One of my favorite things about this blog is how dedicated Neo is to it, evidenced by all the broken links on the blog roll: Neo’s kept at it longer than so many others. If she ever updates the blog roll, we will lose that. So I vote for not wasting time updating the blog roll, Neo. I support blocking ingrates who clog these pages with stern directives that you do otherwise.
To quote Pontius Pilate, “What is Truth.” John 18:38
I am reading a very interesting 2019 Oxford University Press book by Professor of Religion D. W. Pasulka, titled, “American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology” and one of the points she makes is that images that are created as entertainment are conflated with Reality–they “sink in,” flesh things out, and add detail, become part of our memories–and that is is hard, thereafter, for many people to distinguish which parts of their memories are false and which are true.
She points out, as well, that images and ideas about Aliens and UFOs saturate our culture, and some entertainment companies have even interwoven images of aliens and things like Star Trek characters with images of real life, to the point where some believe what they are seeing is real.
She even points to the new religion of Jediism, apparently ascribed to by thousands of people, some of whom believe they are Jedi Knights, whose guiding light is “The Force.”
She also points to studies showing how young people—immersed in electronic media and their images and ideas–have problems distinguishing what is fact from what is fiction.
She does not make this point, but it seems to me that if people in, say, K-12, are taught a firm foundation of what is “true” they then will have points of reference which will enable them to have an easier time of determining what sticks to the truth, and what increasingly moves away from it.
The problem is, of course, how do you initially determine what is “the truth”—as has been said, ”where you sit determines what you see.”
It seems to me that you have to first pick a “truth,” a position about what is and what isn’t, and then stick to it, unless and until new information comes along which forces you–however reluctantly–to modify that “truth.”
Good summary of the topic on the video. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t interview any biologists. From my own experience, there’s a deep divide in that field; the majority think that intelligence is an extremely rare event and even if there is life, ETI doesn’t exist. Then there’s the minority opinion which sides much more with the physical sciences.
The Fermi Paradox is a true stumbling block. My particular thought is that we’ve only been doing a serious search for about 60 years, so give it some more time. The downside is that now that we know basically all stars have planets, the continuing lack of ETI evidence is troubling. One solution proposed, of course, is that we are in quarantine….gotta work covid in here somehow 🙂
Just watched the Video of the Mounted Police in Ottawa, twice. I appears that someone was trying to protect the woman on the scooter but got knock out of the way and then the woman was knocked out of the scooter onto the ground, along with another person. Anyone else watch it? Am I right? They are keeping reporter out of the area, hide what they are doing?
The Trudeau Regime is going to great lengths to protect the vaccine mandates. Cui bono?
Vogons rule in Ottowa.
“The downside is that now that we know basically all stars have planets, the continuing lack of ETI evidence is troubling.”
It should be thrilling because it means all we have to do is lick that pesky “faster than light” thing and the universe is OURS.
Mike
Jim M: “I vote for not wasting time updating the blog roll, Neo”
Or keep them but move them to new category like “broken” or “emeritus”
(You’re perfectly correct that neo doesn’t owe us a cleanup, but I sympathize with tidy people)
Snow on Pine @ 10:39 AM;
“It seems to me that you have to first pick a “truth,” a position about what is and what isn’t, and then stick to it………..”
Well, it seems to me that you should first develop an hypothesis, then endeavor to prove it wrong.
If you can’t prove it wrong, then it must be correct.
The problem with first believing something is true, is that as a thinking human being , (of course, this automatically leaves out demokrats) you will be prone to confirmation bias.
You will see “evidence” or correlations (correlations do not imply causation) affirming your pre-existing opinion/belief, when in fact the evidence is simply a coincidence or not really there at all.
Or worse, you will interpret the “real” evidence you have, in a manner that confirms your pre-existing beliefs.
Anyone else watch it? Am I right? They are keeping reporter out of the area, hide what they are doing?
I was watching and agree. Like fascists everywhere, they are lying.
I follow smalldeadanimals.com
I watched it SHIREHOME. The Ottawa police claimed that someone threw a bike at the horse. They were ignorant of the images that showed the woman’s walker in the horse’s wake, with the woman on the ground, likely because they thought they had ejected al the journalists.
