4 hours ago, birdguy said:

Maybe less wars but modern wars are much more violent and kill many more soldiers and civilians.

We have the *potential* to kill many more people.  There were many wars over the past couple thousand years in which hundreds of thousands and even millions of people were killed.

The sad history of mankind is one of nearly constant war. 

I'm not so sure an advanced alien race would want to make friends with us.

Dave

19 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

I'm not so sure an advanced alien race would want to make friends with us.

We have all seen how everything goes wrong when they land in Washington but I think, if they first land on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, this whole first contact thing would go a lot more smoothly.

3 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

We have all seen how everything goes wrong when they land in Washington but I think, if they first land on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, this whole first contact thing would go a lot more smoothly.

If you ask me they've already landed on Parliament Hill!

3 hours ago, FBW737 said:

They can synthesize exotic mate

Like nonbiodegradable, nonrecyclable plastic that will here longer than the cockroaches.

And every day we're told not to buy water in plastic bottles bit every day cases and cases of bottled water in plastic bottles are delivered to our supermarkets.  Is there any soft drink that is not put into plastic bottles?  Plastic food containers abound.

In the motion picture The Graduate Dustin Hoffman is told to get into plastics.  Plastics are the future he is told.  That's right.  Plastics will be in our future until the sun goes nova and tries to destroy our planet of plastic.

I wonder if we will be the first and only charred ball of plastic in the universe or if some other world has already beat us to it.

Noel

Edited November 16, 20223 yr by birdguy

35 minutes ago, FBW737 said:

If you ask me they've already landed on Parliament Hill!

When I was travelling and people asked me where I was from I told them Roswell New Mexico.  Invariably they would ask me if I had ever seen any Aliens.  I would tell them, "Every time I got to a city council meeting."

Noel

On 11/14/2022 at 10:10 PM, FBW737 said:

I have never believed in Extraterrestrial Life since the first and last time I ever seriously considered the possibility but there is a whole bunch of main stream positions that I completely disagree with.

There's little  green men on my lawn. They ran for the saucer when I turned on a flashlight. So they do exist. 

15 hours ago, FBW737 said:

There a lot of confirmation bias going on here. Just because one wants something be true doesn't make it true

 

There's zero confirmation bias. the bias is on your side I would say. Nobody is saying "it's true". Just that if life is here, its pretty obvious there's a "possibility" its elsewhere, especially in the same natural environment. If it can happen once, it can obviously happen twice and possibly multiple times. Pay attention to the word possibly in bold. If something is impossible it never happens. If something happens its obviously possible.

 

15 hours ago, FBW737 said:

will make everything look like evidence of its truth.

 

Huh... you are aware that YOU do actually exist? Along with trillions of life forms on this planet? You are the evidence that life can exist. Thus its possible. 

To be cognizant of the fact that there are 8.7 million species on this planet, and untold trillions of individual living entities, and then say definitively, "nothing exists elsewhere or possibly could exist elsewhere is totally bizarre to be honest. Obviously life could possibly be elsewhere if its here. 

For you to believe, that on a world with the same environmental conditions as here, same orbit, same goldilocks zone, same temperature range, couldn't also have evolved live makes no sense  I'm afraid.  

13 hours ago, FBW737 said:

Another example of something we though we had ample evidence for that turned out to be wrong.

 

And that "wrongness" is in favor of life being fully capable of existing in all manner of extreme locations, possibly extra-terrestrially like is does here.

 

13 hours ago, FBW737 said:

We can at the LHC reproduce the conditions near the beginning of the universe. We can split the atom. They can synthesize exotic mater etc. etc. etc. We can mimic nearly everything in mature including intelligence and yet we cannot do something simple like produce a simple living organism out of inanimate mater.

 

No we can't mimic nearly everything in nature, and no we can't mimic intelligence, no AI we have is intelligent. As for creating life, we are heading in that direction, we have created cells from scratch. We have also created human made DNA. We don't know the exact spark for life but we have good theories. There's a multitude of things we are yet to discover, that doesn't mean its done by magic if we don't know. And it matters not how life was originally created, whether by supernatural means or by natural means, if its occurred on this planet, in this environment and generated many trillions of examples, its logically possible for it to be elsewhere too. 

