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People will believe anything...
- Thread starter rootabaga
- Start date
Milo Willamson
Android Expert
Of course, people have always been gulliable, if you bluff to them so much, people might think out of contact.
It's funny if you look at the assumptions behind this though.
The proposal is that there are extraterrestrial intelligences, capable of crossing interstellar space (which means either physics we know nothing of or taking centuries, millenia or more), and who on arriving at the Earth spend the time needed to understand the biochemical basis of a biosphere that is completely alien to them in sufficient detail that they can engineer the organisms they find there. And what justifies this immense effort, beyond anything we could dream of doing even if we devoted the entire resources of our planet to achieving this? Apparently the collection of a quantity of a metal with no noteworthy properties except a resistance to oxidation and good electrical conductivity.
It's the mismatch between the capabilities required and the extremely mundane objective, and the idea that entities with these capabilities would for some reason regard gold in the same way that a stereotypical miser or bank robber does, that has me shaking my head. Not to mention the fact that any race so capable could doubtless obtain all of the gold it wanted far more simply.
I showed this proposal to my friend William of Occam. That slight vibration you can feel is him spinning in his grave a little faster...
The proposal is that there are extraterrestrial intelligences, capable of crossing interstellar space (which means either physics we know nothing of or taking centuries, millenia or more), and who on arriving at the Earth spend the time needed to understand the biochemical basis of a biosphere that is completely alien to them in sufficient detail that they can engineer the organisms they find there. And what justifies this immense effort, beyond anything we could dream of doing even if we devoted the entire resources of our planet to achieving this? Apparently the collection of a quantity of a metal with no noteworthy properties except a resistance to oxidation and good electrical conductivity.
It's the mismatch between the capabilities required and the extremely mundane objective, and the idea that entities with these capabilities would for some reason regard gold in the same way that a stereotypical miser or bank robber does, that has me shaking my head. Not to mention the fact that any race so capable could doubtless obtain all of the gold it wanted far more simply.
I showed this proposal to my friend William of Occam. That slight vibration you can feel is him spinning in his grave a little faster...
Milo Willamson
Android Expert
If we are all intelligent, then why we squander ammunition against our own kids?
Amazing as it might seem, that's small change on the scale of human stupidity when you compare it to the damage we do to the climate and ecosystem, or even the adherence to political and economic models where an ever larger fraction of resources go to an ever smaller fraction of the population.
Trust me, I never said that humans were intelligent.
puppykickr
Android Expert
If any of it was real, then there must be a use for gold that we have not discovered yet.
Our exterterrestrial robotic overlords will be made of gold like Gort from the documentary "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951).
So the human race is harvesting gold for aliens...
Rotflmao
Rotflmao
Milo Willamson
Android Expert
All the people proclaiming "Trust me I am an engineer" all of a sudden just show us their degree.
Either that or try to outwit one another.
Either that or try to outwit one another.
Showing a degree may not mean much: an awful lot of British politicians have had degrees in Politics, Philosophy and Economics yet showed a woeful lack of understanding of any of those things. 
Milo Willamson
Android Expert
True but getting tired of the "Are you an engineer, can I trust you?" type cliche, come now, it is so worn out.Showing a degree may not mean much: an awful lot of British politicians have had degrees in Politics, Philosophy and Economics yet showed a woeful lack of understanding of any of those things.
I came to an agreement with the ants in my neighborhood to mine gold for me in exchange for stop stomping on their homes.
I should get my first .001 gram any year now.
Except for building Gorts the alien theory doesn't make sense.
I should get my first .001 gram any year now.
Except for building Gorts the alien theory doesn't make sense.
Milo Willamson
Android Expert
I just got fooled by "if you turn this bird upside down" joke. "People will buy anything."
Yes. Actually I can see no conceptual reason why you can't have sentience without intelligence, or intelligence without sentience.So you're suggesting that "sentient" ≠ "intelligent"?
Milo Willamson
Android Expert
Qualms are setting up for a retro view, and yet it is feeling that are passive then(Technically, I was being just a tad facetious.
I just read that at an Australian 5g/anti-vaxx/covid conspriacist rally (equally nutty as flat Earth, and equally incoherent) one speaker asked people to put their hands up if they had died of flu...
@Hadron I know everyone in the UK, and other places, has been subject to repeated lockdowns and curfews, and so they'll spend a lot more time stuck at home looking at things on the interwebs.
I had a phone call with my dad in Bristol last week, he was asking me, "What did I think of David Icke?", so I just told him, please ignore that stuff.
rootabaga
Android Expert
If Mr. Occam is spinning, does that mean his razor is electric?
I remember posting this on social media because I thought it was a really cool picture. Within minutes of posting it, the picture got the reply, "is this real?" I kept telling myself "hands off keyboard... hands off keyboard... hands off keyboard" and restrained myself from getting really, really sarcastic.
I live in middle Tennessee and 4 hours from the nearest Navy base (and it's the Navy personnel command). I was at a veterans function in tiny Cowan, Tennessee and told a couple of old ladies that I'm retired Navy. You'd think they would pick up on the word "retired" but alas....
They told me they didn't know there was a Navy base in the area. I couldn't resist it. I told them that we had a very small submarine base on the Duck River (pictured below). They believed me! I put my finger to my lips and told them it was a very small sub base, very secret. (I didn't clarify that the sub base was very small - I sort of implied that the base was for very small subs. Disguised as crawfish.
They told me they didn't know there was a Navy base in the area. I couldn't resist it. I told them that we had a very small submarine base on the Duck River (pictured below). They believed me! I put my finger to my lips and told them it was a very small sub base, very secret. (I didn't clarify that the sub base was very small - I sort of implied that the base was for very small subs. Disguised as crawfish.