fact that you anchored on different art, and have now sailed so far into the unknown that you can no longer see the shore, has blinded you to the fact that someone who thinks HubbleShotz™ are science would probably be over the moon to find out more science to lord over his friends if you can just not be a dick about it.

No. I do not know that you can buy a decent scope for $250. I looked into it and didn't really find fuckall. I was not involved in the design of Celestron's entry-level products, elitist, because I have other shit to do. I brought up Dobsonians and Buicks so it would be harder for you to dismiss me as a tourist who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, not to compare dick size. I have already evaluated that you are dismissive of any argument that is not backed up by the requisite quantity of Purity Points - that's why we're shouting at each other. You literally invalidated the interests of 20m people because they might also watch television. And that's what you gotta stop, homie. When I told a story - a first-person, experienced story - about cranky old men insisting that eight-year-old children squint at M81 in a parking lot you said

And fuck you, we don't show people galaxies at outreach we show open clusters and globular clusters like M3, M5, M92, M15, M11, M52 etc because those are easy to train someone to see quickly.

It happened, buddy. I was there. Maybe you wouldn't do it? Maybe nobody you know would do it? But it got done. And you can gimme a ration'o'shit for dragging money into it but if you do, don't go

I think between the ten of us, we had a combined $25,000 of eyepieces on us.

if'n you want it to stick.

I think what you do is valuable. I'm glad you're out there doing it. I'm a big fan. I am happy to have this fight with you whenever you crawl out of your HermitHole. I bear you no malice and zero ill-will and will happily accept your slag as the cost of doing business. I don't even mind being called inhuman - but I want to draw your attention to the reason you did it: it gives you an excuse not to listen to what I'm saying.

Take 'em as they come, that's what I'm saying. Take 'em as they come, not as you wish they were. You can be angry about light pollution or you can adapt, like you did. You can be angry about the demand for bathrooms or you can recognize that some people really just need My Very First Star Party with cocoa and selfie sticks and that if you get one person out of twenty from that shitshow to follow you up into the mountains to squint at nebulae and pee in the bushes? That means you got ten potential new cult members.

Stayed at a resort for the 4th instead of ripping up, working all day and then ripping back down (still did the "working all day" part, just cut out the commute). There was a family there in the pool. They were asking each other what time it was, because none of them were wearing their apple watches, and the clock on the wall had hands. Of the five teenagers, one of them attempted to read it, and misjudged by an hour.

Now - I got a rich buddy who collects watches. He's a 1%er through and through. Likes watches that normies can't tell time on, dumb shit like this:

My resort stay made me realize that for an appalling portion of the public, "hands" are elitist enough. So I got a choice: I can scream at the heavens for the downfall of humanity or I can acknowledge that my potential buying public is not as sophisticated as I surmised and recalibrate. It's not like I hold Urwerk to be a design inspiration anyway but it definitely made me realize that clarity and UI matter a fuckton more than most "watchmakers" think.

Recalibrate, mutherfucker. It's too important to nurse a grudge on this one. I've never fucking heard of a "Hubble Palette". You're right - I can surmise what it is, just like I can guesstimate what Messier Awards are. But I also know you're living in an iPhones-through-eyepieces universe and you refuse to acclimate.

And come down from the mountain more often. mk - notifications are getting stuck somewhere so I found this only by cruising comments.