Looks like we will have to say goodbye to V'Ger 1. She's obeying commands but hasnt returned readable info in 3 months....

[Wally Fairway 5490]

20 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

from the wiki:

"The Sabatier reaction has been proposed as a key step in reducing the cost of human mission to Mars (Mars Direct, SpaceX Starship) through in situ resource utilization. Hydrogen is combined with CO2 from the atmosphere, with methane then stored as fuel and the water side product electrolyzed yielding oxygen to be liquefied and stored as oxidizer and hydrogen to be recycled back into the reactor. The original hydrogen could be transported from Earth or separated from Martian sources of water."

Once you have the ability to manufacture CH4 in situ on mars, you can start moving asteroids from the asteroid belt to martian lagrangian orbits.  Once you have enough mass, you move everyone off the planet for 5 years.  They live in orbit while you crash thousands of small asteroids in to the poles, releasing all of the water and oxygen.   When the "dust clears" you should have something to work with.

The terraforming part (flora) is easy.  We could start today.  It's just a matter of money.

It's the fauna part that is going to require getting medievial, because of the lack of the magnetic field.

Call me crazy, but in addition to travelling to Mars, then establishing a colony both of which take tons of resources, you then have to build an orbital hotel/docking station to vaca off the planet for 5 years (meaning food, water, medicine, etc); but this seems like a bit much. Sounds like a 100 year plan, where everything has to go just right. 

[BrickHorn 18028]

1 hour ago, Hagbard Celine said:

from the wiki:

"The Sabatier reaction has been proposed as a key step in reducing the cost of human mission to Mars (Mars Direct, SpaceX Starship) through in situ resource utilization. Hydrogen is combined with CO2 from the atmosphere, with methane then stored as fuel and the water side product electrolyzed yielding oxygen to be liquefied and stored as oxidizer and hydrogen to be recycled back into the reactor. The original hydrogen could be transported from Earth or separated from Martian sources of water."

Once you have the ability to manufacture CH4 in situ on mars, you can start moving asteroids from the asteroid belt to martian lagrangian orbits.  Once you have enough mass, you move everyone off the planet for 5 years.  They live in orbit while you crash thousands of small asteroids in to the poles, releasing all of the water and oxygen.   When the "dust clears" you should have something to work with.

The terraforming part (flora) is easy.  We could start today.  It's just a matter of money.

It's the fauna part that is going to require getting medievial, because of the lack of the magnetic field.

So the idea is to bombard Mars with asteroids until it has sufficient gravity? Mars has 11% the mass of Earth. You’d have to crash 8 Marses worth of asteroids into it to create an Earth-sized rocky planet. What does that do to the planet? And is the result just a pile of loose rubble or do the collisions result in seismic and volcanic activity of the type necessary to create a stable crust? And we need to make sure there’s enough water in those asteroids to create oceans. Which would in any event be freshwater for the next few billion years or so.

And none of that addresses the absence of a magnetic field (creating problems in both the short and long term) and the difference in sunlight intensity. 

So… what’s easier: building thousands of rockets to propel asteroids into Mars, resulting — at some point in the far future — in at best a shitty imitation of Earth that won’t last long without the protection of a magnetosphere, or shutting down fossil fuel use here on Earth for a short period while we ramp up renewables?

Terraforming is fun to think about as an engineering project, but that exercise reveals just how silly the Mars bugout plan is. 

[MissingInAction 24324]

Will there be bike lanes?

[Radical Larry 28420]

 

[Parliament 13997]

YES!!!

[YGIFS 19445]

And then you go and do something dumb like this Voyager..........AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!  

Edited June 14 by YGIFS

[Judge Roybeanbag 11728]

That's amazing.

[Pescado_Rojo 19235]

[Braff Zacklin 13289]

2 hours ago, Parliament said:

YES!!!

 

1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

And then you go and do something dumb like this Voyager..........AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!  

 

44 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

That's amazing.

[Captain Ron 12708]

The guys on Hard Fork interviewed one of the JPL engineers that helped fix this. This shit was pretty fascinating. 

 

 

[RPM 26090]

[Biff Tannen 45013]

18 hours ago, Radical Larry said:

 

[Red Five 40274]

You will take me to the creator, Kirk unit.

