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Looks Like Indigenous People Own the Moon

theprestige said:
Okay, so how many Pluto-sized objects are near Pluto's orbit? The Kuiper Belt is 20 AU wide - twenty times the distance from the Sun to the Earth. If you're taking the entire width of the Belt as Pluto's neighborhood, then everything from Mercury out to Uranus is a dwarf planet, because there's more than one of them in the same 20-AU neighborhood.

And Neptune is a dwarf planet too, since the Belt is attested to start at about that distance from the sun.

I think your concept of Pluto's orbital neighborhood is far too broad to be a sensible criterion.
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It is not my criteria and your logic is faulty. See the link in my post for where it came from. Trying to argue it is not sensible is not sensible.
 
It seems we have agreement: the moon isn't sacred but Pluto is, if it can clear away other objects its own size from its orbit. We must put it to the test by pushing a Pluto-sized object into its orbit. The most convenient nearby Pluto-sized object to Pluto is currently Pluto, therefore we should push Pluto into its own orbit to see if Pluto can clear Pluto from Pluto's orbit. Then we'll know, either way. Pluto is far more suitable for a graveyard just from its name!
 
rjh01 said:
Pluto and every other object in the Kuiper belt cannot be planets by definition.



https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/what-is-a-planet/
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It's a bad definition. A good definition should be based on intrinsic properties of an object, not environmental properties.

Also, it's funny because, going by a strict reading of the actual definition*, there are only seven planets in the entire Universe, because they have to orbit the Sun, specifically (only seven because Mercury has been discovered to not be in hydrostatic equilibrium**, but the IAU still consider it to be a planet because they want it to be one :rolleyes:).


*From further down in the linked page: A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.


**https://www.cambridge.org/core/book...nd-mechanics/F983F6077F81832582CD3FC47D1E136A

"We show that, like those of the Moon, Mercury's ellipsoidal shape and geoid are far from hydrostatic equilibrium, possibly the result of Mercury's peculiar surface temperature distribution and associated buoyancy anomalies and thermoelastic stresses in the interior. "
 
theprestige said:
Technically though indigenous has never been used in the sense you're forcing here. The Navajo and the Maori have legitimate concerns about colonialism and the erasure of local values and history. This is one of the rather more silly symptoms of those concerns. But making fun of the silliness isn't the same as erasing the plight of indigenous peoples in the face of industrial colonialism, the way you are doing.
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I'm not making light of colonialism, I'm pointing out that from their standpoint every nation and people of earth have the exact same claim.
It's not like noone ever saw the moon until Europeans made it to the America's or Australia.
 
rjh01 said:
It is not my criteria and your logic is faulty. See the link in my post for where it came from. Trying to argue it is not sensible is not sensible.
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Your link doesn't say anything about the Kuiper Belt. You're the one who said that KBOs can't be planets by definition. I don't think you knew just how wide the Belt is, and how much room it has for planetary orbital tracks.

And I still think the official definition is arbitrary and lame. Pluto is a planet. Even if the Navajo can't see it with the naked eye.
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
I'm not making light of colonialism, I'm pointing out that from their standpoint every nation and people of earth have the exact same claim.
It's not like noone ever saw the moon until Europeans made it to the America's or Australia.
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I think the important distinction is that when we use the term "indigenous" we mean original to a place on the planet. It's a truism that everyone is indigenous to the planet itself, but it's not a useful application of the term. Of course that also applies to the term when it's used by any group of people for the moon, which, whether we call it a planet or something else, belongs to the earth and not to any of us.
 
bruto said:
I think the important distinction is that when we use the term "indigenous" we mean original to a place on the planet. It's a truism that everyone is indigenous to the planet itself, but it's not a useful application of the term. Of course that also applies to the term when it's used by any group of people for the moon, which, whether we call it a planet or something else, belongs to the earth and not to any of us.
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Not sure that original is the correct term. Indigenous may be first to occupy a location but they did not originate there.
 
My point is that the Navajo have seen the land they lived on, and their way of life, overtaken, erased, repurposed by other people groups. An entire culture swept away, its remnants scooped up and shoved into a free-range concentration camp. A camp they can, admittedly, leave, but only at the price of becoming less Navajo.

They used to have everything. Now they have next to nothing, and that only by the grace of their successors. Treaties were broken. Land was stolen. History and culture were erased. The Navajo nation will never be a partner with other nations, peers in the exploration of the solar system. The Navajo will always be second-class citizens, carried along by their colonial masters into whatever future the colonists desire.

There's a point where, "c'mon, guys, even the moon?" makes a certain amount of sense, emotionally.

Of course, as I noted earlier, that ship has already sailed. Not for the first time, either. Which is kind of the problem, for the Navajo. And the Maori.

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Anyway, that's a serious point, worthy of serious consideration. But of course everyone ignores that point to quibble about semantics.
 
