Close Menu
    Trending
    • AI startups are inflating a key revenue metric to win VC attention, says this founder
    • Is stem cell therapy about to transform medicine and reverse ageing?
    • Sydney Sweeney Getting The Last Laugh Amid ‘Euphoria’ Backlash
    • US freezes US$344 million in Iran-linked crypto, says Treasury chief Bessent
    • Police raid Peru’s election authorities after outcry over slow vote count | Elections News
    • Five most head-scratching picks in first round of 2026 NFL Draft
    • Opinion | Did an Acid Trip Inspire the First Photo of Earth?
    • Kellogg’s just dropped something inside cereal boxes you haven’t seen in years
    Benjamin Franklin Institute
    Saturday, April 25
    • Home
    • Politics
    • Business
    • Science
    • Technology
    • Arts & Entertainment
    • International
    Benjamin Franklin Institute
    Home»Opinions»Opinion | Did an Acid Trip Inspire the First Photo of Earth?
    Opinions

    Opinion | Did an Acid Trip Inspire the First Photo of Earth?

    Team_Benjamin Franklin InstituteBy Team_Benjamin Franklin InstituteApril 24, 2026No Comments3 Mins Read
    Share Facebook Twitter Pinterest Copy Link LinkedIn Tumblr Email VKontakte Telegram
    Share
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Copy Link


    I’ve always wondered if this story about you is true, that the reason we have NASA’s picture of the whole Earth came from you doing psychedelics on a roof one day. Yeah, I was in San Francisco and bored. And one of the things you did with boredom at that time was drop some acid and see what happens. It was kind of a minor dose. It was about 100 micrograms. And I went up on the roof of the $20-a-month place that I lived in North Beach. – Twenty dollars a month in North Beach? – Yeah. Wow. That’s already hard to believe. But it was true. Somehow it’s easier to believe that you got NASA to take a picture of the Earth than that anything in North Beach ever cost $20. Well, it turns out I didn’t really get NASA to do that. We’d been in space for 10 years at that point. We and the Soviet Union. And the cameras had always been looking outward or at pieces of Earth, but they could have been looking back to see the Earth as a whole. And I was pretty sure that would change everything. I wound up starting a campaign. There was a button that said, “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?” And I know it got looked at by a lot of people in NASA and in Congress and so on. I got to know some of the astronauts, like Rusty Schweickart. So when they took photographs, it came just a year or two later, after my campaign. – Cause and effect. – Got it. So it was a little coincidental. You had the idea on the roof, but it didn’t —— The roof is not what led to the picture. I think that’s correct. But it led to understanding the picture, – I think, for a lot of people. – That metaphor of the camera pointing outward as opposed to inward at what we don’t yet have, as opposed to what we do have. That actually feels like a nice metaphor for “Maintenance.” And I hear this in the Whole Earth Catalog, too. That in a way, it feels like a lot of your career and thinking has been building up to it, building up to this topic, that the Whole Earth Catalog was also a manual for maintaining your life, for maintaining the things you had. Let’s begin with the most basic question: What is maintenance? It’s good to keep things going. I’m a biologist by training, and so you find that everything alive spends a lot of its time basically maintaining being alive. Even to the extent of reaching outside itself. So you’re not just eating; if you’re a beaver, you’re busy cutting down trees to maintain your dam, which is what protects your lodge. Most plants spend a lot of time basically helping the soil around them do things that work well for the plant, and the soil itself is alive. And so we’re always maintaining our bodies. We maintain our vehicles and our houses and homes and cities that we live in. And we’re catching on that civilization is something to maintain as a whole. And even the planet, we’ve now stepped up to terraforming. So we’ve been terraforming badly, and we need to terraform well. So the levels of maintenance are enormous, and the constancy of it is a given.



    Source link

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email Telegram Copy Link

    Related Posts

    Opinions

    Opinion | They Championed D.E.I. Now They’re Divided.

    April 24, 2026
    Opinions

    Opinion | Stewart Brand, Silicon Valley’s Favorite Prophet, on Life’s Most Important Principle

    April 24, 2026
    Opinions

    Opinion | Do We All Need a Little Bitcoin?

    April 24, 2026
    Opinions

    Opinion | A Bad Investment in Trump Vibes

    April 23, 2026
    Opinions

    Opinion | A Bitcoin Evangelist Tries to Convert Me

    April 23, 2026
    Opinions

    Opinion | Would You Steal From Whole Foods?

    April 23, 2026
    Editors Picks

    Kyrgios beats Sabalenka 6-3, 6-3 in ‘Battle of the Sexes’ tennis showdown | Tennis News

    December 28, 2025

    Why biological clocks get our ‘true age’ wrong – and how AI could help

    January 23, 2026

    Caruth’s budding career drawing eyes from around sports world

    June 4, 2025

    Social media is a defective product

    March 17, 2026

    Nigeria averts unilateral US action by cooperating on airstrikes

    December 27, 2025
    About Us
    About Us

    Welcome to Benjamin Franklin Institute, your premier destination for insightful, engaging, and diverse Political News and Opinions.

    The Benjamin Franklin Institute supports free speech, the U.S. Constitution and political candidates and organizations that promote and protect both of these important features of the American Experiment.

    We are passionate about delivering high-quality, accurate, and engaging content that resonates with our readers. Sign up for our text alerts and email newsletter to stay informed.

    Latest Posts

    AI startups are inflating a key revenue metric to win VC attention, says this founder

    April 25, 2026

    Is stem cell therapy about to transform medicine and reverse ageing?

    April 25, 2026

    Sydney Sweeney Getting The Last Laugh Amid ‘Euphoria’ Backlash

    April 25, 2026

    Subscribe for Updates

    Stay informed by signing up for our free news alerts.

    Paid for by the Benjamin Franklin Institute. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
    • Privacy Policy
    • About us
    • Contact us

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.