SCIENCE!

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

Yup, the whole thing's satire. It's not like scientists are supposed to have a minor in liberal arts or whatever, but convoluted writing is the last you'd want when trying to communicate to something to the general public. And considering how often the science curriculum stresses on the importance of precise writing is to STEM fields, it's ironic to see the "top" brains in the world still live up to the stereotypes..

Huh? I didn't get you (The last sentence was kinda I dunno)

 

But if you're talking about how people believe that the "Geniuses" are always geeky when it comes to their wordings, yup. Ignorant people tend to still believe that and still stereotypes them which is kinda sad. But, in all seriousness, if you actually do a person check on those people (like Neil Degrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, Michio Kaku, even Stephen Hawkings and if you want, Einstein), they don't really live up to the generalization. Heck, some of them even write "books" that are directed to general public which uses savory and literatic words, explaining their works and some of them did/do guest speeches on public places.

 

The ones who probably live up to that stereotypes are those underappreciated scientists, lol. That's also most likely the reason why they're underappreciated, they don't know how to communicate non-boringly to the mass.

 

Anyways, I'm just talking about the geniuses in the field of Science. So that's that.

 

 

as a stalwart believer in the great filter, that is incredibly distressing news.

Meh, I don't buy the great filter theory.

 

===

 

Actually, I was searching around the net and found this article which IMO, is a great answer to the Fermi Paradox (It doesn't directly answer it but it gives you the idea): Why aliens might have a differenting understanding of the universe

 

As the article states, aliens might have a different understanding of their surrounding and also, have a different logic than us humans have (depending on the environment they evolved on). So it raises the question, what if some of the intelligent out there just simply don't want to travel the space? It may seem illogical to us but to them it is logical. Who knows? Some of the aliens might have evolved a fear of the void/dark because of the environment they are in or some evolved to live and thrive underground that they don't even know that space exists. There's just many possibilities brought by evolution which greatly reduces the possibility of spacefaring intelligent species.

 

And, if you add the other variables to the equation (like how much time it takes to evolve from not-so intelligent specie to a human-intelligent like specie which is also non specific since mutations happens randomly; how long it takes to travel space; the rate and pattern of technology advancement of an intelligent specie; chances of an intelligent specie from being eradicated by its own kind or other external factors before even reaching a great amount of stellar traveling capabilities etc. etc.) It really super minimalizes the chances of space-age aliens around us.

 

So yeah, this a great theory, again, IMO.

 

(Whoa. I just sounded really geeky their for a second )

[tengaku squared 291]

Actually, I was searching around the net and found this article which IMO, is a great answer to the Fermi Paradox (It doesn't directly answer it but it gives you the idea): Why aliens might have a differenting understanding of the universe

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.

 

As the article states, aliens might have a different understanding of their surrounding and also, have a different logic than us humans have (depending on the environment they evolved on). So it raises the question, what if some of the intelligent out there just simply don't want to travel the space? It may seem illogical to us but to them it is logical. Who knows? Some of the aliens might have evolved a fear of the void/dark because of the environment they are in or some evolved to live and thrive underground that they don't even know that space exists. There's just many possibilities brought by evolution which greatly reduces the possibility of spacefaring intelligent species.

 

And, if you add the other variables to the equation (like how much time it takes to evolve from not-so intelligent specie to a human-intelligent like specie which is also non specific since mutations happens randomly; how long it takes to travel space; the rate and pattern of technology advancement of an intelligent specie; chances of an intelligent specie from being eradicated by its own kind or other external factors before even reaching a great amount of stellar traveling capabilities etc. etc.) It really super minimalizes the chances of space-age aliens around us.

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.

 

(Whoa. I just sounded really geeky their for a second )

wow what a nerd

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

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

:V Fermi Paradox is the paradox existing between the probability of mulitutudes of numbers of hospitable places in the universe to the lack of existence of Extraterrestrial Civilization, not Extraterrestrial Life. Actually, Spacefaring kind of Extraterrestrial Civilization since originally, it was like "why aliens have not yet contacted us or why they have not been here if the universe was kinda infinite?"

 

Plus, I did not mean that the article is directly the answer to the Fermi Paradox but rather it gives some of the people an idea of what might be the possible solution which is simply, Aliens might have evolved completely differently from us resulting from the environment they are in and one of the possible results of evolution is their brain being hardwired not to want to go to space (or not to go too far from their comfort or simply lack of motivation since they all got what they need in their planet) or they have evolved biologically which prevents them from going to space or they evolved different senses that prevented them from knowing what 'space' is (I imagine an intelligent specie which doesn't have sense of sight or hearing but rather, they communicate through patterns of winds hitting the pores in their skins. If that's the case, how can they know that there's space if they can't see it?)

