---
title: "One Shot (No Cosmic Replays)"
description: "The moral consequence Moynihan draws from bookending the cosmos (Hubble, Lemaître, Penzias–Wilson 1964)."
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/one-shot-no-cosmic-replays"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/one-shot-no-cosmic-replays"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# One Shot (No Cosmic Replays)

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/one-shot-no-cosmic-replays), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

The moral consequence Moynihan draws from bookending the *cosmos* (Hubble, Lemaître, Penzias–Wilson 1964). While the universe was assumed infinite, extinction could be treated as a "local affair" — de Sales's renewal, Fourier's transmigrating souls, Millikan's "there will always be, somewhere, an 'earth'," Koestler on H-bomb tests driving interest in life on other stars. Eternity functioned as *insurance* against ruining Earth. The CMB removes it: "we have one shot, and one shot only"; "the same hands will never twice build the golden cities of this world" (Eiseley). Pairs with entrenchment/path dependency — what is decided in our "now" is locked in for the whole remaining future. Antikythera's *Diffusion* post cites the essay under exactly this heading.

## Appears in

- [Diffusion: A New Venture for Antikythera](https://antikythera.wiki/work/substack/2025-09-25-diffusion-a-new-venture-for-antikythera) (2025-09-25)
- [Cognitive Infrastructures](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/coginfra) (2025-05-10)
- [The History of Now](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/historyofnow) (2025-05-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._