I’ve seen other reports that the Ottawa PD couldn’t find enough of their officers to participate, so they had to ship in officers from Toronto and Montreal, especially the Sûreté de Quebec (SQ), the Provincial Police of Quebec.
physicsguy,
My latest novel (roughly 50% written) is about the quarantine (and treating us like mushrooms; keeping us in the dark and feeding us BS) of Earth due to the fact that the the numerous alien races are terrified of us, due to our warlike nature and fear us getting access to their technology. In essence, we’re the Klingons.
Until an even greater threat looms, and the aliens must “break glass in case of emergency” and bring humans into the big fight.
I doubt that I have looked at ANYONE’S blog roll in 10-12 years. It seems like an obsolete concept.
SHIREHOME,
I guess these idiots never saw Dr. Zhivago. I doubt anyone saw the dragoons as “good guys”.
When the CCP had to eliminate the protests at Tianamen Square (the good old days Z) they had to bring in PLA units from Mongolia IIRC. Local PLA units weren’t down with the planned massacre.
Mongolia or Manchuria, locals wouldn’t do it.
Even the Daily Mail today doesn’t have the photo of the horses running down the woman on the disability scooter. What gives? That shot should be enough to bring down Trudeau.
Do we have to relive every inanity from the 1970s?
Watched the video which was interesting, but the thing that always strikes me is what was referenced by the last person interviewed.
What if any Aliens are communicating using means that are based on principles we as yet have no knowledge of and, thus, can’t detect? The Universe and our Galaxy may be alight with forms of communication that neither us nor our instruments can perceive.
If we don’t have a receiver, and don’t know the first thing about how to construct one, or what principles such a receiver might work on, how can we expect to detect anything very advanced Aliens might be communicating using those principles?
Next, it seems to me that there is an implicit assumption here that any Aliens “out there” would likely want to, and have an urgent need to, communicate with and to associate with us.
Aliens are by definition “alien,” so why—based on our only example, us–assume that such Aliens might have any motivations and needs that are similar to ours? Perhaps such Aliens aren’t interested in the least in “communicating,” but just want to be left alone.
Finally, there is the “Zoo hypothesis,” that more evolved beings of a higher order of intelligence might view us the way we view unpredictable and sometimes violent, shit-flinging monkeys in the zoo and, so, they see to it that we are similarly monitored and confined.
I accept the existence of saucers,
I concede there’s a case
To be made for believing that something’s achieving
the conquest of space;
I find it completely convincing
Whenever I hear
That creatures from Venus were recently seen
As a spaceship drew near:
And yet there’s a problem remaining
That baffles me still.
I’m not disagreeing that some super being
Can wander at will
From one universe to another-
But if it be thus why on earth (so to speak)
Should he bother to seek
Any contact with us?”
— Anthony Brode
If you want your research to be funded these days, it help to “follow the diversity”
An anthropologist I once knew told me a principle of social anthropology was the congruence of alternate generations and the conflict of adjacent generations, so he found me bickering with my mother while offering pleasant vignettes about my grandmother to be amusing. Some part of me thinks it an agreeable idea that one or another of Christopher Buckley’s children embarrass him in print. Repeatedly. Throughout their adult life. It would be condign punishment for him.
@Om:
Wasn’t Mongols or Manchus wot dunnit at Tiananmen Square in 1989… You some kind of racist? I seem to recall that the Nazis retconned Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt as Mongolensturm. That was a long time ago. Different Germany. China’s pretty different now, too. Arguably has improved less than the USA has regressed in the past 33 years, but can’t win ’em all!
It’s widely believed that units from Shanxi Province were the most vicious. Certainly true that elements of the Beijing Garrison as well as some other brought in units refused to play ball.
Don’t know what you’ve got against Mongolians. Just Hu do you think you are?
I’ll be here another 20 minutes … before I have to go back to the Missouri guerilla wars. If I can stand any more of it.
Oh …
What would alien intelligences mean?
Not necessarily what you imagine they might.
I suppose most people are thinking in terms of:
“What would it mean for our image of ourselves?”
Or “What would it mean for religion?” which is another aspect of the first question.
Or,
“What would it be like to find yourself helpless in a meaningless universe and subjected to excruciating agony, anomie, and perhaps intentional wanton cruelty, and to be able to do nothing about it but to die and see our breed extinguished?”
There is a neat passage in The Conquest of Mexico, when Cortez in on his way to Mexico city (not going to look up Tenochtitlan) and they have to fight through some other hostile republics.
In one instance as the Spaniards are about to crush the indigenes, the Indians rush to one of their temples in order to trigger the doomsday weapon: by pulling out a corner stone from the pyramid waters will rush out and drown all in a Gotterdammerung style blast and flood.
