Random Thoughts

[The Valkyrie]

I was walking down Lambton Quay in Wellington when I suddenly heard music from nowhere.

Then I found an animal companion.

I was hit by a strange and irresistable urge to dance and break out in song. I performed an impressive musical number.

Then I was arrested.

Disrupting traffic, resisting arrest, noise pollution, and animal cruelty (traumatising a guide dog).

Apparently I'm not a Disney princess!

Fucking icecream trucks!

[ignoramus]

There are 925 times more silicone atoms on earth than there are carbon atoms.
But there is not one instance of any silicone based organic lifeform ever in our 4.5b year history.

Simple answer. Nature will not allow a silicone based lifeform to evolve.
Crazy considering how similar the 2 elements are in many ways.
Life is a fickle bitch to say the least. (Another of the possible fermi paradox great filters). Another reason why we have no friends!

Basically, we're stuck with each other! Sheesh.........

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

People have told me a lot of bizarre, improbable things about Australia. Every single one of them turned out to be true. Because of this, I will no longer be Googling what people tell me on this topic. Going forward, I will simply accept all trivia about Australia as being factual.

Boru

[Fireball]

There are 925 times more silicone atoms on earth than there are carbon atoms.
But there is not one instance of any silicone based organic lifeform ever in our 4.5b year history.

Simple answer. Nature will not allow a silicone based lifeform to evolve.
Crazy considering how similar the 2 elements are in many ways.
Life is a fickle bitch to say the least. (Another of the possible fermi paradox great filters). Another reason why we have no friends!

Basically, we're stuck with each other!  Sheesh.........

Well, SiO₂ lies on the...ground, and CO₂ floats. Try inhaling SiO₂. At least one can exhale CO₂ easily.

[polymath257]

There are 925 times more silicone atoms on earth than there are carbon atoms.
But there is not one instance of any silicone based organic lifeform ever in our 4.5b year history.

Simple answer. Nature will not allow a silicone based lifeform to evolve.
Crazy considering how similar the 2 elements are in many ways.
Life is a fickle bitch to say the least. (Another of the possible fermi paradox great filters). Another reason why we have no friends!

Basically, we're stuck with each other!  Sheesh.........

Well, SiO₂ lies on the...ground, and CO₂ floats. Try inhaling SiO₂. At least one can exhale CO₂ easily.

Why do you assume oxygen would be involved?

or that the SiO2 wouldn't be the equivalent of poop?

[Sal]

Well, SiO₂ lies on the...ground, and CO₂ floats. Try inhaling SiO₂. At least one can exhale CO₂ easily.

Why do you assume oxygen would be involved?

or that the SiO2 wouldn't be the equivalent of poop?

A friend of mine told me that only on Earth is there high concentration of phosphorus, no where else, which gives credence to the Rare Earth hypothesis. I didn't believe him, but who knows; might be an answer to the Fermi Paradox.

[ignoramus]

The Phosphorus is considered one of the filters of the fermi paradox. Amazing episode on youtube just discussing this issue.

If you multiply all the filters together, I'm surprised even we exist, even alone.
It's almost like a test the universe setup for no-one to pass.
But somehow, we weaseled our way out of it ...
God? Yeah, nah... (we're trying to be real here)

[Fireball]

Well, SiO₂ lies on the...ground, and CO₂ floats. Try inhaling SiO₂. At least one can exhale CO₂ easily.

Why do you assume oxygen would be involved?

or that the SiO2 wouldn't be the equivalent of poop?

Good points. I was only addressing Silicon because Ignoramous mentioned it. A chalcogen besides Oxygen doesn't have anything mitigating against it. Though they are also "solids" at our temperature levels. It would make for a slow-moving set of flora and fauna, unless they were in a much higher temperature regime. I dunno what that would look like, that would be science fiction, to me.

[Rev. Rye]

So, I recently discovered a channel on YouTube that covers some fucked-up (or at least controversial) movies called Rabbit Hole Entrance, and looking at two documentaries done on the channel, I'm reminded of the Social Darwinist attitudes the right has towards certain elements that aren't doing too well. There's a massive wealth disparity that means many people aren't even getting enough money to survive? Fuck em. It's their own damn fault for being lazy. Black people have a disproportionate amount of poverty and crime (whether actual or merely apparent because we police them more)? Well, 13/50! And these two documentaries seem to show what exactly ends up happening when you take people with serious problems and just don't even bother to help them.

The first one is a documentary called Til Madness Do Us Part, and it covers life in an asylum in China. People (either with actual mental disorders or people who just pissed off the PRC) are confined to a single floor of this dilapidated building. You might be expecting some real One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest shit here, but the reality is, it couldn't be any more different, and it's still terrifying. In this movie of about 228 minutes, the doctors only have about 5 minutes' worth of screen time. And this wasn't part of a decision by the filmmakers to focus more on the patients/inmates; the doctors pretty much only show up to give them their medication. And the rest of the day, they just let them fester in their own madness.





The second one is called Orozco the Embalmer, and it's probably one of the most disturbing documentaries ever made. Just to be safe, I've decided I'm not going to link to it. Hell, even if I did post the link, it'd just redirect to YouTube anyway, and they'd warn you that this is a very disturbing film before you actually watch it. As the title might have implied, it's about a man who makes his living embalming dead bodies. He lives in Bogota, Colombia, few years after Escobar was killed. Many die in the film, many of them are murdered, and many are just lying on the streets, because it's a neighborhood so crime-ridden that the police don't even bother to go in unless they're certain they can make an arrest.

And after watching these takes on documentaries I'll probably never watch in full, I find myself thinking "this is the world they want. A world where, instead of helping communities, we just write them off and presumably let them fester." Of course, maybe they wouldn't go as far as not even sending the cops in there. Where'd be the fun in that?

[*Deidre*]

That feeling when you haven't been on AF all year? How can that be? Happy belated new year.