[Hagbard Celine 10515]

On 6/14/2024 at 2:39 PM, Pescado_Rojo said:

 

[Superhero 8595]

On 2/15/2024 at 1:43 PM, Rimbo said:

Counterpoint:

Ain't gonna find another one of these out there.

Earth has all the tits and ass.

Advantage: Earth

Mars has 50% more tits.

[Rimbo 25223]

9 minutes ago, Superhero said:

Mars has 50% more tits.

only in the movies, baby

in real life? imagine the worst goddamn wasteland possible; now imagine something even worse than that. Where every aspect of existence there is trying to kill you

 

[Biff Tannen 45013]

1 hour ago, Rimbo said:

only in the movies, baby

in real life? imagine the worst goddamn wasteland possible; now imagine something even worse than that. Where every aspect of existence there is trying to kill you

 

[CHIEF 5039]

2 hours ago, Superhero said:

Mars has 50% more tits.

You are thinking about Almond Joy, not Mounds (irony).

CHIEF

[troph 23995]

4 hours ago, Superhero said:

Mars has 50% more tits.

 

1 hour ago, CHIEF said:

You are thinking about Almond Joy, not Mounds (irony).

CHIEF

 Not sure I think about a crappy candy bar here but hey you know.

 

[WhatTheBuck 28604]

12 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

Hottest bald chick ever. 

[thunderlounge 7619]

10 hours ago, CHIEF said:

You are thinking about Almond Joy, not Mounds (irony).

CHIEF

I nicknamed my dog “mounds” when I was a kid. 

[Incredulity 11160]

13 hours ago, Superhero said:

Mars has 50% more tits.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11728]

23 minutes ago, thunderlounge said:

I nicknamed my dog “mounds” when I was a kid. 

Hey mounds!  (Whistle), come on mounds!

[thunderlounge 7619]

^^ this guy gets it

[Judge Roybeanbag 11728]

6 minutes ago, thunderlounge said:

^^ this guy gets it

 

god bless Mr. Phlegm 

Edited June 16 by Judge Roybeanbag

[Parliament 13997]

https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-activates-thrusters-voyager-1
 

 

[Gatorubet 29538]

On 2/18/2024 at 6:18 PM, Wally Fairway said:

Call me crazy, but in addition to travelling to Mars, then establishing a colony both of which take tons of resources, you then have to build an orbital hotel/docking station to vaca off the planet for 5 years (meaning food, water, medicine, etc); but this seems like a bit much. Sounds like a 100 year plan, where everything has to go just right. 

[elfenix 34075]

[Goredho 17164]

On 2/17/2024 at 4:48 PM, Not a cat said:

One of my favorite classes at UT was ET Life.  Had to estimate how many intelligent species are out there that want to communicate with us.  You plugged in a bunch of factors/requirements but the final one was that they don't blow themselves up before contacting us.

That’s the big thing to me.  The trajectory of our own species show that it’s far more likely that “intelligent” life destroys itself before it learns to conquer the laws of physics and vastness of space.

[BamaATL 16009]

20 minutes ago, Goredho said:

That’s the big thing to me.  The trajectory of our own species show that it’s far more likely that “intelligent” life destroys itself before it learns to conquer the laws of physics and vastness of space.

The Drake equation is full of variables we can only make educated guesses at, but this is certainly one of the biggest, be it climate damage, nuclear war, biologic weapons, etc.  There are a couple of things I think are widely overlooked when it comes to this guess work.  We make the presumption that the way things are in our time is how they will always be, call it recency bias or something along those lines.  However, our own history tells us this is ridiculous.  Humans have the ability to course correct, and actually our history points to us doing exactly that.  That isn't to say we won't have new problems and challenges, but the thought that we won't overcome our own poor decisions just isn't there.  Mind you, that doesn't mean we won't make disaster like decisions, but eliminate progress all together, extremely unlikely.   