With the Spaniards triumphing they manage to work loose the stones … and nothing.
I suppose we could be in for something similar.
On the other hand we may just be irrelevant to them in any moral sense.
It’s a big universe. No reason for any intelligence to obsess about us.
@DNW:
Occurred to me last night that SnowOnPine’s Epistemological Excursion might set you off and provide some entertainment:
“The problem is, of course, how do you initially determine what is “the truth”—as has been said, ”where you sit determines what you see.”
It seems to me that you have to first pick a “truth,” a position about what is and what isn’t, and then stick to it, unless and until new information comes along which forces you–however reluctantly–to modify that “truth.”
Break a leg! Or don’t.
Your last post reminded me that I’m yet to read Bernal Diaz’s Conquest of New Spain. Been sitting on the shelf for at least three years. This backlog will outlive me.
Everyone is, I’m sure, hoping for the best.
But what if we run across some advanced species of Aliens–Aliens who may have knowledge and/or technology we really, really want, or even desperately need–and it turns out that they are so different so, “Alien” that we have no common points of reference with them, nor can we in any way reliably communicate with them or understand them?
What then?
Do we just try to take what we need, and hope we can get away with it?
Zephod–
Here is a new and very relevant Japanese word for you and for a lot of us, “Tsundoku,” meaning books that pile up around the house or apartment that you will probably never get around to reading.
@SnowOnPine:
Re “Tsundoku”:
Good one!
I dread to think how many are lurking in the Kindle as well.
Did a major tidying exercise in early December, but I don’t think Marie Kondo could walk through my front door and think happy thoughts.
Japanese angle dredged up a buried memory. I briefly had a Japanese GF in Bangkok in 2006. Her previous thing had been with a USAF attaché in BKK whose minor claim to fame was having recently been the USAF’s point man for UFO investigations. I got all this at second hand but there was some idea that he’d been shunted off to the fleshpots of the Orient to stop him digging around.
The more cynical Zaphod Take was that the guy was some kind of incompetent or troublemaker and had been bunged into a promotion-blighting job and then shipped out to the Venice of SE Asia to see if he could manage to fall into a khlong and drown himself. Probably got 3 stars by now. I’m not nearly cynical enough.
Being the kind of fellow who is prone to believe the last person he heard / read… I’m presently very keen on Liu Cixin’s Dark Forest Theory and of the opinion that humanity ought to STFU because it could be very dangerous out there.
“The problem is, of course, how do you initially determine what is “the truth”—as has been said, ”where you sit determines what you see.”
It’s a valid point, but can be overdrawn.
Let’s say that the observation is intended to remind us that we only know what we can encounter and sense either directly or through some technological detection system’s mediation: in which cases we per definition experience an even more contextualized feedback layered upon our own senses.
So, I can measure a millionth of an inch, but I cannot feel it. And my measurement is relative to the force which I apply to the contacts as they meet the artifact being consistent with the pressure used to master and assign a value to the scale.
If we use light itself, the issue is somewhat different.
But still, eventually the question comes down to whether the operator can achieve consistent and productive results from these technologically mediated operations; and assuming that he does, something about the real world – albeit, highly qualified and somewhat indirect – is revealed.
Yet, it is there, it stands apart from private fancy and is reproduceable by anyone with a modicum of basic training. It stand like a tree. As true, reliable. referenceable information. https://etymologeek.com/eng/true
So, we know that slice of reality in truth. Know enough slices, directly and indirectly then you have something approximating a bigger truth.
It is also interesting to reflect that we are not the only beings in our own world navigating it. It is impossible that we should have their qualia, but we may infer that their very different sensory apparatus and capacities navigate the same space in much the same way. We don’t see insects disappearing – ostensibly through portals in space time – that are beyond our wavelength processing abilities.
But if someone wanted to speculate that we live in a reality in which beings beyond our ability to perceive, live in parallel to us and flit through our world, being conscious of us, while we in principle cannot directly perceive them, I would not know how to discourage it since the collapse of the billiard ball materialism paradigm.
We get into a kind of Kantian problem here, transferred to physics. But as with Kant’s noumenal and phenomenal, we don’t really have any reason to assume that we daily swim in a reality incredibly different from the one we can detect or infer.
Hey Zaphod,
Remember that Garabandal girl?