 

14 hours ago, FBW737 said:

There is ZERO evidence that there is life anywhere else in the universe other than earth.

 

You seem to be on the wrong page as the rest of us. Nobody anywhere in this discussion has claimed there's definitive evidence of life in outer space, other than here, of course there isn't, no scientists has made a remarkable breakthrough and said such a thing. Read my replies, I typed the important words in bold. Life on other worlds is obviously possible, because it exists here. Possible does not mean it does...

Possible definition: "May exist or happen, but that is not certain or probable."

 

 

15 hours ago, birdguy said:

Thet's silly.  No modern nation fights with swords and spears anymore.  And the better the weapons you have the more violence you wreak.  The American Indian wars are a perfect example.  The Indians with bows and arrows or just rifles suffered many more casualties than the American Cavalry with repeating rifles, Gatling guns and cannon.

My country has been at war continuously on many fronts since the end of WW2.  Here's the list:

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

The threat of war between Russia and China against the West, while not a hot war, is nevertheless a threat of violence like the ancient world never saw.  Indeed the modern world has never seen.

Add to that an instable nation like North Korea flexing it's muscle from time to time with the propensity of something going wrong like a missile fired over Japan but falling short could start yet another conflict.  And as the sides line up.

I served in the military.  My brother served in the military.  My grandson served in the military.  And I have no doubt my great grandsons will serve in the military.

Noel

 

 

 

Yes, the better the weapons' you have the more violence you wreak, obviously.

But what we are looking at is our species propensity for violence. Wars are created by a very few individuals. Millions of people in one nation don't all decide to stage a war, Its just a few individual politicians responsible.

If "you" as an individual, had access to a nuclear weapon, then just you, one person, could wreak utter devastation and kill thousands. If just you, one person, had access to a control panel that unleashed Armageddon, again, you would be just one person. and its  not the average propensity of one person for violence we are talking about. We are talking about our species as a whole, society as a whole, civilization as a whole. 

Read Pinker's article I linked to earlier. 

On 11/14/2022 at 12:55 PM, birdguy said:

Given our history up to today do you think we will ever turn benevolent to survive?

Noel

That would be an emphatic "No". The world is probably more polarized now than ever before. If it weren't for nuclear weapons we would likely be fighting another world war. I see little hope for the human race.

Bill W

5 hours ago, martin-w said:

There's zero confirmation bias.

I'm sorry I offended you. Maybe we can be friends and go cherry picking? 😁

5 hours ago, martin-w said:

If it can happen once, it can obviously happen twice and possibly multiple times

As Frank Sinatra once almost said: "If it can make it here, it'll make it anywhere"

Edited November 16, 20223 yr by dmwalker

18 hours ago, dmwalker said:

Should we stop looking, then?

You can look all you like as long as I don't have to pay for it.🤣

5 hours ago, martin-w said:

If "you" as an individual, had access to a nuclear weapon, then just you, one person, could wreak utter devastation and kill thousands.

Of course it's just one person, or a small group of persons.

word not allowed was one person.  Tojo was one person.  Hi Chi Minh was one person.  Putin is one person.  It's usually a dictator who starts a war.  But people en masse are powerless to stop him.

When Roosevelt declared war on Japan he needed the approval of congress.  But with the War Powers Act he doesn't need that anymore.  That's how we got involved in Vietnam.  An incident, real or made up, in the Gulf of Tonkin and a step by step trail leading to all out war.

And therein lies the problem.  Humanity will ALWAYs be plagued with dictators.  Especially those who have a following.  And eventually one who has the means and is losing will take the final step.

How do you stop them?

Noel

Hi Chi Minh??  Ho Chi Minh's twin brother? 🤔

I think this topic has gotten off track....BIG TIME!  Close to shutdown!