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Comment by hirundo | Hacker News Reader

> Purpose of the flag 1. To be used while representing planet Earth.

Whoever you are, you do not represent the planet Earth. At most perhaps you represent some fraction of one species on the planet. To claim otherwise is a kind of colonialism. It is no more justified when you do it than when a queen or pope does it.

And if in some bizarre scifi scenario you come to represent the planet Earth in some sense ... wouldn't it be better to just use a picture of Earth? It's quite distinctive.

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I think the point isn't to lay claim to representing planet earth, the point is to unite people on earth to stop the tribalism and bickering over trivial crap. We are a pale blue dot in a sea of blackness and the world would be a better place if everyone thought we were on the same team.

“People on earth” is a pretty huge group, but I think given the right kind of publicity, a fraction of them could find themselves united in their dislike of the purveyors of that flag.

I would assume tribalism comes from conflict over limited resources, and not because everyone failed to agree on a logo. I would also assume that there are forces that benefit and profit from fomenting and hosting this "bickering" and simply draping some new bunting over the whole mess isn't going to change much.

Maybe we can drive attention to the logo so we start bickering about it and not about limited resources.

Maybe some of the tribalism is due to fighting over limited resources but I don't think it can solely be blamed in a society of plenty like the United States and other places.

I don't believe the overview effect is made up. Simply doing nothing and letting it continue seems like a shit option. Anything that attempts to give people better context to unite instead of divide seems worth while to me.

Plenty of people, including myself, want nothing to do with some other tribes, it's our prerogative, not yours.

The 'everything flag' will mostly mean the 'USA + kind of China and sometimes UK/EU/Japan' flag.

Just China and India have a lot more people than the US.

So then I suppose the Earth flag will be for the people who are willing to share the Earth, and the non-Earth flags can be for those who do not wish to share.

lol!

If by 'share' you mean a small minority dominate and obfuscate the input of everyone else, then sure.

Yep, until there is a planet threatening asteroid or an alien invasion or a clusterfuck of a climate crisis. It is easy to see coming together for an immediate crisis but I don't understand why a slow moving trainwreck crisis doesn't convince everyone that we're all human beings in this together and that we as a species would be better off in the long run to be on the same team.

Yes, a flag with 7 rings is clearly Colonialist!

And it's not inclusive of those who do not identify as being from Earth, it denies their identity, and therefore is a form of violence against them.

"wouldn't it be better to just use a picture of Earth?"

And what about those members of our Universal Community who are vision-impaired ?!?

Aliens will think of us as colonialist, cis-planetary, ableist bigots, we don't want that.

Many a truth are spoken in jest. Sorry about getting downvoted!

Can I just legally claim the Earth? Under the Outer Space Treaty no nation can claim a heavenly body, but it doesn't discount a person from doing so: thus the selling of Moon land was born.

So, I'm laying my stake right now. Right here. I am your new Galactic Overlord.

I will give you all 14 days to pack your belongings and leave. I have sold the Earth and a new hyperspace bypass is being built and your continued presence is an inconvenience. I will leave the plans posted at Alpha Centauri for you to read at your leisure. I also put them online here:

http://alphacentauri.milkyway.deptoftransport.universe/earth...

If you use a picture of Earth, which side are you going to photograph?

The nations on the other side won't be on the flag.

A flag has two sides.

Why is North up? And since we are talking about the Earth, what does “up” even mean?

Every instance of the flag will be created with a random view and rotation of the planet! (But none will have New Zealand, of course.)

(Or it’s some cool cloth display that shows a rotating version in realtime.)

And by minting each flag as an NFT, the whole project is self funding.

That’s genius!

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