She was badgered by onlookers to ask the apparition if there were beings on other planets. The answer was “Yes”
The answer to her question “is St. Peter at the gates of Heaven?” was “No”
The kid was heard uttering to the vision in mild confusion something along the lines of “You were Jewish!? ”
Also, along with other inhabited planets we find communism will “come back” (this was before it ever left) ; the Church will fall into virtual apostasy; and Priests Bishops and Cardinals are on the road to perdition.
You certainly don’t have to have the slightest belief in the reality of the kid’s (now a 70 something woman) 1961-65 visions, so appreciate her batting average !
@DNW:
“Yet, it is there, it stands apart from private fancy and is reproduceable by anyone with a modicum of basic training. It stands like a tree. As true, reliable. referenceable information. https://etymologeek.com/eng/true
So, we know that slice of reality in truth. Know enough slices, directly and indirectly then you have something approximating a bigger truth.”
About as good as it gets.
I’d never even thought that way about the observable behaviour of other creatures (mediated of course by our own perceptions) .. but then I’ve never gone hunting with a dog. The insects extend this nicely because they are really so alien.
Tree/Truth must go back a very, very long way with us:
“The conception of the tree rising through a number of worlds is found in northern Eurasia and forms part of the shamanic lore shared by many peoples of this region. This seems to be a very ancient conception, perhaps based on the Pole Star, the centre of the heavens, and the image of the central tree in Scandinavia may have been influenced by it…. Among Siberian shamans, a central tree may be used as a ladder to ascend the heavens.[21]”
@DNW:
“We don’t see insects disappearing – ostensibly through portals in space time – that are beyond our wavelength processing abilities.”
The closest I’ve come to the numenous was twice:
One evening in a hammock on a beach on an Island in the Gulf of Thailand and suddenly there were fireflies winking on and off. If they had been just buzzing around constantly illuminating that would be one thing.. It was the seemingly random brief manifestations that did it.
The other time more by proxy. Was walking down to the Plaza one sunny breezy spring morning and a very little girl with her grandparents was briefly the centre of an eddy of white butterflies. It was very apparent that up until that moment, such things had not been in her Philosophy.
@DNW:
— The kid was heard uttering to the vision in mild confusion something along the lines of “You were Jewish!? ”
Damn! She’s real. I’d better mend my ways stat. (Before Om starts hammering elevator buttons, I’m grokking the headspace and givens of a traditionally catechised Spanish peasant girl of a time and a place…. this surprise has the ring of truth about it).
Bath House Biretta Brigade, Communists, etc. aside… I found her adult trajectory in the documentary a bit interesting. One expects either of two courses: (1) recantation / walking back CYA or (2) doubling down and shark jumping. She did neither. Chesterton would have had something smart and pithy to sum that up.
Z, the local troops weren’t reliable for gunning down other locals in Beijing. As if that had anything to do with the Germans.
In Ottawa were the RCMP cavalry local boys or out of province Canadian Cossacks?
I’m reassured that your man Xi is a much more enlightened despot than Deng (sarc). You will find out in due time if that is true.
And the Philosopher’s Society has returned.
She points out, as well, that images and ideas about Aliens and UFOs saturate our culture, and some entertainment companies have even interwoven images of aliens and things like Star Trek characters with images of real life, to the point where some believe what they are seeing is real.
Snow on Pine:
I’ve mentioned Jacques Vallee in responses to you, but I don’t recall a reply.
Regarding UFOs, Vallee strongly doubts UFOs are Star Trek-style ETs, but are the modern cloaking of other-worldly communications which haver been going for all of human history, In previous times we knew UFOs as beings such as angels, leprechauns, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Whatever UFOs may be, Vallee emphasizes that they are having profound effects on human consciousness and culture.
If you haven’t read Vallee, I recommend touching base with his books. I consider him the major thinker about UFOs.
The French scientist, Lacombe, in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” was based on Vallee. Vallee tried to interest Spielberg in a non-ET approach to UFOs, but failed.
He was also an astronomer and later an authority on computer networking, then later still a venture capitalist in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley.
Tonight I discovered Vallee was a force in the financing of Electronics For Imaging’s IPO — where I worked and made a tidy sum off my stock options. Thanks, Jacques!
I once met Vallee and shook his hand. He worked in the same building as I did in an earlier software start-up which failed.
He’s still alive at 82, I’m happy to say. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the go-to-guy when it comes to UFOs.
There’s something very endearing about the unworldliness of some great minds — cf. the ‘Hungarian ExtraiTerrestrials’ mentioned in a thread yesterday.