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Steve said:
Not sure that original is the correct term. Indigenous may be first to occupy a location but they did not originate there.
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In that case the Pueblo might be the indigenes since it seems from wikipedia that the Navajo only arrived in the south west US in about 1400AD....
 
theprestige said:
My point is that the Navajo have seen the land they lived on, and their way of life, overtaken, erased, repurposed by other people groups. An entire culture swept away, its remnants scooped up and shoved into a free-range concentration camp. A camp they can, admittedly, leave, but only at the price of becoming less Navajo.

They used to have everything. Now they have next to nothing, and that only by the grace of their successors. Treaties were broken. Land was stolen. History and culture were erased. The Navajo nation will never be a partner with other nations, peers in the exploration of the solar system. The Navajo will always be second-class citizens, carried along by their colonial masters into whatever future the colonists desire.

There's a point where, "c'mon, guys, even the moon?" makes a certain amount of sense, emotionally.

Of course, as I noted earlier, that ship has already sailed. Not for the first time, either. Which is kind of the problem, for the Navajo. And the Maori.

---

Anyway, that's a serious point, worthy of serious consideration. But of course everyone ignores that point to quibble about semantics.
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Welcome to the history of humans.

I understand what you are saying and agree in part. Unfortunately all discussions of indigenous people these days boils down to a discussion of darker skinned persons who have been oppressed by Europeans over the relatively recent past several hundred years. Nothing is ever said bout indigenous nations/tribes going to war, with the losers being dominated and oppressed by the victors. Nor is either party in a war resulting in oppression, and even attempted genocide, between white Europeans discussed in terms of the losers being indigenous to their own land. Melanin seems to be the single dominant factor in all discussions indigenous.
 
I'm really starting to wonder how much emphasis we really can put on who group of people moved into an area most or least recently. It's part of a larger thought on whether land ownership makes any sense at all, but that's the bit relevant here. Indigene/invader, I'm not sure that's a valuable distinction to make when the species is planet-wide and needs to adapt in order to survive.
 
Steve said:
Not sure that original is the correct term. Indigenous may be first to occupy a location but they did not originate there.
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Semantics I think. If they were the first there, they were the original people there, even if they arrived from somewhere else. But if you prefer we can call them first people, or first nations, etc., as some do.
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
I'm really starting to wonder how much emphasis we really can put on who group of people moved into an area most or least recently. It's part of a larger thought on whether land ownership makes any sense at all, but that's the bit relevant here. Indigene/invader, I'm not sure that's a valuable distinction to make when the species is planet-wide and needs to adapt in order to survive.
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100% spot on.

The other side of the point is those colonised indigenous people seem to be quite happy to take advantage of the technology and food brought to them.

Having their cake and eating it too is a common idea.
 
The defining factor is really the level of power/solphistication/advancement of the invader. If two equally advanced societies fight and one overcomes the other, no one bats an eye.

Where the winner is clearly more advanced/powerful/etc then it's seen as an unequal and unfair fight and the loser is treated as a special case.
 
Bingo

Lplus said:
The defining factor is really the level of power/solphistication/advancement of the invader. If two equally advanced societies fight and one overcomes the other, no one bats an eye.

Where the winner is clearly more advanced/powerful/etc then it's seen as an unequal and unfair fight and the loser is treated as a special case.
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'Zactly so. This can be observed in the case of the Scots Highlanders. Before they were conquered, the English considered them unredeemable barbarians. After the 45, Highland dress, music, dance, and even character became rather fashionable in England, and (I think) continue so still. (In the movie Mrs. Brown, they have Disreli remarking that "her majesty considers the presence of Scottish people healthful." Dunno if that's historical, but I bet it is.)

Same thing happened and still happens in the US regarding Native Americans, who, once soundly beaten, changed from torture-loving skrælings to Noble Savages. By now, they seem to be The Holy People to a helluva lot of Americans, with all kinds of spiritual spiritualistic spiritualism going for them.

Guilt makes comfortable people uncomfortable.
 
Lplus said:
The defining factor is really the level of power/solphistication/advancement of the invader. If two equally advanced societies fight and one overcomes the other, no one bats an eye.

Where the winner is clearly more advanced/powerful/etc then it's seen as an unequal and unfair fight and the loser is treated as a special case.
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Leading to the conclusion that metallurgy is evil.
 
sackett said:
'Zactly so. This can be observed in the case of the Scots Highlanders. Before they were conquered, the English considered them unredeemable barbarians. After the 45, Highland dress, music, dance, and even character became rather fashionable in England, and (I think) continue so still. (In the movie Mrs. Brown, they have Disreli remarking that "her majesty considers the presence of Scottish people healthful." Dunno if that's historical, but I bet it is.)

Same thing happened and still happens in the US regarding Native Americans, who, once soundly beaten, changed from torture-loving skrælings to Noble Savages. By now, they seem to be The Holy People to a helluva lot of Americans, with all kinds of spiritual spiritualistic spiritualism going for them.

Guilt makes comfortable people uncomfortable.
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I will never understand why anyone would feel guilty about events that happened before they were even born. You can recognize that people were treated poorly and take action to compensate for at least some of that without any guilt whatsoever.

But ceding them the moon is not a part of that compensation.
 
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