Billionaires in space and bottling the overview effect (Interconnected)
Let’s suppose that seeing the Earth from space genuinely does trigger a spiritual experience leading to an appreciation of the fragility of life and a step increase in empathy. Then I propose that we pathologise the syndrome that going to the Karman Line fixes, and get millions of people cured as soon as possible – by going up and over, or otherwise.
It’s called the overview effect, a psychological effect that creates powerful shifts in the way you think about Earth and life. (That link is a NASA podcast episode with Frank White who coined the term in 1987.)
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a b–.”
After coming back from the Moon in 1971, Mitchell co-founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, researching human potential and parapsychology such as clairvoyance and psi.