===

Yeah, evolution prefers expansionist but you also fail to see that species tend to expand out of need not out of curiosity, at least for the most. If a specie thrives in an environment which has somewhat an infinite stuffs that fulfills their need, I don't think they would ever need to expand and move somewhere else. Just look at us, our brain is hardwired to tell us to stay in comfort zone. We only reach out if we need to. And also, it's unhumbly to say that we are the pinnacle of evolution coz evolution has no destination or specific path (and I think you know that). Evolution is just a random mutation which happens that some of the mutation tend to give a specie an advantage on the environment they are in which causes them to outcompete their competitors.

And one more thing, the evolutionary process we are able to study is only the evolution here on our planet, on the environment we grew in. So it's kinda not good to assume that evolution is the same for every planet in the universe with life in it. Plus, anyways, waht does this relate to what I was talking about? It doesn't matter whether a specie is an expansionist or not, they wouldn't be able to spacefare, if biologically, they are incapable of knowing or travelling space, itself.

Well, if they're capable of travelling space then they would travel/expand to space but mostly, only in need. But who knows? Some alien intelligent species might have found a way to create a eternally sustaining ecology on the place they are in without the need of expanding to space and some might be even working towards this way instead of expanding and expanding.

I know that it's not logically sound to not expand to some places out of need but if they're incapable of knowing space, then how would they expand to it? On the otherhand, I'm not gonna be arguing to you if we're just talking about a specie incapable of going to space since they'll be most likely just invent something that'll allow them to travel to space. But it would take time, as always.

 

I still don't buy the Great Filter. I mean, in my knowledege, Great Filter proposes that there's just this one single event or problem that filters all intelligent life forms which I just can't wrap around my head on. It sounds like once you pass this filter, you're good to go and you're gonna be spacefaring forever. It like puts up an idea that the Universe or whatever has a mind of its own and makes a single filtering event or problem setup specifically for life which just does not make sense to me. For me, it throws in like a theistic POV like there's a hand of God blocking the way or something.

 

Anyways, you could say that this 'Great Filter' is caused naturally but try putting yourself in the thing, there's no single specific problem in our life (as a human) that once we pass, we're 100% gonna be in good terms forever  Now that I think about it, a more plausible theory to me is that instead of one single 'Great Filter' existing rather, before something can turn into what we humans define as, "Spacefaring Civilization" or if you want, just "intelligent specie" , this thing needs to go through a lot of strenuous tests (filter) not caused by any higher mind or something but caused by its own environment before it can actually reach its end goal. And on each filter, few of it gets filtered out becoz they weren't just 'fit' enough. 

 

Just look back in our history, as mankind and as a living specie in this world. We did not end up here easily. Like if the Dinosaurs were never wiped out, we would never be here. On the otherhand, on mankind's history, we went to alot of wars before we achieved this current peace we have which could have either wiped us out or turn us back to primitivity. We don't even know if it's gonna last. Things can change in a snap of a finger and who knows what problem would humanity would be facing next and whether we would survive it or not. And even if we reach stellar capabilities, problems doesn't stop there.

 

I know my answer isn't fulfilling but my actual stance would, there's no single answer to that paradox. Rather, IMO, it is caused by multitudes of colliding variables like if an intelligent specie evolved a sense that would actually allow them to ponder and know 'space', if the intelligent specie does actually want to expand to space, if the said intelligent specie can overcome the problems that they would be facing, and if they could, could they last really long for another intelligent specie to know them?

 

Anyways, on the mole thingy, I didn't mean 'us' there :V I was imagining there an intelligent species  which evolved to live underground becoz of this or that. Same thing goes to the darkness stuff.

 

Plus, please stop saying "How could this or that not do this or that? It doesn't make sense". For me, the argument is already using a subjective truth, It doesn't mean that if it doesn't make sense to us humans it's also the same for the alien species and vice versa. We have never met an alien civilization to say that it's the general truth. It's just like saying that if I like chocolate then everyone also likes chocolates.

 

 

===

 

And that's it I won't be defending the thing any much more by the way. Coz Gahd, arguments to internet debates are really time consuming to write lol. Plus, I know I would lose anyways in the end. So there ya go. :3

 

Sorry for any grammar mistakes, by the way.

[tengaku squared 291]

Yeah, evolution prefers expansionist but you also fail to see that species tend to expand out of need not out of curiosity, at least for the most. If a specie thrives in an environment which has somewhat an infinite stuffs that fulfills their need, I don't think they would ever need to expand and move somewhere else. Just look at us, our brain is hardwired to tell us to stay in comfort zone. We only reach out if we need to. And also, it's unhumbly to say that we are the pinnacle of evolution coz evolution has no destination or specific path (and I think you know that).

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?

And one more thing, the evolutionary process we are able to study is only the evolution here on our planet, on the environment we grew in. So it's kinda not good to assume that evolution is the same for every planet in the universe with life in it.

