27 October 2011
Occupy Science!
Posted by Ryan Anderson
By now you have probably seen some of the awesome parodies of the Occupy Wall Street movement making the rounds on the internet. Here are some of my favorite space and planetary-themed ones.
First, we have the obvious one:
Jupiter also seems to have a lot of people upset:
I made the next one after a friend pointed out that the angular momentum disparity is much worse than the mass disparity. We are the 0.2 %!
And it’s not just the solar system that suffers from gross injustice. Dark matter is finally making itself heard:
"I work around the clock - 10^43 planck times per second - providing the gravitational attraction needed to hold this galaxy cluster together. And some baryonic cosmologist wants to explain me away as a modification of newtonian gravity? I have been silent for 13.7 billion years, but no more. I AM THE 96%
And finally, I made this one for all the geoscientists out there. The mantle and core make up 99% of the Earth’s volume, and they are tired of being oppressed by the crust:
Anyone else have good science parodies of the Occupy and/or 99% movement? Share them in the comments!
Maybe we don’t want to parody it, maybe we should be supporting it.
Having said that, you offer no plan on how any redistribution of solar system mass would work, and frankly I’m worried that an attempt to occupy the sun could result in violence and people getting hurt.
I do support the movement, but I also support nerdy jokes! 🙂
And hey, it’s not my job to come up with the plan on how to redistribute the solar system. I’m just speaking out about the inequality, it’s the universe’s job to change the laws and solve the problem.
On the other hand, in defense of the sun, maybe it deserves most of the mass. After all, it is an element creator, and we all use elements heavier than hydrogen every day!
You may be on to something here (about the sun deserving most of the mass). Maybe the people who create the majority of the wealth through their risk-taking and hard work ought to be entitled to a wee bit more than the so-called 99%!
I really like your blog – I read it all the time, but this made me uncomfortable. The people protesting have a real point. Maybe I’m just having a sense of humour bypass, but I feel that if you support the Occupy movement, by mocking these things – turning them into just another internet meme, you’re more likely to have them fizzle out rather than succeed.
Hi Tom,
Sorry if this post made you uncomfortable, that certainly wasn’t the intent. I see where you’re coming from, but my thought was that spreading the meme, even in parody form, actually helps the movement. Because to understand the meme, you have to know something about the original protest, in much the same way that you have to know what is going on in the world to get many of the jokes on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report.
I think the parody signs are funny because there isn’t anything we can do to change the laws of physics, but we can and should speak out against the inequality in our society. If you follow me on twitter of Google+, you’ll see that I have been sharing a lot of things in favor of the movement, so hopefully those will outweigh any negative effect these parodies have.
Wrong: “…you have to know what is going on in the world to get many of the jokes on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report.
Correction: “…you have to be as misinformed about what is going on in the world as audiences of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report to not know the jokes on you.
Humor tip: If it doesn’t offend the 1% send it to the daily Show.
I like this post…some people need to get a sense of humor…others tend to lose their sense of humor if it hits to close to home.
I support the OWS movement, *and* at the same time I love your parodies (especially Occupy Jupiter): up with the nerdy jokes!!
Two words: Dyson Sphere.
Redistributes planetary mass *and* extracts a higher tax from the Sun.
Occupy Mars!!
I personally disagree with the galaxy’s decision to bail out Jupiter. If you’re too big to fail then you’re too big…
My non-geologist husband said in response to the Mantle and Core one at the end:
“Rise up. Rise up.”
So how are we going deal with a mantle uprising?
In Belgium the Occupy Wall Street movement doesn’t receive as much attention as in the US. These parodies (along with a previous one I saw yesterday but which didn’t mention the movement) prompted me to properly inform myself on Google. I agree with Ryan that parodies (harmless and tasteful in this case!) can serve a movement well, as my own story shows.