There IS a Moon

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

There is a moon.

Somebody is going to come along and tell you you have to Question Everything because what you perceive and what I perceive are two different, potentially completely unrelated things. Because *your* headache might not be *my* headache and all attempts at empathy are delusion and there are no shared public objects, only consciousnesses bumping into each other talking nonsense about things that we can't possibly understand or even agree on. They will make you question the existence of the moon.

Fuck that guy.

There is A MOON. There is not a moon for each and every one of us, JUST. ONE. MOON.  It hasn't been here forever and it won't last forever either, but here and now, as you and I are breathing THERE IS A MOON. It is not painted on the background. It is not an allegory. It hasn't been replaced with an identical duplicate while you weren't looking, and they didn't swap it out for a different model in the international release. THERE IS A MOON.

It EXISTS, and existing is a thing that objects are capable of because THE MOON IS THERE. It has properties we can measure and when you measure them or I measure them or Xinglbratt from the Marcabian Empire measures them those properties are CONSTANT because THE MOON IS A THING THAT EXISTS. It has pock marks from old collisions where it EXISTED SO HARD SOMETHING ELSE STOPPED. It's covered in dust that will give you MOTHERFUCKING MOON CANCER which is a THING that is REAL and can FUCKING KILL YOU DEAD.

It EXISTS, and it EXISTED. It taught your ancestors about measuring time and sloshed around the tide pools when life was small and weird. It shone on Kingdoms and Empires and FLATWORMS, and it shone on them ALL THE SAME.

There is A MOON and it is made of REAL THINGS and you can point a laser at it in just the right spot or send a piece of REALLY REAL EQUIPMENT into MOTHERFUCKING SPACE to take pictures of it and send them back, and as long as you know how to send things into space you will see the same pictures of the same places because THE MOON IS A THING THAT EXISTS.

SONGS are SUNG about it, TIDES HAPPEN because of it, BUZZ ALDRIN put his GODDAMNED FEET ON IT.


Or Kill Me.

[Cramulus]

You say there isn't not a moon for each and every one of us, there's just one Real Moon. And you're right, there is only one rock we keep painting and describing and sharing with other people. In addition to that, each and every one of us has a moon rising in our own pale evening sky.

That moon is a collage of every single moonrise we've kept with us. My moon is yellow and large over the summer streets where we caught fireflies, and then it was time to come in and get into our PJs. It's winter, and the fight just ended, and I'm walking through the woods trying to calm down and the MOON is there and then I'm running—-

And you've never seen that moon, those moons, my moons.

There's a finger pointing at the moon, and the teacher says the finger is the conceptual "moon". It signifies a physical rock, impossibly far up in the sky, that none of us have ever touched. Well, except Buzz Aldrin. And he told us about it. But he could only share the moon he brought back with him.

And in my collage, I've got a lossy jpg of a photo of a moment when a man on the moon stood next to a flag and saluted the Chaos (the vast immeasurable abyss, outrageous as a sea, vast, wasteful, and wild). He pulled a moon out of the Chaos and gave us a copy, and it's part of the collage now—the one which rises within me when it's Summer and the fireflies are out, or I'm walking through the wilderness and something starts me running.

And your moon and my moon share a name, so we get tricked into thinking we've got the same thing slowly fading into our pale evening sky. And there's a million fingers pointing at the moon and it gives us the sense of a complete composition. And yes, there's only one rock, but that rock has no name. The name that can be given is not an accurate name. Nameless, it is the source of Order and Disorder; Named... Well, we pretty much covered that, yeah?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

OP is correct.  There's no moon but moon, and it's prophet is QG.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

There is A MOON because the stories we tell about our own memories of that particular piece of rock may vary but they do not affect the THING THAT EXISTS and doesn't give a shit what you say about it. There is A MOON because there was a moon for every single person of every single tribe before we got together and shared a name for it because it's A BIG GODDAMN ROCK IN THE SKY and you can't exactly miss it. Nobody infected us with the moon.

There is A MOON because it doesn't change when you say "the moon is orange" and just because you see it one color through the filter of the atmosphere and your eyes and your idea of what "orange" is doesn't change the fact that it is a THING made of atoms and those atoms are arranged in mineral structures and most of it is anorthosite which is just another type of feldspar and feldspar is so bloody common the name literally means FIELD STONE. You can tell stories about it ALL DAY LONG and it won't change at all, unless the story you're telling is HEY ROGER LET'S DICKBUTT THE MOON in which case lasers get involved and the moon gets a dickbutt and EVERYONE SEES IT because THERE IS ONLY ONE MOON.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You can tell stories about it ALL DAY LONG and it won't change at all, unless the story you're telling is HEY ROGER LET'S DICKBUTT THE MOON in which case lasers get involved and the moon gets a dickbutt and EVERYONE SEES IT because THERE IS ONLY ONE MOON.

Sadly, this sort of future is closed to us.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

You can tell stories about it ALL DAY LONG and it won't change at all, unless the story you're telling is HEY ROGER LET'S DICKBUTT THE MOON in which case lasers get involved and the moon gets a dickbutt and EVERYONE SEES IT because THERE IS ONLY ONE MOON.

