Topic
Aliens?
I agree. :) The main problem I see is people benefit too much from standing still. For example, even if we remain addicted to oil, we should at least be addicted to oil closer to home, but it's too profitable to suck it dry from abroad. Wait, so first you say we'll never make interstellar travel a possibility and then suddenly you agree with me that we will make it work and go on some incoherent tangent about oil? Make up your mind... And no, WW3 can't melt the earth. Humanity lacks the firepower for that as some basic maths would show. Heck, we most likely wouldn't even kill off humanity if WW3 ever broke out. At most we would be set back a couple of decennia. |
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Edited by Garían on 25/03/12 18:42 (BST)
I agree. :) The main problem I see is people benefit too much from standing still. For example, even if we remain addicted to oil, we should at least be addicted to oil closer to home, but it's too profitable to suck it dry from abroad. You guys love arguing, don't you? Life is nuanced. And I was being hyperbolic when it comes to WW3, which will melt people (which is essentially the same thing), and if the U.S. alone launched all its nukes, no one would survive the fallout. It's not a tangent. It's an ideology at work. People will do what benefits them at the expense of everyone else, and speeding up that agenda slows down human progress, like it always has. As Imperialism has shown. |
Yes, we do. Life is nuanced. And I was being hyperbolic when it comes to WW3, which will melt people (which is essentially the same thing), and if the U.S. alone launched all its nukes, no one would survive the fallout. Seems unlikely. Nuclear bombs aren't designed to produce heavy fallout. Not really useful to make a patch of land unlivable for decades if you are trying to conquer that land now is it? Of course, being the rather depraved and sick beings we are we did design such a weapon (Salted bombs) but for the aforementioned reason they aren't exactly numerous (If they even exist, none has ever been tested). Besides, fallout is not world wide. If America and China start tossing nukes around they'll trow them at each other, not at south Africa which will survive nearly unscathed. Ofcourse they'll have to deal with the nuclear winter, but there are 7 billion people and only about 1000 have to survive to rebuild humanity. If countries start tossing nukes around it'll make human society collapse. But humanity itself is much harder to extinguish. It's not a tangent. It's an ideology at work. People will do what benefits them at the expense of everyone else, and speeding up that agenda slows down human progress, like it always has. As Imperialism has shown. Erm no, that's not how the free market works. If people do something that benefits them then obviously there was demand for that. Therefore they benefit both themselves and their customers. If we stay on the subject of oil: People need energy from oil, company provides oil for money, both parties benefit. If someone brings a product on the market that only benefits the creator and not the buyer then nobody (Or very few) will actualy buy it and the creator will go bankrupt. And guess what, the free market is one of the greatest sources of innovation in human society for exactly that reason. If someone else can do it better than you for less money you go bankrupt. That's why companies have R&D departments and invest in universities boosting innovation. |
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Edited by Garían on 26/03/12 02:09 (BST)
Then don't be surprised when no one wants to post here because it's such a hostile environment. Seems unlikely. Nuclear bombs aren't designed to produce heavy fallout. Not really useful to make a patch of land unlivable for decades if you are trying to conquer that land now is it? Of course, being the rather depraved and sick beings we are we did design such a weapon (Salted bombs) but for the aforementioned reason they aren't exactly numerous (If they even exist, none has ever been tested). Civilisations have the potential to make themselves extinct even if people can survive. But I will still assert that we have the potential to completely wipe ourselves out with nukes. There are other factors to consider such as plate tectonics and the availability of clean food and water. And the cycle just repeats itself into infinity until someone actually learns.
You don't have a free market. You have a controlled market for other people's benefit. Just ask the oil companies who bought up all the patents to alternative energies only to never actually explore those ideas in order to maintain their monopolies. Just ask all the dictators the west propped up to keep the spice (oil) flowing despite how brutal and backwards those regimes were. But all their oil money propped them up and didn't let them fail like they should. I find your naivety amusing. If we stay on the subject of oil: People need energy from oil, company provides oil for money, both parties benefit. If someone brings a product on the market that only benefits the creator and not the buyer then nobody (Or very few) will actualy buy it and the creator will go bankrupt. Yes it is a source of creation, but when you can export all your jobs to slave labor countries, it's impossible to compete, and now the west finds itself in a situation where China is selling them back their own goods to people who have no money because they don't produce anything anymore. Your "free market" will kill itself sooner or later. Romney expects to reset the U.S. deficit over two terms, but that doesn't solve the fundamental problem of outsourcing which has moved most manufacturing and IT jobs to China and India, respectively, nor does cutting healthcare, education, and police while not taxing the mega rich their fair share (because they've bribed your politicans) inspire confidence in the system. The western world needs to actually MAKE things again, otherwise you are only delaying the inevitable. The rich could move to China, but there's nothing to stop the Chinese government from "redistributing their wealth". So yes we agree that real capitalism is great. Shame we don't have it. |
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Well the universe could go in loop. ever played asteroids before? if you go off the edge you will just end up on the other edge
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Yes. There just has to be.