The other thing that is hard to fathom is just how different from a technology standpoint things will be say 100 years from now.  If you think about it 100 years ago, radio was basically in it's infancy, we are still using the basic principles today.  Rocketry was just beginning, and I think it was Neil DeGrasse Tyson who called this ghetto way to get to space.  Right now, it's what we got, but that doesn't mean it will be forever.  I read a book a long time ago about technology and it's changes thru out history.  In Roman times, we quadrupled our technical knowledge and ability about every 800 years, by the middle ages that was down to about 400 years, by the American Revolution every 100 years, and when the book was written, sometime in the 90s we were doing about every 16 months.  The point is, our limitations are really only our collective will and imagination.  To think that we won't overcome that isn't realistic to me.  

[thunderlounge 7619]

1 hour ago, BamaATL said:

The point is, our limitations are really only our collective will and imagination.  To think that we won't overcome that isn't realistic to me.  

Yes, in so much as we talk about responsible society. But here’s the thing, and while I agree the Drake equation does  have an educated guess factor in it (how could it not?), those data points toward advancement are well placed. Including the destruction of a society.

I agree some of those could be mitigated, if that path is taken of course. But here is why it can’t at our current level: rogue participants.

We just found the atomic age, relatively speaking in terms of universal timeline. This is the real critical point in the Drake equation.

Not because the US/Russia are going to do it. It’s that one tiny group that gets their hands on a device, or devices, that could detonate just enough of them to cause nuclear winter.

If placed in the right spots, it would decimate crop production for centuries.

But it’s also unstable with some outlying countries right now too. Anyone trust NK?

So that’s just one thing that is possible. 
 

The other is natural disaster on a scale not seen since the dinosaurs.

What would happen is Yellowstone lit off tomorrow? Something like that might not wipe us out completely. But it could easily set society back to the dark ages. I think we get back quicker, provided knowledge is preserved.

But it also could wipe everything out. There’s no way to prepare for that.

How likely are those things to happen? 

I think it depends. It depends if a civilization can advance fast enough to have the capability to counter the problem.

For example, maybe yellowstone is set to pop 500 years from now. Who knows. But in those 500 years, maybe we advance enough to understand how to relieve volcanic pressure without causing an eruption.
 

We don’t know of course, but that’s the scenario playing out in any civilization. How fast can it advance to have the technology to reduce, and eventually eliminate, its own extinction.

I don’t think that starts to become reality until a civilization occupies multiple planets.

Think of resources it would take to settle another planet. A shitload more than a few little habitats you can’t leave without a special suit.

We’re talking science fiction levels of need. Kinda fun to think about. 
 

Well, not yellowstone going off without capabilities to survive, but the needs and challenges of advancing to those levels.

[Parliament 13997]

I’m gonna get high and reread that.

[thunderlounge 7619]

25 minutes ago, Parliament said:

I’m gonna get high and reread that.

 

It helped writing it. So maybe?

Edited September 15 by thunderlounge

[BamaATL 16009]

3 hours ago, thunderlounge said:

Yes, in so much as we talk about responsible society. But here’s the thing, and while I agree the Drake equation does  have an educated guess factor in it (how could it not?), those data points toward advancement are well placed. Including the destruction of a society.

I agree some of those could be mitigated, if that path is taken of course. But here is why it can’t at our current level: rogue participants.

We just found the atomic age, relatively speaking in terms of universal timeline. This is the real critical point in the Drake equation.

Not because the US/Russia are going to do it. It’s that one tiny group that gets their hands on a device, or devices, that could detonate just enough of them to cause nuclear winter.

If placed in the right spots, it would decimate crop production for centuries.

But it’s also unstable with some outlying countries right now too. Anyone trust NK?

So that’s just one thing that is possible. 
 

The other is natural disaster on a scale not seen since the dinosaurs.

What would happen is Yellowstone lit off tomorrow? Something like that might not wipe us out completely. But it could easily set society back to the dark ages. I think we get back quicker, provided knowledge is preserved.

But it also could wipe everything out. There’s no way to prepare for that.

How likely are those things to happen? 

I think it depends. It depends if a civilization can advance fast enough to have the capability to counter the problem.

For example, maybe yellowstone is set to pop 500 years from now. Who knows. But in those 500 years, maybe we advance enough to understand how to relieve volcanic pressure without causing an eruption.
 