Sadly, this sort of future is closed to us.

"Closed" is a strong word for "not unless we're willing to commit a bunch of felonies and never be employed again."

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

And it matters that there is A MOON not because I am your oppressor and you are the oppressed, but because WITHOUT A MOON YOU CANNOT AFFECT ANYTHING. The realities in your mind are all well and good and entertaining, but the existence of THINGS means that you have the capability to ACT ON THOSE THINGS. That you can interact with others and leave behind a world subtly changed by your presence. That when your meatsack fails and your consciousness with it, THE STORIES YOU TELL CAN SURVIVE.

You are not pointless, you are not incapable. There is a moon. It is real, and so are you.

[MMIX]

And it matters that there is A MOON not because I am your oppressor and you are the oppressed, but because WITHOUT A MOON YOU CANNOT AFFECT ANYTHING. The realities in your mind are all well and good and entertaining, but the existence of THINGS means that you have the capability to ACT ON THOSE THINGS. That you can interact with others and leave behind a world subtly changed by your presence. That when your meatsack fails and your consciousness with it, THE STORIES YOU TELL CAN SURVIVE.

You are not pointless, you are not incapable. There is a moon. It is real, and so are you.

You can act on the "realities" in your mind. If you work out a way to work on the moon I'll be very surprised.
Your consciousness is the stories you tell. Some days I think that we are not a sentient species at all, but just a weird accretion of interlocking games of Chinese whispers.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

And it matters that there is A MOON not because I am your oppressor and you are the oppressed, but because WITHOUT A MOON YOU CANNOT AFFECT ANYTHING. The realities in your mind are all well and good and entertaining, but the existence of THINGS means that you have the capability to ACT ON THOSE THINGS. That you can interact with others and leave behind a world subtly changed by your presence. That when your meatsack fails and your consciousness with it, THE STORIES YOU TELL CAN SURVIVE.

You are not pointless, you are not incapable. There is a moon. It is real, and so are you.

You can act on the "realities" in your mind. If you work out a way to work on the moon I'll be very surprised.
Your consciousness is the stories you tell. Some days I think that we are not a sentient species at all, but just a weird accretion of interlocking games of Chinese whispers.

BRB stealing lazors.

[MMIX]

And it matters that there is A MOON not because I am your oppressor and you are the oppressed, but because WITHOUT A MOON YOU CANNOT AFFECT ANYTHING. The realities in your mind are all well and good and entertaining, but the existence of THINGS means that you have the capability to ACT ON THOSE THINGS. That you can interact with others and leave behind a world subtly changed by your presence. That when your meatsack fails and your consciousness with it, THE STORIES YOU TELL CAN SURVIVE.

You are not pointless, you are not incapable. There is a moon. It is real, and so are you.

You can act on the "realities" in your mind. If you work out a way to work on the moon I'll be very surprised.
Your consciousness is the stories you tell. Some days I think that we are not a sentient species at all, but just a weird accretion of interlocking games of Chinese whispers.

BRB stealing lazors.

that is either very amusing or very incisive, possibly both, maybe neither. Sadly it just shot right over my head. Are you interested in unpacking it or shall I just piss off and leave everyone alone?

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

And it matters that there is A MOON not because I am your oppressor and you are the oppressed, but because WITHOUT A MOON YOU CANNOT AFFECT ANYTHING. The realities in your mind are all well and good and entertaining, but the existence of THINGS means that you have the capability to ACT ON THOSE THINGS. That you can interact with others and leave behind a world subtly changed by your presence. That when your meatsack fails and your consciousness with it, THE STORIES YOU TELL CAN SURVIVE.

You are not pointless, you are not incapable. There is a moon. It is real, and so are you.

You can act on the "realities" in your mind. If you work out a way to work on the moon I'll be very surprised.
Your consciousness is the stories you tell. Some days I think that we are not a sentient species at all, but just a weird accretion of interlocking games of Chinese whispers.

BRB stealing lazors.

that is either very amusing or very incisive, possibly both, maybe neither. Sadly it just shot right over my head. Are you interested in unpacking it or shall I just piss off and leave everyone alone?

There was a joke earlier about Roger having access to lazers that could (with enough time) carve visible structures into the moon's surface.

[MMIX]

Aaaah, I must have missed that. Also didn't I read somewhere that some numpty actually lets Roger get his real hands on real lazors. In which case I don't think that moon sculpture is a joke. Its going to be the next big artistic movement

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Aaaah, I must have missed that. Also didn't I read somewhere that some numpty actually lets Roger get his real hands on real lazors. In which case I don't think that moon sculpture is a joke. Its going to be the next big artistic movement

35 mw of UV love.  That's what it is.  It's the real thing this time.  This is no cheap romance, no sir. 

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

This no shit saved my brain earlier today. Funny to see Cram bumping it in another thread at the same time.

[NeonWytch]

But I read a facebook post that said the moon was a hoax. It has a couple million shares, it must be true!