Weird that you chose the one event that is actually astronomically significant
Yea, plus the world can be pretty miserable. It’s nice to celebrate or have things to look forward to from time to time.
“can be”
Any reason to celebrate in a way all participants/affected find enjoyable is a good reason. Not very intelligent aliens.
Nah at this point we are celebrating the fact that we haven’t fully fucked the planet over yet
you did long ago
Then we’re celebrating that we’ve continued to fuck the planet up and escaped the major looming consequences for another year.
Kick the can! Kick the can!
They did? Finally, someone to blame.
im talking from an alien perspective dont ask why
Why not?
No, celebration of a completed orbit around our star does not mean we are idiots.
It means that we have managed to determine how long an orbit around the star takes, a significant scientific discovery.
I think the joke is that to the aliens, it is does not display a level of intelligence that comes anywhere close to theirselves.
Hyperintelligent aliens should understand that comedy shouldn’t punch down!
Especially hyperintelligent civilizations would recognize the acchivement, even if it isn’t on their level
On top of that, even in an advanced civilization that is monitoring life on another planet, the people likely have more than just science in their mind.
Then we chose a point that doesn’t line up with either the apsides or the solstices to represent “zero” and sticking with our mistake for primitive reasons like “tradition”.
We stick with it at this point because it’s not worth the hassle of changing it, and while points related to our axial tilt or the eccentricity of our orbit are less arbitrary it ultimately doesn’t matter. It is about the time that has passed and one point in the orbit is as good as another.
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REAL intelligent species celebrate the Half-Life Of The Proton Day!
If we are in a closed elliptical orbit, where is the reference point to call it a year?
To be fair, NYD is pretty close to perihelion (according to Wikipedia).
I actually think there is a reason to celebrate that we made it another year…it doesn’t seem so obvious we will anymore. Will we make it through 2025 too?
I’m with the aliens on this one. Celebrating an approximate orbit seems silly but fine, but then we throw so much into it. So many people put real mental trauma on the line because they think one day of the cycle is better for making personal changes than any other. And the amount of money that is spent is just gross. Think of how many people could be fed just for what is spent on confetti - in literally turning useful paper into garbage and dropping it on people (NYC alone dropped 100,000lbs of it last year).