We don’t know of course, but that’s the scenario playing out in any civilization. How fast can it advance to have the technology to reduce, and eventually eliminate, its own extinction.

I don’t think that starts to become reality until a civilization occupies multiple planets.

Think of resources it would take to settle another planet. A shitload more than a few little habitats you can’t leave without a special suit.

We’re talking science fiction levels of need. Kinda fun to think about. 
 

Well, not yellowstone going off without capabilities to survive, but the needs and challenges of advancing to those levels.

Disasters, man made or otherwise aren't just likely but will happen, but as to the eradication of our species and knowledge, right now there is very little that would ultimately do that, barring a super nova in our vicinity.  There is every reason to believe that at least a portion of humanity would survive just about every forseeable scenario.  That doesn't mean that our growth as a species wouldn't be impacted or stunted for a while, it would be, eradicated, no.  That's sort of like saying anyone that survived such an event, for no reason in particular, would revert to living in mud huts and utilizing only stone age techniques and completely shun the knowledge we have in perpetuity.  

As to that applying to the Drake equation, it's likely that any other civilization also went thru this sort of period, but even in spite of disasters, self made or natural, survived it.  Could we make this harder on ourselves, or in the case of another civilization could they have made this harder on themselves, absolutely.  However, I find it extremely unlikely that in either case a species would self eradicate, to include our own, even potentially in spite of ourselves.  A bad actor or actors could certainly do a lot of damage, but there is nothing to suggest they could eradicate the planet, not even close.    

The more likely reality is that we are looking for the wrong signatures, simply because we don't understand them yet.  You don't use a rotary phone anymore, no one has in years, yet in searching the cosmos, that's sort of like what we are doing, because for now, that's what we know.  

[CHIEF 5039]

I often think about the things my great grandmother saw in her lifetime, she lived to be 94, and died in 1996. Her dad drove the mail by horse and freight wagon from Waco to Dallas, she lost a new shoe on the ride, one time, after her dad told her not to put them on. She was afraid to tell him, so had to wear her old shoes for another year. She didn't see automobiles and planes until adolescence. Wired B-24s at Lockheed as a middle aged woman in WWII. Saw Sputnik, the launch of Vger 1, and men on the Moon. Saw the invention of automatic milkers on their dairy. She was in awe of the first cellphones. All of that happened in less than 90 years.

CHIEF

[PhillyD 1245]

Someone posted a story similar to this and it may have been you.  She was alive before the Wright Brothers first flight.  By the time she died, a spacecraft was on its way out of our Solar System.  All of that happening in one lifetime is amazing.

[CHIEF 5039]

6 minutes ago, PhillyD said:

Someone posted a story similar to this and it may have been you.  She was alive before the Wright Brothers first flight.  By the time she died, a spacecraft was on its way out of our Solar System.  All of that happening in one lifetime is amazing.

Wasn't me. Also I was wrong about her death year, it was probably about 1999-2000. She was born about 1905, and I know it was after 1998 when she died, as I have a picture of her holding CHIEF Jr. as a baby. A picture of her, holding her granddaughter's grandson (daughter's daughter's son's son) when she still lived in her own home. I'm gonna post it when I find it, housecoat and all.

CHIEF

[thunderlounge 7619]

3 hours ago, BamaATL said:

right now there is very little that would ultimately do that

But they do exist. Which is what the Drake equation is getting at. No matter how fractionally small, there is a greater than 0 chance. A google 0’s and a 1 at the end is still a chance. 

[BamaATL 16009]

13 minutes ago, thunderlounge said:

But they do exist. Which is what the Drake equation is getting at. No matter how fractionally small, there is a greater than 0 chance. A google 0’s and a 1 at the end is still a chance. 

I think I'm not doing a good job of expressing what I mean.  Yes, it's possible that civilizations, including our own could snuff themselves out (in my opinion, extraordinarily rare).  However, that isn't why we aren't finding other civilizations of yet.  If we were to go out searching the cosmos for signs of the Gutenberg printing press, guess what, we could search for billions of years and never find anything.  That having been said, this invention was incredibly important to our own development, so you can't say it wasn't evolutionary important to us.  The more likely scenario isn't that there aren't other civilizations, it's that we aren't looking for the correct signatures because we don't yet know ourselves, and radio transmissions aren't it.  

