u/poozemusings

I was part of a 12 person jury that returned a not guilty verdict on one of the several counts the defendant was charged with. The others being guilty.

After the verdict was read and the jury polled we were taken back to the deliberation room and told the judge would be right down to talk with us. He thanked us for our service and then asked how we came up with the verdict because we got it dead wrong and admonished us for a bit before leaving. Then the defence council and the prosecutor came by to talk with us to ask how we reached our conclusion and what they should have done differently.

Is that a normal thing after a jury trial? Just seems odd the judge would tell us are wrong when a few days before we were told we are the fact finders and whatever we decided is the correct choice.

What are your thoughts on manned space flight? I think that it could be one of the only ways to continuously raise a humanist consciousness for people on earth. Every significant manned space expedition to some new frontier forced people to take a look at themselves in the mirror and realize our collective humanity. Every time an astronaut experiences the “overview effect” we can’t help but raise our global consciousness. If manned space travel becomes routine, I think the level of consciousness raising that would happen would be dramatic. I think space does not really feel like a real place for the average person. Once it does, some wild stuff is going to happen to our collective consciousness.