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.

 

I still don't buy the Great Filter. I mean, in my knowledege, Great Filter proposes that there's just this one single event or problem that filters all intelligent life forms which I just can't wrap around my head on. It sounds like once you pass this filter, you're good to go and you're gonna be spacefaring forever. It like puts up an idea that the Universe or whatever has a mind of its own and makes a single filtering event or problem setup specifically for life which just does not make sense to me. For me, it throws in like a theistic POV like there's a hand of God blocking the way or something.

 

Anyways, you could say that this 'Great Filter' is caused naturally but try putting yourself in the thing, there's no single specific problem in our life (as a human) that once we pass, we're 100% gonna be in good terms forever  Now that I think about it, a more plausible theory to me is that instead of one single 'Great Filter' existing rather, before something can turn into what we humans define as, "Spacefaring Civilization" or if you want, just "intelligent specie" , this thing needs to go through a lot of strenuous tests (filter) not caused by any higher mind or something but caused by its own environment before it can actually reach its end goal. And on each filter, few of it gets filtered out becoz they weren't just 'fit' enough. 

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.

 

Plus, please stop saying "How could this or that not do this or that? It doesn't make sense". For me, the argument is already using a subjective truth, It doesn't mean that if it doesn't make sense to us humans it's also the same for the alien species and vice versa. We have never met an alien civilization to say that it's the general truth. It's just like saying that if I like chocolate then everyone also likes chocolates.

then you stop with the generalities and hypotheticals, and we'll talk. 

[Kenzi 146]

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.

mathematically speaking, the possibility of a species evolving to be basically identical to humans is 0.

The only reason I'm not a firm believer of the Great Filter is because you have to take into account factors like how long the universe has been in existence.

 

While it's true that there's little to no chance that there are life forms that have developed like humans have, well actually, it's exactly that. Everything we are today happened completely by chance. That isn't to say there aren't intelligent life forms that have developed enough to be considered a civilization though. It's just that it might have occurred in a different manner; a civilization created through other means. The human race is no ultimate template that dictates how intelligent life forms should come into existence because anything could've happened in a time span of 14 billion years. For all we know, these life forms may very well be in their primitive stages of development. Or heck, they could be far more advanced than we are. 

 

As for why we haven't found any evidence of these intelligent life forms... the universe is absolutely massive. So massive that we're practically confined to an observable universe. At the same time, these life forms may be trillions of light years away, outside of our observable universe (which is already 93 billion light years in diameter, if that helps put things into perspective). Communicating with said life forms would be extremely inefficient as the information they send to us would be terribly outdated by the time it even reaches us, assuming that we'd even be able to communicate with them.

 

I also found this to be an interesting take on the subject:

There’s plenty of activity and noise out there, but our technology is too primitive and we’re listening for the wrong things. Like walking into a modern-day office building, turning on a walkie-talkie, and when you hear no activity (which of course you wouldn’t hear because everyone’s texting, not using walkie-talkies), determining that the building must be empty. Or maybe, as Carl Sagan has pointed out, it could be that our minds work exponentially faster or slower than another form of intelligence out there—e.g. it takes them 12 years to say “Hello,” and when we hear that communication, it just sounds like white noise to us.

 

The Great Filter simply seems like a too definitive of a theory for life for me to fully support it. I'm not disagreeing with your beliefs since it does have quite a few valid points; the idea of these barriers just isn't my cup of tea. For this reason, I'm still open to hearing the opposing side seeing as you're a firm advocator for it.

 

love your analogy with the "trying to shine a light into the darkness", btw.

 

 

(Whoa. I just sounded really geeky their for a second )

a little off topic, but I find it interesting that you often feel the need to openly state this.

 

(I imagine an intelligent specie which doesn't have sense of sight or hearing but rather, they communicate through patterns of winds hitting the pores in their skins. If that's the case, how can they know that there's space if they can't see it?)

That's like saying humans are limited to only exploring land because we don't have to capability of breathing underwater.

Species X's means of developing a civilization can be completely different from Species Y's. How we evolved may seem advantageous to us, but that doesn't mean other life forms such as Species X (that, I guess might communicate through patterns of wind hitting the pores of their skin) haven't found ways to adapt and explore based on the characteristics they evolved with.

 

If a specie thrives in an environment which has somewhat an infinite stuffs that fulfills their need, I don't think they would ever need to expand and move somewhere else. Just look at us, our brain is hardwired to tell us to stay in comfort zone. We only reach out if we need to.

All the more reason to go spacefaring then. Supposing such a utopia exists, infinite resources means unlimited energy to allocate into further feeding into their curiosity. Oh, and if overpopulation ever becomes a problem, there would be no need submit to a population cap when they can expand their civilization through spacefaring using the supposed infinite resources they have.