I'm not saying this is correct either, but consider our understanding and only recent ability to detect gravitational waves, for all we know, these can be used for carrier signals.  

[Pato del Muerto 52036]

32 minutes ago, thunderlounge said:

But they do exist. Which is what the Drake equation is getting at. No matter how fractionally small, there is a greater than 0 chance. A google 0’s and a 1 at the end is still a chance. 

*googol

[thunderlounge 7619]

22 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

I think I'm not doing a good job of expressing what I mean.  Yes, it's possible that civilizations, including our own could snuff themselves out (in my opinion, extraordinarily rare).  However, that isn't why we aren't finding other civilizations of yet.  If we were to go out searching the cosmos for signs of the Gutenberg printing press, guess what, we could search for billions of years and never find anything.  That having been said, this invention was incredibly important to our own development, so you can't say it wasn't evolutionary important to us.  The more likely scenario isn't that there aren't other civilizations, it's that we aren't looking for the correct signatures because we don't yet know ourselves, and radio transmissions aren't it.  

I'm not saying this is correct either, but consider our understanding and only recent ability to detect gravitational waves, for all we know, these can be used for carrier signals.  

 

Right, I’m with you there. We’re talking the difference between something being possible and being probable.

I’m not saying probable, just that there’s a chance. It lessens every day, but it will be a good while before it’s zero. 

And it’s absolutely correct that we’re looking for something in an unsophisticated way.

We assume things progress like they did here. Big picture, maybe. The devil’s in the details, and depends when a civilization discovers different things. Maybe a civilization finds a better way to transmit than radio, thus never produce radio waves. It could be anything, but that’s an easy example.

But considering possibilities, there would be places out there that did get radio. But now you have to wonder if they could be close enough to detect. If the closest civilization that discovered radio, and also let it fly out into space, is 3 galaxies away, the we’d probably never detect it.

And absolutely true that a civilization or many could pass by here and we’d never detect the signature, as it uses something we won’t know about for 800 more years.

Really is kind of fun to think over.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

*googol

*takeItUpWithAutoCorrect

[Goredho 17164]

11 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

I think I'm not doing a good job of expressing what I mean.  Yes, it's possible that civilizations, including our own could snuff themselves out (in my opinion, extraordinarily rare).  However, that isn't why we aren't finding other civilizations of yet.  If we were to go out searching the cosmos for signs of the Gutenberg printing press, guess what, we could search for billions of years and never find anything.  That having been said, this invention was incredibly important to our own development, so you can't say it wasn't evolutionary important to us.  The more likely scenario isn't that there aren't other civilizations, it's that we aren't looking for the correct signatures because we don't yet know ourselves, and radio transmissions aren't it.  

I'm not saying this is correct either, but consider our understanding and only recent ability to detect gravitational waves, for all we know, these can be used for carrier signals.  

I pretty much completely disagree.  Civilizations collapse all the time, generally with a big dose of hubris and self-inflicted wounds.  Look at Easter Island, the Anasazi, Mayans, Incans, Norse/Vikings, etc...  All of those people had a chance to course correct or invent solutions to the problems they were faced with and did not.

Within about 200,000 years, humans went from cavemen to being able to annihilate all life on our home planet save for maybe a few hardy cockroaches.  Our population growth is outpacing our ability to solve the problems associated with overpopulation.  And we're not close to putting a foot on our nearest neighboring planet in our solar system, let alone reaching across the galaxy to contact anything else that may be out there.  Not because we aren't capable of fixing our problems or developing technology given an infinite amount of time, but because we'll argue over what the fuck is a problem right up until it becomes insurmountable and takes us out.

Could another form of life follow a different trajectory?  Sure, but there's no evidence of it.  I believe the far most likely scenario is that primordial life is fairly common, but intelligent life gets snuffed out long before it could really make itself known in the vast ocean of the Universe.

[BamaATL 16009]

3 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I pretty much completely disagree.  Civilizations collapse all the time, generally with a big dose of hubris and self-inflicted wounds.  Look at Easter Island, the Anasazi, Mayans, Incans, Norse/Vikings, etc...  All of those people had a chance to course correct or invent solutions to the problems they were faced with and did not.

