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A review by alisarae
Scrimshaw by Murray Leinster
I happened across this story while randomly browsing the classics at my library and I mistook it for something else (Captain Scrimshaw? Captain Ahab? who knows). The story itself is nothing particularly memorable but the plot is dynamic and flows well.
What always strikes me about science-fiction is how it knows humanity so well. Describing the maiden voyage of a pleasure cruise to the moon: "Passengers who paid so highly expected to be pleasantly thrilled and shielded from all reasons for alarm. And they couldn't be. Something happens when a self-centered and complacent individual unsuspectingly looks out of a spaceship port and sees the cosmos unshielded by mists or clouds or other aids to blindness against reality. It is shattering. A millionaire cut his throat when he saw Earth dwindled to a mere blue green ball in vastness. He could not endure his own smallness in the face of immensity."
This feeling is called "the overview effect" and was first coined by author Frank White in 1987. The first person to physically experience and describe it was Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Scrimshaw was originally published in a sci-fi magazine in 1955.
I suppose it's not impossibly hard to imagine how it would feel when you leave Earth. I would probably imagine going to space might feel something like when I hiked to the peak of a mountain or dove down to 40 meters underwater and could only see the immensity of the open ocean in all directions. It's exhilarating to realize the problems of daily life, of relationships and work and bills, are minute and fleeting. The shift in perspective is an instant mood-lifter.
What surprised me, then, is that's not how Leinster describes it. The main character, Pop Young, is able to do his job on the surface of the moon so well because he isn't driven to existential madness like everyone else. Because he doesn't have memories to compare his lunar perspective to. Leinster describes being in space as an existential dystopia, and daily life on the moon a literal "medieval notion of physical appearance of hell."
William Shatner makes an interesting comparison between the imagined view us optimistic dreamers have of space versus his own experience: "I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness."
Though Jeff Bezos did not describe his own trip as anything but wholly positive (let us not forget his vested interest in suppressing any bothersome doubts about his venture), both he and Shatner walked away from the experience describing a stronger and more pressing need to care for our unique planet and environment. "This is the only good planet in this solar system, and we have to take care of it. And when you go into space and see how fragile it is, you'll want to take care of it even more. And that's what this is about," Bezos said. And Shatner: "Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral."
I've been trying not to retweet negative news bites on Twitter for the past few months, but it's honestly a challenge and I couldn't resist spreading the news about these things this week:
1. "The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has, for the first time in state history, canceled the winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea due to their falling numbers...An estimated 1 billion crabs [90% of the population] have mysteriously disappeared in 2 years." source
2. "FUN FACT: turtles, crocodiles, and alligators' sex is determined not by chromosomes but by the temperature the eggs incubate at. NOT FUN FACT: they may all go extinct soon because a temperature difference of a couple degrees will make them 100% female/male, depending on species. In 2018, more than *99%* of young green sea turtles examined in a study were females." Source. Tweet.
3. "I got arrested today in downtown St.louis, cause it's illegal to feed the homeless!! This was my 5th time getting warned about the new law. I really don't care. When ppl are hungry, please feed them. It was cold! Also so I gave out scarfs gloves, chili etc. Y would u lock me up?" Tweet.
4. Insects, the backbone of the entire ecosystem, are experiencing a "rate of extinction [that] is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century." Source.
You know, it's just crazy to me that we are determined to make literally everything, even fellow humans, go extinct. To kill off the source of true, profound, existential human joy in the known universe. I'm talking about: forget being able to live on Mars physically (and a big F.U. to you, Elon), psychologically I don't know if we could survive that. Just this morning I was trying to remember the last time I saw a housefly. It's been... years? Imagine a life without other life. Imagine that.
What always strikes me about science-fiction is how it knows humanity so well. Describing the maiden voyage of a pleasure cruise to the moon: "Passengers who paid so highly expected to be pleasantly thrilled and shielded from all reasons for alarm. And they couldn't be. Something happens when a self-centered and complacent individual unsuspectingly looks out of a spaceship port and sees the cosmos unshielded by mists or clouds or other aids to blindness against reality. It is shattering. A millionaire cut his throat when he saw Earth dwindled to a mere blue green ball in vastness. He could not endure his own smallness in the face of immensity."
This feeling is called "the overview effect" and was first coined by author Frank White in 1987. The first person to physically experience and describe it was Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Scrimshaw was originally published in a sci-fi magazine in 1955.
I suppose it's not impossibly hard to imagine how it would feel when you leave Earth. I would probably imagine going to space might feel something like when I hiked to the peak of a mountain or dove down to 40 meters underwater and could only see the immensity of the open ocean in all directions. It's exhilarating to realize the problems of daily life, of relationships and work and bills, are minute and fleeting. The shift in perspective is an instant mood-lifter.
What surprised me, then, is that's not how Leinster describes it. The main character, Pop Young, is able to do his job on the surface of the moon so well because he isn't driven to existential madness like everyone else. Because he doesn't have memories to compare his lunar perspective to. Leinster describes being in space as an existential dystopia, and daily life on the moon a literal "medieval notion of physical appearance of hell."
William Shatner makes an interesting comparison between the imagined view us optimistic dreamers have of space versus his own experience: "I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness."
Though Jeff Bezos did not describe his own trip as anything but wholly positive (let us not forget his vested interest in suppressing any bothersome doubts about his venture), both he and Shatner walked away from the experience describing a stronger and more pressing need to care for our unique planet and environment. "This is the only good planet in this solar system, and we have to take care of it. And when you go into space and see how fragile it is, you'll want to take care of it even more. And that's what this is about," Bezos said. And Shatner: "Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral."
I've been trying not to retweet negative news bites on Twitter for the past few months, but it's honestly a challenge and I couldn't resist spreading the news about these things this week:
1. "The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has, for the first time in state history, canceled the winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea due to their falling numbers...An estimated 1 billion crabs [90% of the population] have mysteriously disappeared in 2 years." source
2. "FUN FACT: turtles, crocodiles, and alligators' sex is determined not by chromosomes but by the temperature the eggs incubate at. NOT FUN FACT: they may all go extinct soon because a temperature difference of a couple degrees will make them 100% female/male, depending on species. In 2018, more than *99%* of young green sea turtles examined in a study were females." Source. Tweet.
3. "I got arrested today in downtown St.louis, cause it's illegal to feed the homeless!! This was my 5th time getting warned about the new law. I really don't care. When ppl are hungry, please feed them. It was cold! Also so I gave out scarfs gloves, chili etc. Y would u lock me up?" Tweet.
4. Insects, the backbone of the entire ecosystem, are experiencing a "rate of extinction [that] is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century." Source.
You know, it's just crazy to me that we are determined to make literally everything, even fellow humans, go extinct. To kill off the source of true, profound, existential human joy in the known universe. I'm talking about: forget being able to live on Mars physically (and a big F.U. to you, Elon), psychologically I don't know if we could survive that. Just this morning I was trying to remember the last time I saw a housefly. It's been... years? Imagine a life without other life. Imagine that.