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RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 5:27 pm
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2012 at 5:29 pm by Brian37.)
(June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: (June 8, 2012 at 5:06 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: What is the reason for projecting the opposite onto them?
I am not projecting the opposit. I am trying not to project at all. I am trying to start from a clean slate.
(June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Which is why I find the lack of evidence for them disturbing. That is, it is some reason to suspect that we might be the first sophont species in the Milky Way with a reasonable prospect of spreading beyond our own star system.
I don't. We really have no idea what evidence we should expect from a sophant 5 million years, or 5 billion years, more advanced than we are. For all we know we could have been providing amusment like crickets in a box all along.
I think we ARE lucky as a species to even end up on this island to produce the crap we have in terms of superstition and tribalism. I am not saying we should worship that fact. But I am alive, and as sucky and unpredictable it all is, with the low output of protection the universe and evolution puts out, shit, I am here. That is a fraction of the entire species attempts, and for that matter all life. 99% of all life on this planet has gone extinct.
It is not to say that that is ideal, not in the least. I wouldn't set it up this way if I had absolute power. But life can suck and it can be good, and we die in the end no matter our status or class or political party or religion.
I cant say it's all been good, life never will be all good or all bad. I can say that when observing science and nature, both in the benefit it produces and the destruction it produces, it humbles you like looking at Sagan's comments of the Earth pictured through Saturn's rings.
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RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 5:33 pm
(June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: I am not projecting the opposit. I am trying not to project at all. I am trying to start from a clean slate.
The person I was responding to claimed that aliens that were 1% smarter than us would not care more for us than we care about Ebola. My statement concluded with 'I don't think it's so easy to predict alien attitudes.' I think you may have mistaken my position.
(June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: I don't. We really have no idea what evidence we should expect from a sophant 5 million years, or 5 billion years, more advanced than we are. For all we know we could have been providing amusment like crickets in a box all along.
The aliens you propose would be indistinguishable from gods and all of the problems that apply to gods apply to them. I have only the one sophont species to judge by, but I think it's highly likely that a species with the technology and will to expand beyond their star system will exploit and transform everything in their way. If they valued non-intererence and invisibility, they could have stayed home.
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RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 5:42 pm
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2012 at 5:44 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(June 8, 2012 at 5:33 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: (June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: I am not projecting the opposit. I am trying not to project at all. I am trying to start from a clean slate.
The person I was responding to claimed that aliens that were 1% smarter than us would not care more for us than we care about Ebola. My statement concluded with 'I don't think it's so easy to predict alien attitudes.' I think you may have mistaken my position.
(June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: I don't. We really have no idea what evidence we should expect from a sophant 5 million years, or 5 billion years, more advanced than we are. For all we know we could have been providing amusment like crickets in a box all along.
The aliens you propose would be indistinguishable from gods and all of the problems that apply to gods apply to them. I have only the one sophont species to judge by, but I think it's highly likely that a species with the technology and will to expand beyond their star system will exploit and transform everything in their way. If they valued non-intererence and invisibility, they could have stayed home.
The species I propose is fundamentally different from typical notion god because it is not omniscient and omnipotent, and is not a priori assumed to be anthropamorphic in the sense of possessing behavioral traits that blatant projections of what humans acquired through our own unique behavioral evolutionary path.
As to a species recognizably changing everything it touches on its way I suppose that is not necessarily true either. A species' notion of what is worth exploiting also changes dramatically as it evolves technologically and biologically, and as its demographic and economic conditions evolve. This is why the caves in which cromagnon man painted their cave art hasn't been paved over thousands of years ago for reuse. It seems just as plausible that a species would expand only so far before its notion of what is worth exploiting changes so much and beyond that point, it would leave little sign of that we would recognize as esxploitation.
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RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Not a bad point. I hold all of my ideas of speculative beings very lightly.
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RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 5:56 pm
So do I, but even amongst lightly held notions of alien beings, I think there are still thoughtful ones, and silly ones.
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RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 6:00 pm
(June 8, 2012 at 5:18 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: (June 8, 2012 at 5:08 pm)gringoperry Wrote: OK, I get it, you're more insightful than Dr Neil. Pfft.
Possibly. I am aware that there is more than a 1% difference in intelligence between a bright person and an average one, while the difference in intelligence between a chimp or gorilla and us is more like 100%; while Dr. Neil (as reported by you) seems to be unaware of how ridiculous it sounds to claim we are only 1% smarter than chimps. On what basis have you concluded that Dr. Neil is a genius? It doesn't take a genius to get a PhD, although being relatively bright is a great help.
Watch the video; I may have twisted it a little due to me being within the bottom percentile of that 1%.
This:
Then this:
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RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2012 at 6:06 pm by Brian37.)
(June 8, 2012 at 5:33 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: (June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: I am not projecting the opposit. I am trying not to project at all. I am trying to start from a clean slate.
The person I was responding to claimed that aliens that were 1% smarter than us would not care more for us than we care about Ebola. My statement concluded with 'I don't think it's so easy to predict alien attitudes.' I think you may have mistaken my position.
(June 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: I don't. We really have no idea what evidence we should expect from a sophant 5 million years, or 5 billion years, more advanced than we are. For all we know we could have been providing amusment like crickets in a box all along.
The aliens you propose would be indistinguishable from gods and all of the problems that apply to gods apply to them. I have only the one sophont species to judge by, but I think it's highly likely that a species with the technology and will to expand beyond their star system will exploit and transform everything in their way. If they valued non-intererence and invisibility, they could have stayed home.
Life exits. There is no dispute about that. Mental masturbation about "what could be" has produced the Redskins since their last Super Bowl with NOTHING!
If if's and butts were candy and nuts the Redskins wouldn't SUCK SO BAD.
When anyone postulates something, I might poo poo it from the onset, as I have and do. But for all others I say, "Patient office and Nobel Prize" are the quickest way to make me eat crow. "I'll believe it when I see it"
As an aside LOVE TYSON! FYI he had a cameo on Big Bang Theory.
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