 

 

 

 

--

I really want to add more to the discussion, but I've been stupidly busy trying to work on apps and stuff, urghh.

I shouldn't even be posting, but I just really wanted to contribute a bit of my thoughts.

 

sorry for intervening, ahah...

[tengaku squared 291]

i can't believe I forgot this, but:

Well, if they're capable of travelling space then they would travel/expand to space but mostly, only in need. But who knows? Some alien intelligent species might have found a way to create a eternally sustaining ecology on the place they are in without the need of expanding to space and some might be even working towards this way instead of expanding and expanding.

see: three laws of thermodynamics. an eternally sustaining ecology is impossible. 

 

While it's true that there's little to no chance that there are life forms that have developed like humans have, well actually, it's exactly that. Everything we are today happened completely by chance. That isn't to say there aren't intelligent life forms that have developed enough to be considered a civilization though. It's just that it might have occurred in a different manner; a civilization created through other means. The human race is no ultimate template that dictates how intelligent life forms should come into existence because anything could've happened in a time span of 14 billion years. For all we know, these life forms may very well be in their primitive stages of development. Or heck, they could be far more advanced than we are. 

 

As for why we haven't found any evidence of these intelligent life forms... the universe is absolutely massive. So massive that we're practically confined to an observable universe. At the same time, these life forms may be trillions of light years away, outside of our observable universe (which is already 93 billion light years in diameter, if that helps put things into perspective). Communicating with said life forms would be extremely inefficient as the information they send to us would be terribly outdated by the time it even reaches us, assuming that we'd even be able to communicate with them.

first of all, here you go:

 

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

 

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.

[machine 52]

The Taurids meteors, which have been visible since October 20th and going to continue to being visible through November 30th, are going to be hitting their peak from November 5th - 12th. Up to about a dozen meteors could be seen per hour during this window, obviously how many you see will depend on luck, weather conditions, and how much light pollution is in your area. It sounds like these will be visible from anywhere on Earth too! (None of the articles I read clarified that you needed to be in a certain hemisphere, so I can only assume that is the case. Sorry if I'm wrong about that.)

[Kenzi 146]

first of all, here you go:

 

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

 

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. 

true, I won't deny that, but think about this: how much of space have we really explored?

haha, it's kinda funny since the reason I believe we haven't found any extraterrestrial life is because space is so vast.

and the fact that there seems to be set conditions for life to even form, much less intelligent life

 

I might sound like I'm contradicting myself with that last statement, but if you just take into consideration how massive space is and how much time the universe has been in existence, the chance of there being intelligent life suddenly sounds a lot more plausible

 

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.

we've only found <2k exoplanets, so I think it's a bit too early to kick the bucket

plus, we can't generalize intelligent life based on what humans have the tendency to do

for instance, what makes you think intelligent life is limited to only acclimating to the surfaces of planets?

 

I think it's very likely that there's intelligent life out there

it's just that we don't have an efficient way to communicate with/scour for them

 

 

The Taurids meteors, which have been visible since October 20th and going to continue to being visible through November 30th, are going to be hitting their peak from November 5th - 12th. Up to about a dozen meteors could be seen per hour during this window, obviously how many you see will depend on luck, weather conditions, and how much light pollution is in your area. It sounds like these will be visible from anywhere on Earth too! (None of the articles I read clarified that you needed to be in a certain hemisphere, so I can only assume that is the case. Sorry if I'm wrong about that.)

oh hey, I think I know what I might be doing Thursday night

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

I know I said I won't defend myself anymore but...

a little off topic, but I find it interesting that you often feel the need to openly state this.

 

 

I'm just too proud of myself.

 

 

All the more reason to go spacefaring then. Supposing such a utopia exists, infinite resources means unlimited energy to allocate into further feeding into their curiosity. Oh, and if overpopulation ever becomes a problem, there would be no need submit to a population cap when they can expand their civilization through spacefaring using the supposed infinite resources they have.

I don't really mean "infinite" resources like a bottomless glass of water where the thing does not run out, magically but rather the water you drink from the glass is just recycled over and over again. My wording there was wrong, sorry. (As always haha) So yup, I meant it as a self sustaining environment where 99.9% of the resources they use, they recycle it again. Another good metaphor for it would be a farmer with a family where his/her farm completely sustains their basic needs without any need to source out.

 

Practically, it's an eternally sustaining environment, as long as no terrible external factor comes in to rattle the equilibrium. As for the overpopulation, well if we humans, ourselves, are really disciplined and well versed about the effects of of that thing and aren't terribly 'self-indulgent'. Overpopulation should never happen. We can even probably reach the point where our population's birth rate almost equates the death rate. In that case, a kinda-stagnant population count. And for the actual individual consumption of resources, same thing, if we are disciplined bla bla bla. The resource consumption of each individual should be somewhat the same.

