Priorities
Sent by Sandra Merlow (local age 60) on January 14, 2511, UTC
Received by Vince Lu (local age 64) on June 12, 2516, UTC
Dear Vince,
We’ve had so many conversations complaining about how our academic institutions undervalue the sciences and overvalue the bullshit humanities, and about people who love words too much and ignore the beauties of the practical and the scientific. I’ve changed my mind. I hope you find these words interesting – I write to you hoping for a sympathetic ear to a conflicted old man.
In our ship’s library, the Canon sits in the back closet. The works of Socrates, Marx, and Kant go mostly ignored in favor of the writings of Knuth, Purcell, and Nash. I wouldn’t change that – in a population of fifty thousand on a ship that must be self-sufficient and unable to gather more raw resources for the thirty year trip, we need as many scientists and engineers as possible. But it saddens me that our children see philosophy and art with the cultural disdain that our generation held for math and science.
Our children would sooner forget Realpolitik, intricacies of Marxism, and Christian ideologies in favor of toxicity tests, half lives of refined plutonium, and Gauss’s law. On the one hand, I am glad that our children will not suffer the ideological wars of the old world, but on the other, they will need to relearn politics, for any society will eventually devolve to politics, and the only way to avoid old mistakes is to study them.
The Space Institute was intentionally creating a branch of the human race dedicated to technological advancement. They told us that our scientific advances, once our notes from a successful colonization finally reach Earth in 35 more years, will help humanity spread to the other candidate planets, and hopefully more effectively.
We’re the vanguard, and I suppose I should be happy Earth’s nations’ delegates have decided that our best shot lies with our brightest technical minds. Here’s to hoping that’s true, for all of our sakes.
Sincerely,
Vince
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