h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you think it should maybe be one festival then Freeway? One that purely is to just celebrate and enjoy being together, rather than several spurious (sort of) ones?

Seems to me that most festival atmospheres portrayed in sci-fi,
either other-worldly or post apock-a-liptic, relate to conquest,
capture or discovery of food caches, water, weapons, etc.

Perhaps it is the uninhibited and spontaneous nature of such
celebrations that appeals to film directors. But it does create the
overall impression that regularly scheduled holiday events with
associated mass consumerism are unlikely in futuristic scenarios.


~jwf~

One each season would be an idea, take religion out of it altogether, let churches, mosques etc have their celebrations in private and let everyone else have a week long party! Rather like a bike rally where there's no reason or excuse, just a festival atmosphere!

This proliferation of festivals we have now developed over time - I'd expect the same to happen if we colonised a new planet. Commemorations of this and that would begin, and be observed by some but not others, depending on how they felt about the original event...

New, non-terrestrial religions would be born, I am quite sure, and develope their own ones. And marketers would keep making new festivals up, unless we change a few fundamentals about our economic system.

I'm more interested in the festivals to be encountered rather than one we might take with us

"Why d'you think we'll never leave this plant paulh?" [Pastey]

We have yet to identify another planet that would support our life systems. We lack the resources to terraform other planets in our own solar system. The tropics of our own planet promise to become unliveably [and permanently] hot by 2038 [a scant 25 years hence]. The golden age of space travel may turn out to have been now.

Civilization is subject to ups and downs. Having to accommodate billions of humans fleeing north [or, in the southern hemisphere, south] from scorching temperatures will likely stress temperate-zone countries tremendously, making space exploration an impossibility.

We could of course celebrate the day the B Ark crashed on the wrong planet.

Deb

I thought we already did.

Happy Halloween

We can celebrate anything we want to celebrate. I hope we will soon celebrate "Debt Ceiling Agreement Day." The big holidays from Halloween to new Year's Day are basically harvest festivals. On the chance that we ever do settle on other planets [a long shot, I know, but I hope I'm wrong about it being impossible], the settlers could study the seasons [if any] and figure out how to have harvests. Then it would be possible to celebrate the harvests.

I hope you get to celebrate 'Debt Ceiling Agreement Day' soon

*puts bubbly on ice*

There are media reports that the voters are not happy with their congressmen who are holding up the agreement.