tengaku squared

it's very good no meme

i can't believe I forgot this, but: see: three laws of thermodynamics. an eternally sustaining ecology is impossible. first of all, here you go: personally, i feel like the fact that we've found no signs of life at all to be a bit of an anomaly to begin with - i believe that we should have seen some sign of extraterrestrial life at some point. do you know how much we have managed to change the surface of the earth? if you looked around at basically any point of the earth, you would see some sign of intelligent life roaming about, whether it be our monuments, cities, or trash. i find it difficult to believe that we would miss signs of similarly intelligent life. granted, they may not be that obvious, but judging by our own species's experiences, they might be.

ahahaha stop putting words in my mouth. evolution does have a destination, and that destination is inevitably to a single dominant species. we are that dominant species, mind you. even physically, we're pretty well off. we're the best throwers on the planet. the relative positioning of our arms and eyes makes it incredibly easy for us to manufacture and use tools. while we're not powerhouses like elephants or ants, we're probably one of the most efficient mammals on the planet. so much so that we are the only species capable of persistence hunting. and that's not even mentioning our incredible brainpower, which is currently unparalleled on the planet. humanity is the only species that has been shown to be able to change their environment to suit their needs. we have nuclear capabilities, and are therefore the only species with a theoretical "reset button" on most of the planet. we've managed to successfully adapt to a wider range of environments matched only by hardy bacteria. we've created a complex network of societies, and we've developed religions. we are an incredibly capable species, and i'm not sure why people try to avoid this fact. humans are exceptional. as for your comment on the comfort zone, that is true, but have you considered that our curiosity often outweighs this? i have no way of decisively proving that evolution works the same way on all planets. though, we have seen evidence that life seems to start from the microbial state like it does on earth, so it's a promising idea. that knocks out a lot of possibilities, and seems to bring us closer to the state of competitive nature we've observed here. not conclusive, but promising. ah, what's wrong with a little faith, every once in a while? you seem utterly opposed to theology, but remember that science is just as reliant on faith as religion is. perhaps there are multiple barriers, but it seems more likely that there's just one. if we assume multiple, our existence as a species is very very lucky, and i don't think we're that lucky, do you? and perhaps it might seem to you that the universe has a mind of its own (and it does in a way, quantum entanglement is one good example), but it doesn't seem that way to me. then you stop with the generalities and hypotheticals, and we'll talk.

hmm, we're not allowed to point to any particular links per forum rules, so i can't point out any for you. dctp actually has a topic on the exact same thing btw: http://forums.dctp.ws/viewtopic.php?t=3481#p124081 apparently, a) it's hard to find and you won't really miss a thing by not watching it, according to the topic. if you really want to find it though, keep searching. i did a few myself and it's not showing up. good luck!

eww you're in that club get me outta here :<

that's a terrible answer to fermi. actually, that's not even an answer. the fermi paradox is all about extraterrestrial life, or specifically, the lack of it, at least from our perspective. i fail to understand how the fact that aliens might have a different understanding of the universe explains that. it's not about whether they see the universe differently, it's about the fact that we can't seem to find any dang aliens. on a side note, the article is a little weak on the wording. it's not "might", it's "will". mathematically speaking, the possibility of a species evolving to be basically identical to humans is 0. speaking of evolution, humans are basically the pinnacle of Earth's evolutionary process. and we're pretty expansionist. basically all species on our planet live to spread. you can spout all these hypotheticals but i'd advise you to look at our planet for a second, and consider the evidence we can garner from there. evolution seems to select for species that are expansionist. it's a recurring trend on our planet and its lifeforms. also, i fail to understand how any sentient species with the capability of being space-faring would choose not to. that would mean restricting themselves to a finite set of resources, which will ultimately lead to the downfall of their species. you need stuff to survive, and they're gonna run out of stuff, which means they aren't gonna survive. that's not logically sound, regardless of how aliens might see things. there's simply no reason not to go to space. unless we're missing something critically important regarding the conditions on other planets - and we have no evidence thus far to suggest so - any sentient species should seek out expansion into outer space, and we should have seen evidence of this at some point. the problem is that we haven't, and that's fermi. the great filter happens to explain this discrepancy by showing how difficult intelligent life is, and in the face of this overwhelming contradiction, this is really the only explanation imho. finally, mole people lol. we're scared of the dark/void, it's a psychological thing brought by our own species's upbringing - there are predators out in the dark, and you don't wanna get eaten, and you can't see in the dark, and sight is one of our main senses. even so, we seem to have a sense of curiosity in exploring what's beyond our planet, even though what's out there is far worse than anything we can face on our planet. so when you say aliens might have evolved a fear of the dark, that's us, trying to shine a light into the darkness. wow what a nerd

the whole thing about passive voice in scientific reports is actually something that's bothered me for a bit. the whole bit about semi-passive voice was super silly, though, so the net seriousness was zero. as a stalwart believer in the great filter, that is incredibly distressing news.

Uh, so I guess I rolled an ENFP-T. The E is a bit of a shocker (but only 10%, so close to the cusp). Everything else lines up, though, and they're all pretty far out there (prospecting at a whopping 90%, living the dream!). ahahahahaha good one my workspace is awful

there is a distinct lack of inside out in this thread