Cheering up Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Case of the Mondays

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson must have had a case of the Mondays. On a Monday in mid-January he posted this on Twitter:

In 1927 Lindbergh flew from NY to Paris. 45 yrs later, in 1972 we last walked on the Moon. 45 yrs later, in 2017 we… we… we…

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 16, 2017

He was at a loss for words. One helpful wag responded:

@neiltyson Invented a taco with a fried chicken shell

— Joe Otterson (@JoeOtterson) January 16, 2017

Now I think I understand what Dr. Tyson was getting at: Where has our sense of adventure gone? When you are an astrophysicist your priorities encompass galaxies.

Cheer up, Dr. Tyson. we have landed unmanned probes, one on the planet Mars and one on a motherfucking comet! I suppose it would have been cooler if Bruce Willis had landed on the comet and blown the sucker up but it was still goddam freaking awesome.

You know what else is freaking awesome, Dr. Tyson? What we humans have done here on earth in these past forty-five to fifty years.

“…if you look at what actually happened in my lifetime, the average per-capita income of the average person on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has tripled. Lifespan is up by 30 percent in my lifetime. Child mortality is down by two-thirds. Per-capita food production is up by a third. And all this at a time when the population has doubled.” –Dr. Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist.

How cool is that, Dr. Tyson? Happy Monday.

We made these advances because when ideas have sex, innovation happens: