First of all – the correct word is “dampers,” a hindrance, or restraint, not ‘dampeners,’ which just make things wet.
It’s been wrong for so long, that now it’s right.

***

If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, some people should have their head registered.  Today’s world, and the science and technology that runs it, are becoming more and more complicated.  Sadly, many people, especially Christian fundamentalists, want comforting, simple answers to complex questions.

There really are such things as stupid questions.  We can skip by the Flat Earthers, the moon-landing skeptics, the climate-change deniers, and the COVID conspirators, and proceed directly to the likes of the young man who asked his girlfriend why the Earth wasn’t constantly getting lighter because of all the ores that were being dug out of it.  Or the Christian theist who called an Atheist podcast to PROVE the existence of God, because otherwise, “What holds the Earth up in space??”

Nobody can know everything about everything – although, I come close – just ask me.  Or don’t ask me, I’ll tell you, anyway.  In a recent discussion about time travel, commenter-supreme, John Erickson posed a very non–stupid question.

And here’s one to shoot down all the time travelers. Everybody moves through time, but always land on the same X/Y/Z co-ordinates. BUT – the planet that they launch from (usually, but not limited to, Earth) is moving through space, around a star that is also moving through space, in a galaxy that is also moving through space. So how come they always stay in the same spot? That has always bugged the censored out of me!

The short answer is INERTIA!  Everything is moving along with everything else.  Even though you take a shortcut (or a long cut, depending on your direction of travel) through the N/Temporal, subspace dimension, the rest of the physical dimensions continue in their assigned speeds and directions, ready to meet you when you pop out.

A Flat Earther posted a video to refute the claim that the Earth is a globe, rotating at 1000 miles per hour, (at the equator) by sticking his head and cellphone camera out the window of a car travelling at 60MPH.  “See how even 60MPH musses my hair??  We can’t be travelling at 1000MPH!!”  He completely missed the fact that the air in the car travelling at 60, or a train travelling at 100, or an airplane travelling at 500MPH wouldn’t muss his hair, because it was travelling along with him, at the same velocity, just like the atmosphere of Earth does.

That’s the Carl Sagan Memorial University inspirational message for today.  I hope to see you here again in a couple of days – unless you time-travel, and got here yesterday.  I’ll be in the same old spot.