 

Now, if an intelligent civilization has a stagnant population count and a equal resource consumption for each individual, there should be an unchanging level on the total consumption of the said specie. And if they also do not actually use up 100% or whatever near 100% percent of the resources they have in their planet, any resource usage spike should not cause a complete catastrophe since they have 'reserves' in the case of this happening.

 

So in short, an intelligent civilization that just recycles their resources (almost) completely, has a nearly fixed population count + a nearly equal resource consumption for each individual and maintains a resource reserve, should, in theory, have an 'eternally' sustaining habitat, as long as you set aside any disastrous external factors (like comets and asteroids).

 

===

 

On the curiosity thingy, I don't have any satisfying answer but again, I'm pretty sure you have encountered people in your life that you can say is incurious. Now, just Imagine a freaking alien specie which is singly lead by a dictatorial leader who is incurious and would never fund a freaking exploration for the purpose of fulfilling curiosity and instead just focuses on maintaining their specie using the said technique above. I mean yeah, the dictatorial leader would not live forever but the thing he/she did would kinda stall the progress of the species towards reaching stellar capabilities.

 

Haha, just here in our planet, there have been already several leaders that did nothing to advance science and worse, there are those who even opposed to it like because it doesn't align with what they believe. Thank God, the stars aligned on us.

[machine 52]

/quietly butts in again

 

A new study from NASA shows that despite all the effects global warming is having on the glaciers near the north pole, Antarctica is actually gaining more ice than it is losing. Due to just how big Antarctica is this is obviously a bit of a generalization as some areas are losing ice at a faster rate than they're gaining it, but that doesn't away from the fact that as a whole, the south pole is gaining ice. However, it's possible in the future that those will switch and that Antarctica could lose more ice than it gains and that could lead to higher sea levels. 

x

[Kenzi 146]

I don't really mean "infinite" resources like a bottomless glass of water where the thing does not run out, magically but rather the water you drink from the glass is just recycled over and over again. My wording there was wrong, sorry. (As always haha) So yup, I meant it as a self sustaining environment where 99.9% of the resources they use, they recycle it again. Another good metaphor for it would be a farmer with a family where his/her farm completely sustains their basic needs without any need to source out.

 

Practically, it's an eternally sustaining environment, as long as no terrible external factor comes in to rattle the equilibrium. As for the overpopulation, well if we humans, ourselves, are really disciplined and well versed about the effects of of that thing and aren't terribly 'self-indulgent'. Overpopulation should never happen. We can even probably reach the point where our population's birth rate almost equates the death rate. In that case, a kinda-stagnant population count. And for the actual individual consumption of resources, same thing, if we are disciplined bla bla bla. The resource consumption of each individual should be somewhat the same.

 

Now, if an intelligent civilization has a stagnant population count and a equal resource consumption for each individual, there should be an unchanging level on the total consumption of the said specie. And if they also do not actually use up 100% or whatever near 100% percent of the resources they have in their planet, any resource usage spike should not cause a complete catastrophe since they have 'reserves' in the case of this happening.

 

So in short, an intelligent civilization that just recycles their resources (almost) completely, has a nearly fixed population count + a nearly equal resource consumption for each individual and maintains a resource reserve, should, in theory, have an 'eternally' sustaining habitat, as long as you set aside any disastrous external factors (like comets and asteroids).

 

===

 

On the curiosity thingy, I don't have any satisfying answer but again, I'm pretty sure you have encountered people in your life that you can say is incurious. Now, just Imagine a freaking alien specie which is singly lead by a dictatorial leader who is incurious and would never fund a freaking exploration for the purpose of fulfilling curiosity and instead just focuses on maintaining their specie using the said technique above. I mean yeah, the dictatorial leader would not live forever but the thing he/she did would kinda stall the progress of the species towards reaching stellar capabilities.

 

Haha, just here in our planet, there have been already several leaders that did nothing to advance science and worse, there are those who even opposed to it like because it doesn't align with what they believe. Thank God, the stars aligned on us.

Being able to recycle 99.9% of the resources they use? That sounds incredibly cost inefficient. Having the ability to recycle nearly all of the resources they use is implying that they're able to treat their waste as resource, which is basically the human equivalent of converting feces into food or turning coal into diamonds (which, for the record, is possible, but there's a reason we don't do that; refer back to my second sentence if you need a refresher).