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Our solar system is one of an estimated 2 bilion systems in our milky way. Our milky way is part of a cluster of and estimate size of 200 galaxies. Some with 6 times the size of the milky way. And theres an inifinite numbers of clusters throughout the universe.
some calculation that go out of the bare minimum (they even include a gas giant to pull in meteorites) estimate 10.000 earth like planets in just our milky way. Not to mention that other conditions then on earth would be able to sustain live. I think live in the universe is abundant. Check some youtube about ancient aliens. Some things are just to damm coinsendense. |
Here's a spoiler, it ends after marauder shields, he's the final boss, turn off the game at this point and consider it done. |
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Considering the response from the player base, I'm actually tempted to follow your advice and pretend the second game was the last in the series. But yea, I think I'll just need to see for myself, if it sucks that's fine... at least it won't leave me wanting for more, right? Yeah, right. |
Meh, all the choices you made in the game only really affect the color of the explosion in the final cutscene. You'll feel quite cheated when its over. |
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Our solar system is one of an estimated 2 bilion systems in our milky way. Our milky way is part of a cluster of and estimate size of 200 galaxies. Some with 6 times the size of the milky way. And theres an inifinite numbers of clusters throughout the universe. You're talking about the Drake Equation, I think. There should be a lot of life in our galaxy, but then there's the problem of why any advanced life that might exist hasn't contacted us (the Fermi paradox). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Explaining_the_paradox_theoretically I wish we would find life. The discovery of even bacterial life would be awesome. "New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week. " http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-life-viking-landers-discovery-120412.html |
To you realise how advanced life would need to be to be able to contact us from other solar systems? A lot more advanced than us, and let's just think about what happens when a species is more advanced than the other. We are 1-2% difference from chimpanzees. Just 1-2%. When was the last time you tried to speak with a chimpanzee? Even if there's sufficiently technologically advanced life out there, what makes you think they would want to communicate with us? Why do you think we would be even able to understand them? It's as if you were the chimp and the other species the humans, you wouldn't even begin to comprehend whatever they're saying. And even if you can communicate you still be left at a zoo, what use would they have for us? Anything we can do can also be done by one of their infants, the same way a 2 year old can do what the smartest chimpanzees do. |
To you realise how advanced life would need to be to be able to contact us from other solar systems? A lot more advanced than us, and let's just think about what happens when a species is more advanced than the other. The Fermi paradox is about our ability to detect alien lifeforms. not their willingness to talk to us. We use radio waves and it stands to reason other intelligent lifeforms also discovered these and use them for data transmission. An artificial radio signal is easily distinguished from natural sources (Else it wouldn't be very useful for data transmission eh.) Look at earth from anywhere within 150 light years (Maximum distance human generated radio waves could have traveled since we started using them, roughly) and it'll glow like a neon sign yelling "HELLO!! WE KNOW HOW TO USE RADIO HERE!!!!" The Fermi paradox is the apparent lack of such sources. And even if all aliens think we're dirt and ignore us they're not going to shut down all communications just to keep us from discovering them. Furthermore, due to the huge distances involved it's unlikely they'd even turn of their broadcasters in time for us not to notice. Lets say there is an alien planet with a crippling fear of social interaction at 5000 light years. If they wanted to prevent us from seeing them they'd have to turn off their radios 5000 years before we invent broadcasters. Furthermore, the information that we exist and might figure out how radios work also needs to travel from here to the aliens. Adding another 5000 years. Thus, if the aliens wanted to prevent us from seeing them they would need to have detected us 10.000 years ago. 10k years ago we where just leaving an ice age and discovering radio wasn't exactly our top priority... |
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Edited by Canoas on 15/04/12 21:22 (BST)
That's why I'm talking about technologically advanced species that can communicate with us but choose not to. The diameter of the milky way is about 80000 light years, our radio signals have travelled about 100 (you can't start counting at the moment of their discovery, you need to count from when they started being used) and the first modern SETI experiment was done only in 1960. What that means is that we've been only looking for such signals for about 50 years, so it's entirely possible for radio signals from another distant civilisation to have already passed by us when we were not looking, and they have since stopped transmitting. They can even be within the 100 ly radius, know of our existence and choose not to contact us. If 1000 years ago they started using radio signals and then stopped after some time then we couldn't have detected them but they can receive ours.
