8 ms·

I'm still having a hard time contemplating the fact that WE exist. Sitting in front of our flat monitors with access to nearly all information which is stored

by dm2 13y ago

I'm still having a hard time contemplating the fact that WE exist. Sitting in front of our flat monitors with access to nearly all information which is stored all around planet Earth. Phones that connect us to billions of people. Brains large enough to hypothesize the creation of the universe. We can create rockets that send probes to other planets and even the edge of our solar system. We regularly travel around in amazing personal vehicles that allow us to travel at over 100 mph in about 10 seconds. The fact that each one of us had about one quadrillionth percent chance of even being born, yet here we are. The fact that we can even talk and communicate effectively is amazing. We can imagine future technologies and have goals to work towards such as immortality, brain-computer interfaces, teleportation, and mining asteroids. We have so much to be thankful for. Everything is amazing. WTF. [0] I have a dog that can't do anything but eat, pee, poop, and play fetch. What kind of activities do other organisms do that humans can't do? Other than telepathy, and flight, and breathing without oxygen, and energy creation through sunlight. Yet we still make fellow humans and animals suffer daily. We eat shit food and get depressed and some people even try to kill themselves. We have concepts like good and evil and actually hate other humans just because they are not exactly like our culture or have more stuff than we do. We have enough nuclear missiles in the ocean to eradicate life on earth. Terraforming mars will be fun. I hope that I live to see the start of that adventure. The next 100 years in general will be very fun. I'm extremely glad that I get to be a part of this awesome world at this extraordinary time in human history. Please, nobody fuck it up too bad. My point is, regarding the article, ANYTHING is possible. God is possible, ghosts are possible, flying spaghetti monsters are possible but until I see a video with convincing explanation or accredited scientists agree that something is very likely, is there really any point of just making up stuff? Mars having a thriving self-sustaining human-like civilization underground is possible. Aliens living among us for several years is possible. No scientist will say that either of those hypothesis are absolutely impossible, but there is no point in proposing it unless you're writing a science fiction novel/movie/comic book.

rodly 13y ago
It did take us a long time to get here though. Luckily things build on each other and we're good at patterns.
- dm2 13y ago
  A relatively long time compared to our day to day lives. Is it possible for other organisms to perceive time differently than we do or is time pretty much fixed? Also, I'd be willing to bet that our sex drive had a decent role in evolution. Basically be strong, smart, and acquire stuff so we can put our dicks into pretty females.
  - pasquinelli 13y ago
    oh, interesting. so women have no sex drive? their evolutionary imperative is to be pretty and get dicks stuck in them? fascinating. tell me more.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    I think "pasquinelli" makes a good point about how male-normative this comment is, but also I think "pasquinelli" might be hell-banned.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      It's also underestimating ideas: we don't just shape the world around us by having kids, to put it mildly. The most influential people of history may or may not have had kids; for the most part we don't know because it hardly matters to us. I also think it's putting the horse before the cart. To some degree we don't even shape the world to have kids, we also have kids to shape the world. That is, for them to live, because we like to live. Life likes to live; it also likes to see other life thrive. That with similar genes preferably, sure, but also simply life in general. Plus, from the perspective of genes, it makes zero difference if "my" genes or similar ones that "belong" to someone else are replicated, completely contrary to how we feel about that.... which to me is another indication that this view of life being this endless and futile struggle (harshly put, like a malignant cancer trapped in a finite universe), is more to do with cultural pathology or delusion than life itself.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Careful, you'll unleash the PC monster...
img 13y ago
Reminds me of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw (Only click if you're SURE you have 6 minutes to kill)
- femto 13y ago
  It looked promising to start with, but it is diminished by using Hollywood footage instead of real world events.
  - dm2 13y ago
    This is the image with the quote written on it. It's a picture of Earth taken from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, Earth is that small dot in the top ray of sunlight. http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/skyimage/pbdwords.jpg http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/skyimage/pbdwords.jpg
GuiA 13y ago
> WTF. [0] Did you forget a footnote? :)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jjcm 13y ago
  Not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but this is probably a reference to reddit's r/trees subreddit's way of noting how high the user is. It's a 0-10 scale, 0 being entirely sober. In this context he would be saying that it's mindblowing, despite not being high.
inportb 13y ago
Meanwhile, this dog is doing science. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAKS7mQTw0k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAKS7mQTw0k
cabalamat 13y ago
> The next 100 years in general will be very fun. Unless they are not. For example, we might get a total surveillance society, ruled by a tyranny that cannot be overthrown, because it controls everyone's use of information. We seem to be heading that way now. Or a bad singularity that turns the solar system into paperclips. Or one of those old favourites, nuclear war and ecological catastrophe. It is not obvious to me that humans will still be around in 100 years. Which would be sad considering we may be the only sapient life in the universe.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  Relevant xkcd (mostly the alt-text): http://xkcd.com/728/ http://xkcd.com/728/.
Houshalter 13y ago
There is a massive difference between "possible" and "possible with a small but non-trivial probability". This is evidence for the hypothesis that there is life on Titan. Weak evidence, but it still increases the probability enough to actually start speculating and possibly justify further research.