 

Also, I have no clue whether we're reaching the peak of technological capability or if we've merely scratched the surface, but your description of this "eternally sustaining environment" sounds overly optimistic. For starters, humans are self-indulgent. There's no doubt about that. We're very opinionated creatures, we're easily brainwashed by propaganda, we seek drugs that have the capability of killing us, and heck, we've waged war on ourselves on several occasions. There's no way I'd go so far as to say we're "disciplined". We all have opinions on what we should invest in, we debate ethics because we're split in what we think is morally right, we're unsupportive of our own species because we fail to address poverty, we've created monopolies that take away from our own species, we tend to be frail both physically and emotionally--and it's because we're human, and humans are flawed, especially on a grand scale. Perhaps robots can fulfill your expectations for this "eternally sustaining environment" (which is still a stretch since we'd be the ones programming their CPUs, go figure), but humans are far from that.

 

Anything that can be swayed by hormones or neurotransmitters will have opinions. Conflicting opinions create issues. Simple as that.

 

As of right now, we're reproducing far faster than we're dying off. Modern day medicine has increased our average lifespan, and we've created more efficient ways to decrease mortality rate and to ration out resources. Who knows what the human carrying capacity will be. Still, over-consumption and waste production is currently a huge issue for us because we're too shortsighted to look at the big picture or the long term consequences of current day activities. We're very experimental and curious as well. And for this reason, we're still dealing with the CFCs that were released into the atmosphere decades ago because we weren't aware of the consequences. Same with the wastelands of garbage we've dumped in bodies of water. Feel free to take a look at the Cuyahoga River Fire if you crave further evidence.

 

So in short, an intelligent civilization that just recycles their resources (almost) completely, has a nearly fixed population count + a nearly equal resource consumption for each individual and maintains a resource reserve, should, in theory, have an 'eternally' sustaining habitat, as long as you set aside any disastrous external factors (like comets and asteroids).

Key word here is theory.

 

The thing is, your description/theory of an "eternally sustaining environment" relies on common sense and implies that we must overcome these obstructions in order to attain such a utopia, which, as unfortunate as this may sound, is far too much to ask of humans.

 

We kill off our own species with firearms like it's recreation.

We create landfills that deplete our own available habitable space.

We have access to weaponry that have the ability to wipe out our own species.

We partake in activities that are detrimental to our own species as a whole.

And like you said, we've also had dictators that have prevented the progression of our own species.

 

Yes, it's counterproductive and it defies common sense--it's human nature.

It's also why we fail to create an eternally sustainable environment. 

 

Now, you might be thinking "wtf Kenzi, this has nothing to do with other intelligent life forms."

So allow me to address that with one final sentence: There's nothing that says other intelligent civilizations can't suffer from impediments of similar caliber.

[machine 52]

So uh.... did'ja guys here that in some tens of billions of years, Mars might become a ringed planet after its gravity destroys its largest moon? Though no one will be around to see it, I hope it happens. Just imagine how cool it'd look up and see a ringed planet. If you had a decent telescope, the view would probably be incredible. 

 

In less cool news, one of the last northern white rhinos died a couple days ago. There are now just three left on the planet. As far as I know, two of the three are now past reproductive age too (two of the three are both males anyway) so with each day, their existence looks more, and more grim. If there's anything good to come out of this, it's that it did make more people aware of just how many species are facing endangerment and even extinction. Hopefully, as time goes on and people become more aware, less animals will face extinction and get to the point where they can only survive and thrive in captivity. 

 

(nsfw warning? maybe...?)

--I forgot to add this yesterday! The Cleveland Clinic is expected to be the place of the first uterus transplant in the United States. The uterus would come from an organ donor and would be given to a woman who lacks a functioning one. The uterus would have to be removed after the woman has one or two children though, so it's not a complete substitute, but for infertile women this is still great news. However, any and all pregnancies conceived by women with these transplants would be considered high risk meaning the cost of this would go up even more. There have been previous attempts at uterine transplants in other countries, and a few of them have been successful. All the successful transplants were done with uteruses that came from live donors though. (In five of the successful cases, the donors were the women's mothers meaning those women and their children were formed/would be formed in the same womb) While this is good news, it has brought up the question of whether or not this is going too far, so take this news as you will. 

And if anyone wants to read the full article since it's pretty interesting and I condensed it down quite a bit, here you go

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

So there's this news that have been floating around for a quite awhile now that an alien megastructure around a star (KIC 8462852) might have been found (link here) Astronomers have this kind of instrument where they can measure how much light a star is giving out. Basically they use this thing to detect if there's an exoplanet/exocloud disk/exoobjects or etc around a star by checking for patterned dimming in the light measured from the star which is a sign of something orbiting around it. The thing is that if something passes infront of a light source, it blotches some of the light causing it to dim a bit. Just imagine a fly circling around a really faint incandescent bulb.(Don't quote me on this btw coz I'm not 100% sure about this)

 

Anyways, back to the real thing, they use this technique like on others to check if there's any exoobject orbiting the said star but they found an anomaly which is why we have the alien megastructure theory. They ruled out an exoplanet/exocloud. (The alien megastructure I'm talking about btw is the hypotethical Dyson sphere [link here]) At first, the most plausible theory on this was a band of exocomets floating orbiting the star but just some time ago, it was also ruled out (link here) This has been baffling astronomers for months now.

