The above Nebula is named both the Lobster Nebula, and the War and Peace Nebula, in the constellation Scorpius. It gets the Lobster name due to its shape in the visible spectrum, but the name War and Peace comes from it's shaping once analyzed in the infrared spectrum. It's percieved as both a dove and an skull. This apperance kind of shows the contradiction of ourselves as a species. Our propensity to love and our need to kill those who threaten us. This contradiction is critical to our existence, and there is nothing that can or ever will be done about it. Utopia was dead before the word was even created, and the human capability of violence is fine tuned with evolution, and now technology. We have evolved to kill before we could speak, and even though our caveman communication has reached past spoken word and now we can immortalize our words, we cannot solve this perplexing contradiction. I think this goes with the fact of us being individuals who are coerced to join others by nature of evolution. We are destined to believe in our group, and our survival matters. But there are others that are wanting to survive as well, and our species has ballooned to the point where Mother Gaia cannot handle our consumption anymore. We will justify this violence to every extent our brain can allow, because it activates a level of primal survival in us that is so rarely activated in our comfortable modern lives. The out group that seeks to hunt US, the ones who deserve to survive. The modern rationalization of violence is unreal. We have conquered nature, growing meat in labs, travelling to the moon, and we're still killing each other at an increased level. The seeking of rational thought in hairless apes is starting to sicken me. The rational calculus of war is really starting to fade, but nevertheless we parade militaries at increasing levels. Under fascists like Trump, Biden, and Obama, our war machine is satiated to unsurmountable levels, and we're supposed to celebrate that. We're supposed to celebrate these "tough soliders defending our country" when they are scared people tricked into our reserves by economic security. The proletariat has been the number one victim of war throughout history, and it will still continue as long as we can breathe. Even supposed Communist nations have developed a love of war in the sense of liberation. The other day I saw something where children in Vietnam celebrate the liberation of Saigon. I understand what that means for the communist movement, the victory of the Viet Cong. But celebration? I cannot fathom parading due to the countless deaths of our own kind. Even those that are hated, outcasts, I cannot parade their deaths. It is common in communist circles to celebrate the deaths of those we despise, whether it be a healthcare CEO or an american bureaucrat. Even those who seek the liberation of our people see death by violence at best an inevitability, or at worst, something to celebrate. What ever happened to the idea of our lives being sacred? Not even in a religious way, but in a moral way. We are thrown head first on this Earth fighting for our survival, without our choice in the matter. I have celebrated death in the past with these fellow "comrades" (twitter people lol). I don't think I will anymore. War is inevitable and it haunts me to an extreme level. Not even just war in the political sense. The violence every day, it in itself is almost like a war. A war for survival. We will forever be stuck in this survival mindset, just by the nature of being human and evolving from apes that had to survive in the wild. But still, shouldn't there be an alternative? Especially at this level of technological development, shouldn't this be different. I know I'm not crazy for thinking it, it's rational. But maybe I'm crazy because I think we can do something about it. Our nature is riddled with blood, the weight of history pushing against our back like a boulder pushing us onward, following the same old tricks and traditions that guided our past.
This image was edited by me and taken with consent from STSCI