by dm2 13y ago

rodly 13y ago

It did take us a long time to get here though. Luckily things build on each other and we're good at patterns.

dm2 13y ago
A relatively long time compared to our day to day lives. Is it possible for other organisms to perceive time differently than we do or is time pretty much fixed? Also, I'd be willing to bet that our sex drive had a decent role in evolution. Basically be strong, smart, and acquire stuff so we can put our dicks into pretty females.
- pasquinelli 13y ago
  oh, interesting. so women have no sex drive? their evolutionary imperative is to be pretty and get dicks stuck in them? fascinating. tell me more.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  I think "pasquinelli" makes a good point about how male-normative this comment is, but also I think "pasquinelli" might be hell-banned.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    It's also underestimating ideas: we don't just shape the world around us by having kids, to put it mildly. The most influential people of history may or may not have had kids; for the most part we don't know because it hardly matters to us. I also think it's putting the horse before the cart. To some degree we don't even shape the world to have kids, we also have kids to shape the world. That is, for them to live, because we like to live. Life likes to live; it also likes to see other life thrive. That with similar genes preferably, sure, but also simply life in general. Plus, from the perspective of genes, it makes zero difference if "my" genes or similar ones that "belong" to someone else are replicated, completely contrary to how we feel about that.... which to me is another indication that this view of life being this endless and futile struggle (harshly put, like a malignant cancer trapped in a finite universe), is more to do with cultural pathology or delusion than life itself.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Careful, you'll unleash the PC monster...

img 13y ago

Reminds me of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw (Only click if you're SURE you have 6 minutes to kill)

femto 13y ago
It looked promising to start with, but it is diminished by using Hollywood footage instead of real world events.
- dm2 13y ago
  This is the image with the quote written on it. It's a picture of Earth taken from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, Earth is that small dot in the top ray of sunlight. http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/skyimage/pbdwords.jpg http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/skyimage/pbdwords.jpg

GuiA 13y ago

> WTF. [0] Did you forget a footnote? :)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jjcm 13y ago
Not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but this is probably a reference to reddit's r/trees subreddit's way of noting how high the user is. It's a 0-10 scale, 0 being entirely sober. In this context he would be saying that it's mindblowing, despite not being high.

inportb 13y ago

Meanwhile, this dog is doing science. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAKS7mQTw0k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAKS7mQTw0k

cabalamat 13y ago

> The next 100 years in general will be very fun. Unless they are not. For example, we might get a total surveillance society, ruled by a tyranny that cannot be overthrown, because it controls everyone's use of information. We seem to be heading that way now. Or a bad singularity that turns the solar system into paperclips. Or one of those old favourites, nuclear war and ecological catastrophe. It is not obvious to me that humans will still be around in 100 years. Which would be sad considering we may be the only sapient life in the universe.

TeMPOraL 13y ago
Relevant xkcd (mostly the alt-text): http://xkcd.com/728/ http://xkcd.com/728/.

Houshalter 13y ago

There is a massive difference between "possible" and "possible with a small but non-trivial probability". This is evidence for the hypothesis that there is life on Titan. Weak evidence, but it still increases the probability enough to actually start speculating and possibly justify further research.