Comment Re:Does the rock run Linux? (Score 1) 61
Eris and its moon were provisionally Zena and Gabrielle for working names. Sometimes I wish the IAU wasn't so formal. I'm also old enough to remember 70's era suggestions that if successors to Pluto were found, they should be Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and so on. I understand people feeling this is serious, formal, black tie dinner stuff and wanting to keep the humor out, but I keep thinking of how The Culture's starships feel about accusations they need to cultivate more gravitas.
It used to be we were respecting Classical Greek and Roman culture with Astronomical naming, even though very few people actually beleived in those names as gods anymore. Then we got less dismissive of various Esquimaux, Nordic, Polynesian and other cultures, but it's still all about religions most people don't believe in anymore, just more inclusive of all the different ones. Being culturally inclusive of all the religions that can't field a modern army but none of the ones that can seems like the least justifiable cultureall sensitivity of all.
Meanwhile, the special rituals of my people involve combining large amounts of H2 and O2, compressing Plutonium spheres, and wiggling electrons more and more quickly. Most of the other cultures alive seem to have even odder rituals, like bashing any persons standing too near crude oil sources and taking it, pretending all our wiggling electrons are their real money, or country-western music. If we're going to be absolutley dripping with gravitas, how is it that naming a new object after some other cultures old god or goddess show cultural sensitivity, but naming it after a historic person of their culture doesn't?