 

In any case, this stuff is getting really more interesting, altho it's likely from a natural cause. I'm still hoping it's really better than that *fingers crossed*

[machine 52]

So uh...

No one else gonna mention how they found evidence there might be another planet beyond Pluto? (To scientists, it'd be the 9th planet. To most millennials, it'd be the 10th) The planet would be so far away, that it would take 10,000 - 20,000 years to travel around the sun one time. They're guessing the planet could be as large as Neptune too. While they have found evidence of its orbit, they don't know just where the planet may be and until they figure that out, it sounds like we won't know for sure whether or not we have another neighbor. 

Honestly, this is pretty cool! Pluto was discovered in 1930, but if you don't count Pluto, this is the first planet found in our solar system since 1846! I hope we'll find out more about whatever lies beyond Pluto soon. I wonder if the New Horizons craft they sent out to Pluto would be able to be of any use. I doubt it but it's a cool thought at the very least

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

So uh...

No one else gonna mention how they found evidence there might be another planet beyond Pluto? (To scientists, it'd be the 9th planet. To most millennials, it'd be the 10th) The planet would be so far away, that it would take 10,000 - 20,000 years to travel around the sun one time. They're guessing the planet could be as large as Neptune too. While they have found evidence of its orbit, they don't know just where the planet may be and until they figure that out, it sounds like we won't know for sure whether or not we have another neighbor. 

Honestly, this is pretty cool! Pluto was discovered in 1930, but if you don't count Pluto, this is the first planet found in our solar system since 1846! I hope we'll find out more about whatever lies beyond Pluto soon. I wonder if the New Horizons craft they sent out to Pluto would be able to be of any use. I doubt it but it's a cool thought at the very least

Yeah. I heard about this and I've been dying over this news for a few days now! Anyways, that planet is just a theory as you said since it hasn't yet been directly observed (altho it might have already been sometime ago through a ground telescope but they didn't know it was a planet). They kinda postulated this because of some anomalies in the orbit(?) of some objects in the kuiper belt which can only be solved if there's another massive object out there which ofc most likely is a planet.

The ninth planet/planet x theory has been out there a long time ago, it just that it lacked credible evidence but now, it seems like it might really be real. The Astronomy community is going crazy over this since the announcement. The hunt is on lol. (There's already people debating what Roman god/godess/whatever should it be named after. Calm down people. Geez)

 

Anyways, the New Horizons craft might be able to go there, if in luck, that ninth planet is exactly within the trajectory of that spacecraft or near, at the least. But it's super unlikely, I mean the scientists operating that thing would have noticed it by now through New Horizon's imaging device when it was on pluto or some sensors since it's kinda huge.

[machine 52]

So the NOAA spotted this little guy near Hawaii recently.

 

 

There's a high liklihood this guy is part of a new species. Unlike most other cephalopods, he lacks pigments and was spotted at a depth of over 14,000 feet which is the deepest of this type of cephalopod has ever been seen. I don't believe he's been given a scientific name yet since they're not 100% sure this is a new species, but social media is urging that he be named after Casper the friendly ghost. 

x

[machine 52]

Sorry for the double post, but Mars is going to be visible all this month! It was closest to Earth on May 30th, and if you watch the news (I think my local news briefly covered this once, and I know the NBC news brought it up one night a little while ago), you were probably told about this last month, but they never mentioned that Mars would remain visible all the way through the end of June. Even though it's June, and Mars's slowly moving away, it should still be visible to the naked eye. Mars can be found around the same area the moon can be seen (there's where it was when I looked for it late last month at least, it might've moved by now idk). It just looks like a bright star with a red tint, so it's not breath taking or anything of that sort, but if you want to feel small, and insignificant for a second or two, it's definitely one of the cooler ways to bring on that feeling.

If you really like star gazing, and happen to have a telescope (though you might be able to see these without a telescope, having one would surely heighten the experience), Saturn and Jupiter will also be visible this month too. 

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

On 6/6/2016 at 1:48 PM, machine said:

Sorry for the double post, but Mars is going to be visible all this month! It was closest to Earth on May 30th, and if you watch the news (I think my local news briefly covered this once, and I know the NBC news brought it up one night a little while ago), you were probably told about this last month, but they never mentioned that Mars would remain visible all the way through the end of June. Even though it's June, and Mars's slowly moving away, it should still be visible to the naked eye. Mars can be found around the same area the moon can be seen (there's where it was when I looked for it late last month at least, it might've moved by now idk). It just looks like a bright star with a red tint, so it's not breath taking or anything of that sort, but if you want to feel small, and insignificant for a second or two, it's definitely one of the cooler ways to bring on that feeling.

