Monday, October 22, 2012

Exploring excess: A diamond planet?

I see in today's news (Monday, Oct. 22, 2012) that astronomers have discovered a "diamond planet" orbiting a star visible from Earth as part of the constellation 'Cancer.'

Imagine that! An entire world made of a form of carbon that some people on Earth have killed for.

My first thought is, of course, "This can't be good." Just think of Homer Simpson's daydreaming about a world made entirely of chocolate, and I rest my case.

Humans need to dream of excess, I guess, but we rarely think through the consequences. Take, for example, Rumplestiltskin, who had a talent for spinning plain old straw into precious gold.

What if someone found a way to actually do that? To actually spin straw into gold? Don't we realize that everyone would start doing it right away, causing a glut of gold and a worldwide shortage of straw?

Don't people understand how the world works?
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