what a 4th grader was taught

[Colossal]

Freedom and responsibility is messy.

Free market capitalism is predicated upon the fallacy of infinite expansion and yet everyone knows that when the forest is cut, there is no more wood. Humans feel the pressure to consume in the light of full knowledge that a resource is finite because they see their fellow man continuing to consume, so everyone must "get theirs" before it's gone, even though they know it is to everyone's detriment. Worry about it when we get there.

This is Hardin's notion of psychological denial as it is now hard-wired in our DNA. It is and will be our undoing. The carrying capacity k of a system is defined by the conversion of exponential growth to a sigmoidal curve (flattening of a J-curve). Science speculates when that will occur in the human population (9 billion is number that gets thrown around). It will come in the form of nuclear war, viral outbreak, grid shutdown, or an asteroid strike, or something else. This isn't spooky Book of Revelations talk, it is an unconscious law of nature. Ma Nature is going to hit the RESET button sooner or later.

Doomsday Preppers may seem like "kooks" but they are driven by our ever- evolving genes that put survival at the forefront. It's interesting that they are not "pretty people" but salt-of-the-earth types that invest in knowledge to make it through harder times ahead.

"Mom's comin' 'round to put it back the way it oughta be"
- Tool, AEnema

[Leo_Gnardo]

You familiar with Eugenics?

Geez I went to school with him! 45 years ago. The skinny Ukrainian guy with no vowels in his last name. Eugenics Synyszyn. What did he do?

[NickC]

^^^ I hear you Dave.

My first degree was in Sociology (not that it matters, I consider it a pseudo-science).

Ever read Foundation by Isaac Asimov? Or Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? Or Small Town In Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community by Arthur Joseph Vidich and Joseph Bensman? It is interesting how the academic Small Town book parallels concepts in the other two science fiction tomes.

It is possible to live in harmony with Nature (with a capital N). But, as you say, it isn't necessarily the mindset of mass society, which is seemingly programmed for mass consumption. I see two major forces squeezing average folks from different directions: governments and multi-national conglomerate corporations. Both have fascistic tendencies.

I think B.F. Skinner's observations are spot on. The world feels ever-more like a vast Skinner Box.

However, I don't think a "reset" or great calamity wiping out a large portion of the population will ever change human nature in the long run. The Black Death didn't. Nor did the Great Flood.

[LeftyStrat]

Yes. It doesn't work. Pretty people are stupid too.

Miles, that is fucking brilliant.

And in some ways it sums up the human condition. We're only smart enough to destroy ourselves. We haven't become smart enough to save ourselves.

Years ago, Martin Gardner wrote in his Mathematic Games column in Scientific American about a simple simulation involving two species, fish and sharks, I believe.

Sharks fed on fish, and you could play with the parameters of how long sharks could go without food, or how often fish reproduced.

There was such a miniscule range where the ecosystem would continue. Too much advantage to the sharks and the fish population would die out, leading to the sharks starving. Too much advantage to the fish and the sharks die, leading to over-population of the fish.

It's funny in a way. Us humans kind of trumped evolution once we got "intelligent." We became able to adapt much faster than the normal evolutionary timetable.

The last variable in the Drake equation, used to estimate the number of detectable civilizations in our galaxy, is L, which is basically how long an intelligent civilization would last. I guess that will be the last thing we learn.

[Reeltarded]

L=1 go round. I am ok with being exclusive and way way over here. According to logic (and Enrico Fermi) there is no them there.

Everybody looks up but nobody reaches the stars. If stuff is smart throughout the Universe it is so locally. Trapped by special relativity. Bitch, huh?

why is my pad deleting stuff? pos

[cbass]

You guys are blowing what s left of my mind.

Doctor says my brain cells is burnt up like the ashes on the end uva ciggarette

[Leo_Gnardo]

You guys are blowing what s left of my mind. Doctor says my brain cells is burnt up like the ashes on the end uva ciggarette

Oh they quote philosophers n scientists, reduce big concepts to a letter in an equation, that's all very good but -

but I enjoy what you've been typing on here too. Nothing wrong with your brain. Doc's just upset 'cause he knows he won't be making a fortune off of you. Sometimes people with degrees plastered all over their office walls are the biggest fools of all. Have a good Saturday - look @ the calendar and celebrate accordingly.

It's been an interesting week.

[LeftyStrat]

Fermi Paradox:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

The Drake Equation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drake_Equation

Fermi calculated that it would take a civilization 5 to 50 million years to colonize our galaxy. Considering our sun is a relatively new star, and other stars a billions of years old. This should have already happened.