Within about 200,000 years, humans went from cavemen to being able to annihilate all life on our home planet save for maybe a few hardy cockroaches.  Our population growth is outpacing our ability to solve the problems associated with overpopulation.  And we're not close to putting a foot on our nearest neighboring planet in our solar system, let alone reaching across the galaxy to contact anything else that may be out there.  Not because we aren't capable of fixing our problems or developing technology given an infinite amount of time, but because we'll argue over what the fuck is a problem right up until it becomes insurmountable and takes us out.

Could another form of life follow a different trajectory?  Sure, but there's no evidence of it.  I believe the far most likely scenario is that primordial life is fairly common, but intelligent life gets snuffed out long before it could really make itself known in the vast ocean of the Universe.

Those are examples of societal collapses, not species.  Though each of those societies did collapse, people survived from each (with the exception of perhaps Easter Island) and despite their individual collapses, the species moved forward and thrived.  

Our population is actually on pace to peak latter this century and then retract.  We are close to being able to put people on another planet, and that's without there being any real will or expediency to do so.  Just imagine, if it were pressing, and there was global will to the point of say 5% of the global gdp, could we do it in the next few years, the answer is absolutely.  

Again, there is nothing in our collective history that says we can't do something, matter of fact, any time someone has said that they've repeatedly been proven wrong, sometimes it just takes a while.  Great accomplishments, like the Apollo program (just as an example, and space to boot) require great will and financing.  When both collide, we can do much. 

I get that pessimism is the flavor of the day, especially politically and all that, but now is nothing more than a blip on the radar, and it to shall pass.  If you consider our collective accomplishments in just the last 500 years, even with all the bad mixed in, I'd bet on us well before I'd bet against us.  Tasks that seem like miracles to the vast majority of people during that time frame and now are day to day normalcy for us.  100 years from now, things that seem like miracles to us will be mundane to everyday people. That isn't to say we won't have missteps, go in the wrong direction from time to time, etc.  

[Hagbard Celine 10515]

Clarke's 3 laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 

Schopenhauer's 3 stages of truth:

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident

 

Would you like to go for a ride?

https://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/sf.html

https://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/index.html

[Goredho 17164]

1 hour ago, BamaATL said:

Those are examples of societal collapses, not species.  Though each of those societies did collapse, people survived from each (with the exception of perhaps Easter Island) and despite their individual collapses, the species moved forward and thrived.  

Our population is actually on pace to peak latter this century and then retract.  We are close to being able to put people on another planet, and that's without there being any real will or expediency to do so.  Just imagine, if it were pressing, and there was global will to the point of say 5% of the global gdp, could we do it in the next few years, the answer is absolutely.  

Again, there is nothing in our collective history that says we can't do something, matter of fact, any time someone has said that they've repeatedly been proven wrong, sometimes it just takes a while.  Great accomplishments, like the Apollo program (just as an example, and space to boot) require great will and financing.  When both collide, we can do much. 

I get that pessimism is the flavor of the day, especially politically and all that, but now is nothing more than a blip on the radar, and it to shall pass.  If you consider our collective accomplishments in just the last 500 years, even with all the bad mixed in, I'd bet on us well before I'd bet against us.  Tasks that seem like miracles to the vast majority of people during that time frame and now are day to day normalcy for us.  100 years from now, things that seem like miracles to us will be mundane to everyday people. That isn't to say we won't have missteps, go in the wrong direction from time to time, etc.  

Pessimism, realism.  Optimism, naïveté.  Again, our intelligent species has been around for 200,000 years on a single planet.  The universe has existed for 13.7 billion years.  The average star is orbited by 10 planets, the average galaxy contains 100 billion stars, and there are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.  And you are optimistically postulating that the only path for an intelligent species is inexorably forward to greater achievement, overcoming every existential obstacle encountered every time to the end of time, even as their problems become planetary in scope.

And yet, for all those places and for all that time for intelligent life to birth and grow and surpass our own limits and make itself known, none has.  The only evidence we have of an intelligent life in the universe is our own.  If what you are suggesting is accurate, the universe should be overflowing with intelligent life that we couldn't help but observe in some way.  But we don't.  We just observe a vast and empty void.