If you really like star gazing, and happen to have a telescope (though you might be able to see these without a telescope, having one would surely heighten the experience), Saturn and Jupiter will also be visible this month too. 

I don't wanna be this guy who's like know-it-all but planets are normally visible anyways in the night sky  (they move around quickly tho) but as you said, they just look like stars but difference is they don't twinkle and the planets near to us (Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury (?)) are much bigger than any of the other dots in the sky.

Also, just to add, Jupiter and Saturn are really close to Mars right now. Saturn, I think, is just almost next to Mars but it's hard to spot since it's really small while Jupiter is just across and is pretty easy to Spot since it's almost as large and has a the same tint as Mars. (In the night sky).

And yeah, haha, Telescope definitely heightens the experience. Me and my bro have been stargazing using Telescope for months now and it's really cool but the telescope we were using doesn't magnify that much so it's still not cool as using a freaking observatory Telescope

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

Forgive me if I'm gonna be a bit like an article writer here (And sorry for the Double Post)

There has been news going around the Scientific Media Outlets that there's a possibility that there might be more than 9 planets (Including the Theorized 9 planet.) orbiting our Sun! Weird thing is if this is true, our Solar System might become more uncommon since on average, only a few Stellar Systems have a quite a number of planets orbiting them. Heck, I'm pretty sure, as it currently stands, our solar system has the most number of planets. I'm not the one to speculate here since duh I ain't a freaking Astrophysicist but there could be a link between the number of planets we have with the habitability of the earth and the mass extinctions we had. I mean if Jupiter, the Vacuum Cleaner, had a special role in keeping us free from all the Asteroids and comets and whatever space debris is out there by sucking them up (Altho jupiter can also hurl them towards the inner planets). It's not far off to speculate that there's a possibility that if there are really more than 9 planets, then those planets might have played a role too to what have become of our own Planet's Habitability. There's even already this one theory going that the theorized ninth planet might have caused mass extinctions here on earth and yes, it could repeat in the far future again. Anyways, The number of planets of planets thingy plus them having roles in the habitability of another planet might kinda resolve the Fermi Paradox since again, only few stars have alot of planets (I hope not. Still hopeful that there are alot of Aliens out there). Also I repeat, this is just me speculating so don't take me seriously.

But also, I have to add: Yes, as it currently stands, the Solar System has the most number of planets out there. The average number of planets per star system is 1 but problem is, currently, we can only "easily" see the big ones and it's hard to spot the smaller ones so for example, if we view our Solar System from another Star System through whatever device used for spotting planets, we would only see Jupiter and Saturn. So yeah, for all we know, those Star Systems that we thought of only having 1 planet has actually 32 smaller planets. (See What is the average number of planets that orbit a star? link below)

Sources:

• Astronomers say: There could be atleast 2 more planets in our Solar System
• List of Multiplanetary Systems
• What is the average number of planets that orbit a star?
• This Researcher thinks Planet Nine could cause Mass Extinctions
• Is it true that Jupiter protects Earth?

[Kirsch 95]

Happy Asteroid Day!

Hang out at your local uni observatory or just get out your amateur telescope to celebrate this day of scientific geekery! (I'll be doing the former, if only because I suck at the latter)

 

[Metantei Kiddo 147]

On 7/1/2016 at 4:14 AM, Kirsch said:

Happy Asteroid Day!

Hang out at your local uni observatory or just get out your amateur telescope to celebrate this day of scientific geekery! (I'll be doing the former, if only because I suck at the latter)

 

It's almost impossible to see an asteroid with an amateur telescope, ya know. :V So hats off to you, good madam for choosing the former.

[Akazora 293]

 

HYPE THRUSTER STATUS:

[  ] NOT ACTIVATED

[X] ACTIVATED

[machine 52]

NASA and the NOAA released pictures from their recently launched weather satellite today! Launched this past November, the GOES-16 (GOES being the abbreviation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite), previously known as the GOES-R, is the first of four weather satellites that will be launched in the coming years with the aim of improving weather forecasting. It orbits ~22,000 miles above Earth's equator, is 5x faster and has 4x the resolution of other weather satellites, can take a full disk image of the Earth every 15minutes, an image of the continental US every 5minutes, and can take images of smaller, specific areas of interests (ex: hurricanes) every 30seconds. It can also take those pictures in 16 different 'filters', for lack of a better layman's term. Like the images don't have to be just plain pictures, they can show certain parts of the atmosphere (ex: clouds, volcanic ash, smoke). Considering prior weather satellites only have 5, this is another huge improvement. GOES-16 also has a lightning mapper that can track both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning! 
 

 

Here's some of the aforementioned pictures though. They're pretty neat to say the least: 

 

 



 



 

 

source 1 2 and here's its wikipedia page in case you're curious