The Drake Equation was in response to the Fermi Paradox. The L variable was the last term in the equation, and represents the amount of time a civilization would release detectable signals into space.

Our civilization has only been detectable less than 100 years. It would end if we somehow manage to destroy ourselves, or be destroyed by an asteroid.

My problem with the Fermi paradox is the assumption that a civilization could last five million years. We haven't managed to end war, and if we ever manage to colonize Mars, the colonists would probably declare independence and then we'd struggle with planet wars for many years.

While we've managed great technological achievements, we certainly don't seem to be getting much more mature as a species. Certainly not enough to unite with the goal of colonizing the galaxy.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Fermi calculated that it would take a civilization 5 to 50 million years to colonize our galaxy. Considering our sun is a relatively new star, and other stars a billions of years old. This should have already happened.

The Drake Equation was in response to the Fermi Paradox. The L variable was the last term in the equation, and represents the amount of time a civilization would release detectable signals into space.

Our civilization has only been detectable less than 100 years. It would end if we somehow manage to destroy ourselves, or be destroyed by an asteroid.

Methinks Fermi sort of left something out. Unless there's a super advanced technology that can accelerate "potential colonists" to some good fraction of c, speed of light, they're going to take a heck of a long time getting around a galaxy 100 million light years diameter.

About 100 years of broadcasting radio/TV/EMP flashes from atomic tests, etc. Aliens "in the neighborhood" will get a kick out of watching I Love Lucy & The Honeymooners, no? But if some group of aliens really does find a planet that's "easy to knock over" that could do the trick too, besides some of our own doom-hungry "religious" motivated politicians or random asteroid.

Well, it's spring & besides, look at the calendar. Let's dig where we are, & what we got. Hoo-wee! Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

[LeftyStrat]

I thought of another thing to take into account. Let's say we find a nice planet to colonize, that happens to have some primitive lifeforms. Perhaps some nasty type of bacteria, or a virus similar to smallpox. Colonizing another planet is got to be a hell of a lot harder than colonizing a continent.

While intelligent life may not be ubiquitous, I think some forms of life would be. We've found bacteria living around lava vents on the ocean floor.

The other thing is that we have intelligent life on this planet that we still haven't learned to communicate with, i.e. dolphins, whales, elephants. They may not be technologically advanced, but they do have intelligence and language.

[Reeltarded]

There will be no colonizing other planets. heh Fermi's question doesn't have a border.

[LeftyStrat]

Here's a fascinating article on the most bizarre solutions to Fermi's Paradox:

http://io9.com/11-of-the-weirdest-solut ... -456850746

The berserker probe is kind of interesting to extrapolate on. Imagine a civilization has begun expansion only with disastrous results, say encountering a deadly bacteria that causes an epidemic. Perhaps they would decide the only way to expand throughout the galaxy is to sterilize planets and then terraform them before colonization. Thus less advanced civilizations would be wiped out, and the colonization process would take considerably longer, i.e. unlike Star Trek, terraforming would be an incredibly slow process.

[Leo_Gnardo]

I thought of another thing to take into account. Let's say we find a nice planet to colonize, that happens to have some primitive lifeforms. Perhaps some nasty type of bacteria, or a virus similar to smallpox.

And they, us. See HG Wells, War of the Worlds.

The other thing is that we have intelligent life on this planet that we still haven't learned to communicate with, i.e. dolphins, whales, elephants.

I do that in my sleep. My snoring is legendary.

There will be no colonizing other planets. heh Fermi's question doesn't have a border.

Let's just not take Fermi with us, OK?

Building the first reactor under the grandstand @ U Chicago, brrrr. If that went wrong, would have been the first Chernobyl. I'll just call him "Lucky" Enrico from now on. Fermi was a smart feller all right but not every great scientist is right about everything. And yes I know he had to scratch around for "lab space" to set that reactor up, didn't have much choice. Let's also say a quiet thank you to the Manhattan Project folks, also to Werner Heisenberg and Lise Meitner who figured out the "secret" and kept their mouths zipped so the Nazis didn't get to build their A-bomb.

[LeftyStrat]

And they, us. See HG Wells, War of the Worlds.

I realized that after I posted. That would certainly give pause to further colonization. From the martians point of view, the only way they could expand is to develop technology to sterilize a planet.

Maybe a civilization has already observed us, and decide not to contact us, after all, we're made out of meat:

http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

[NickC]

........
Maybe a civilization has already observed us, and decide not to contact us, after all, we're made out of meat:

http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Excellent!