And our modern civilization has been around for a couple of hundred years, which is completely irrelevant to the age of the universe. It's very likely that there are species that reached our present day technology millions and millions of years ago and have no interest in meeting such a primitive society like ours. When was the last time you stopped to speak with a worm or snail you saw on the road or on a bush? If science/technology grows exponentially, which is something safe to assume taking into account it's history, then how much more advanced will a species evolve in just 1000 years? you have no use for a peasent from 1000 years ago. And like I said it's very very unlikely that the species closest to us have equivalent technology to ours. Most of them have surely passed us millions of years ago and the others will take millions of years to reach our present technology. |
That's why I'm talking about technologically advanced species that can communicate with us but choose not to. The diameter of the milky way is about 80000 light years, our radio signals have travelled about 100 (you can't start counting at the moment of their discovery, you need to count from when they started being used) and the first modern SETI experiment was done only in 1960. What that means is that we've been only looking for such signals for about 50 years, so it's entirely possible for radio signals from another distant civilisation to have already passed by us when we were not looking, and they have since stopped transmitting. They can even be within the 100 ly radius, know of our existence and choose not to contact us. If 1000 years ago they started using radio signals and then stopped after some time then we couldn't have detected them but they can receive ours. Begs the question: Why would an alien race that sees us as snails stop using radio waves specifically so we don't see them? And stopping to use radio waves is pretty unrealistic. It can be lessened (We're doing that right now, most communication goes via fiber optics nowadays.) but completely stop any use isn't plausible, you need some way to talk to satellites and other bodies that have no direct connection to the surface. I sincerely doubt that we'll stop using radio waves before humanity goes extinct. If it works there is no reason to stop using them. A similar example occurs for ships: We've made massive advances in engine design etc but since the earliest days we've sucked coolant right out of the ocean. Because why the hell not? It works and is practical. The same applies to radio waves. And assuming that aliens are logically thinking beings (And they have to be, else they wouldn't have figured out radio waves in the first place.) they'll come to the same conclusion. |
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Edited by Canoas on 16/04/12 11:22 (BST)
Begs the question: Why would an alien race that sees us as snails stop using radio waves specifically so we don't see them? Why are you even assuming that they have any use for radio waves? Yes, it is useful to us now, but in 1000 years, let alone a million years, we might not use them any more. If we're lessening it's usage just after 100 years why do you think we'll keep using it thousands and thousands of years later? It works and is practical now, it doesn't mean it'll still be practical in 100 years. For example, how do you know we won't start using neutrinos to communicate through the earth itself? http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/03/first-ever-wireless-data-transmission-using-neutrinos-works-a-treat/ Your lack of knowledge makes you assume that what we know now is somehow special when our modern civilization is just 200 years old. It isn't. An !@#$ habilis that figured out how to use stones tools would assume that stone is the best thing ever. It's practical, easy and cheap. Where in our society are those stone tools now? Museums. Any practical use? None whatsoever. |
Because of the reasons I stated earlier: it works. People tend to not radically change things that work. KISS principle kicks in here. Lets say you have some satellite orbiting your planet that you gotta communicate with. You could build some extremely complex system using wormholes that are kept stable with exotic particles, or you could just slap an antenna on the darn thing. I'm not saying the former will not be used, after all, there are certain limitations to radio waves. Extremely high baud rates for example, are hard to achieve with FM modulation because you need at least 1 wavelength to encrypt a bit and some kind of wormhole would be helpful here. But if you don't care about ultrahigh baudrates it is much cheaper and more practical to use radiowaves. For example, how do you know we won't start using neutrinos to communicate through the earth itself? For exactly the same reason I gave earlier. It is much easier and cheaper to use radiowaves, so to use anything else you need a damn good reason. To send data with neutrinos like in the article you linked you need a neutrino detector. And those are quite nasty to build. Because of their property to pass through matter with barely any interaction detecting them is hellish. We currently have to use massive tanks filled with some kind of material exhibiting scintillator properties lined with photo multipliers. I'm not saying this won't improve in the future, but it will always cost more effort than a simple antenna. Your lack of knowledge makes you assume that what we know now is somehow special when our modern civilization is just 200 years old. It isn't. Hammers are nothing more than a glorified stone on a stick. And I got plenty of knifes in my cabinet, probably the second invention humans made. And last I checked we still use fire in plenty of places. And you might want to check what material your house is made of. In fact, our current technology supports my hypothesis a lot better than yours. We develop new technology to do things our old could not, but we still use the old technology when we do not need the speed and efficiency of newer technologies in order to save expenses. I'm not saying that we won't discover and use amazing new technologies in the future that will outperform current solutions by staggering amounts. I'm just saying that current day techniques will still have a place in the future. They might become more complicated, a current day hammer to a stone age one is like a ATLAS V to a water rocket. But the basic principle behind them will remain the same. |
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Edited by Canoas on 16/04/12 21:16 (BST)
I'll sum it up instead of making each post longer and longer:
Now you can say that neutrino communication is expensive and complicated, but what exactly makes you think it'll still be in 1000 years? Do you really think science will stop progressing? Just because it's expensive and complicated now doesn't mean it will always be. Radio waves communication was once complicated as well, now look where we are. Hammers are glorified stones on a stick, but that only proves my point. Even though a stone on a stick would work fine to hammer a nail, we go for something more complicated to make because it's better. Back then we used copper, bronze and iron knives. Now we use stainless steel knives. Just like now we communicate through radio waves in some situations, in the future a new form of wireless communication might be discovered. You simply have absolutely no idea whether radio waves will be used in the future or not. There's no single argument that you can make that proves it because you haven't been to the future or contacted a more advanced race. You have absolutely no evidence to back up your statement, and for each example that you give for old technologies still being used I'll give you an example of a technology that isn't in use any more. You simply do not know, and you can't make an affirmation without the knowledge to back it up. If we come up with a more efficient and cheaper way to communicate than radio waves then we'll stop using them. If we don't then we'll continue using them. What are the chances of not figuring a better way in the next million years? Practically null. |