I'm all for the looking, and if we wind up with scientific observations that suggest a different conclusion is more likely, I'm happy to change my views.  But what is most likely given what we know at this time is that simple life is likely out there, and fairly common.  But intelligent life is rare and either hasn't developed or has hit some cap in its advancement before its disappearance from the universe.

Edited September 16 by Goredho

[thunderlounge 7619]

52 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

Clarke's 3 laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 

Schopenhauer's 3 stages of truth:

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident

 

Would you like to go for a ride?

https://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/sf.html

https://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/index.html

 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4959]

I'm a firm believer that we've already been visited. There is just too much evidence out there to believe to the contrary. There are a bunch of folks out there who take this stuff seriously and have spent considerable time uncovering evidence through FOIA requests, eyewitness accounts, etc. and have shared what they have found. If you actually look at the evidence, it is pretty clear that we are not alone and have been  visited  by Non Human Intelligence. I'm aware of all the objections that are typically made when encountered by claims such as this,  but they all have logical answers if not direct evidence disproving them. Seriously, if you are at all interested in this, take a deep dive into what you would normally consider a conspiracy theory on the order of something like pizza gate and try to reconcile how so many government documents from around the world indicate that those crazy conspiracy theoricists might be on to something. 

[Goredho 17164]

[BamaATL 16009]

24 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Pessimism, realism.  Optimism, naïveté.  Again, our intelligent species has been around for 200,000 years on a single planet.  The universe has existed for 13.7 billion years.  The average star is orbited by 10 planets, the average galaxy contains 100 billion stars, and there are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.  And you are optimistically postulating that the only path for an intelligent species is inexorably forward to greater achievement, overcoming every existential obstacle encountered every time to the end of time, even as their problems become planetary in scope.

And yet, for all those places and for all that time for intelligent life to birth and grow and surpass our own limits and make itself known, none has.  The only evidence we have of an intelligent life in the universe is our own.  If what you are suggesting is accurate, the universe should be overflowing with intelligent life that we couldn't help but observe in some way.  But we don't.  We just observe a vast and empty void.

I'm all for the looking, and if we wind up with scientific observations that suggest a different conclusion is more likely, I'm happy to change my views.  But what is most likely given what we know at this time is that simple life is likely out there, and fairly common.  But intelligent life is rare and either hasn't developed or has hit some cap in its advancement before its disappearance from the universe.

We've been actively looking for well under 50 years (seriously anyway) and there is every reason to believe we haven't been looking for the correct things.  I'd say there is pretty good reason to believe that haven't done enough looking just yet to pack it in, but maybe that's me.  

[Brisketexan 103515]

Pessimism, realism.  Optimism, naïveté.  Again, our intelligent species has been around for 200,000 years on a single planet.  The universe has existed for 13.7 billion years.  The average star is orbited by 10 planets, the average galaxy contains 100 billion stars, and there are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.  And you are optimistically postulating that the only path for an intelligent species is inexorably forward to greater achievement, overcoming every existential obstacle encountered every time to the end of time, even as their problems become planetary in scope.
And yet, for all those places and for all that time for intelligent life to birth and grow and surpass our own limits and make itself known, none has.  The only evidence we have of an intelligent life in the universe is our own.  If what you are suggesting is accurate, the universe should be overflowing with intelligent life that we couldn't help but observe in some way.  But we don't.  We just observe a vast and empty void.
I'm all for the looking, and if we wind up with scientific observations that suggest a different conclusion is more likely, I'm happy to change my views.  But what is most likely given what we know at this time is that simple life is likely out there, and fairly common.  But intelligent life is rare and either hasn't developed or has hit some cap in its advancement before its disappearance from the universe.

2 trillion galaxies. Two fucking trillion. Estimated average number of stars per galaxy: 100 billion.
Est total stars: 200 billion trillion.
It’s a fucking incomprehensible large number.
We know nothing about what/who is “out there.” Maybe nobody. But even if we could look at every star that exists…we couldn’t do it in a jillion human lifetimes.
We’lll never “know” anything outside of our little local part of the galaxy.