I’d recommend starting with Vallee’s “Messengers of Deception,” which you can find in its entirety at the Internet Archive:
________________________
I believe that UFOs are physically real. They represent a fantastic
technology controlled by an unknown form of consciousness. But
I also believe that it would be dangerous to jump to premature
conclusions about their origin and nature, because the phenomenon
serves as the vehicle for images that can be manipulated to promote
belief systems tending to the long-term transformation of human
society.
“Being the kind of fellow who is prone to believe the last person he heard / read… I’m presently very keen on Liu Cixin’s Dark Forest Theory and of the opinion that humanity ought to STFU because it could be very dangerous out there.”
That took awhile but it is good progress. I will have to inform you, however, that it is too late. You all have already been noticed. The invasion fleet arrived some time ago.
Much like Picard’s Trek technology used amongst primitives, surgical alteration of features and holographic technology hides the agents. What else can they do if they don’t have an appreciation for a Prime Directive? Mate with the native DNA and alter it much like Mengele or Temujin? Alter your DNA with “health promoting shots”? Steal your resources?
Anything and everything can be done with this type of strategy, when the native population is full of primitives that don’t know that 2+2=4.
The counter question is thus: If they are so much more powerful than us, why don’t they just come out in the open?
Y: Perhaps because there is something more powerful than them, the Almighty or the Godhead or Archangels (of Death and Destruction), that fulfill the role of the Prime Directive enforcement for them.
Something very dangerous out there is already here, Z. Read Operation Paperclip details and Majestic 12’s insider whistleblower coverage by Thompkins.
The Wallfacer project is a classic human response, which is exactly what Maj 12 and the military industrial complex initialized.
“Fractal Rabbit on February 19, 2022 at 12:38 pm said:
physicsguy,
My latest novel (roughly 50% written) is about the quarantine (and treating us like mushrooms; keeping us in the dark and feeding us BS) of Earth due to the fact that the the numerous alien races are terrified of us, due to our warlike nature and fear us getting access to their technology. In essence, we’re the Klingons.
Until an even greater threat looms, and the aliens must “break glass in case of emergency” and bring humans into the big fight.”
That is an uncommon plot line I see in human sci fi novels self published, Fractal, albeit not that rare.
I am not sure how much I can explain, given the anti spoiler limitations on me. Humanity is neither Klingon nor Ferengi, but more like this Spice on Arrakis. It is harvested for energy, and is necessary for galactic commerce, but it is also dangerous. So the general vibe or theme is on point, but the details are not.
More disclosed information can be found here for those seeking it.
They only have a part of the truth there even. I have access to almost all of it, but as a result, my explanations cannot be understood directly or else it would wreck the plot.
An Alien Intelligence would be something that can communicate with you using your native language or internet text, such as this, but in which little to none of the concepts can be grasped by your human culture, civilization, or classical physics consensus.
The general hesitation in contacting Earth is that it would promote so much fear that Earth would destroy itself. There is also many sci fi plots all jumbled up together, due to DNA harvesting and hybridization. Much of humanity’s creativity is pulling from the Etheric Internet, things that reside on many other worlds. Conflicts such as Vorlons vs Shadows is also prevalent, with Earth used as a proxy. ANd of course, the Dark Forest is also true.
In fact, it is hard to find a sci fi plot that is NOT true on some level given the diversity of the heavens.
Earth also has bio diversity (Spice/DNA) that is extremely valuable, in fact more valuable than gold and weapons tech.
So attempting to find one reason or even half a dozen, won’t do it, as there are more than 1000 factions in the heavens. They all want something, and not all of them have humanity’s best interest in mind. In fact, the worst ones might be exactly those with your “best interests” in mind ; )
P.S. My position comes from the fact that Ymarsakar is recognized by many humans (old unmutated ones) as an alien. While I do not come from Mars or Venus, I am a native of Earth. The Spirit, however, is a different issue. We prefer the term “cousin” as “alien” is too cold of a relationship.
“I’ve mentioned Jacques Vallee in responses to you, but I don’t recall a reply.
Regarding UFOs, Vallee strongly doubts UFOs are Star Trek-style ETs, but are the modern cloaking of other-worldly communications which haver been going for all of human history, In previous times we knew UFOs as beings such as angels, leprechauns, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Whatever UFOs may be, Vallee emphasizes that they are having profound effects on human consciousness and culture.
If you haven’t read Vallee, I recommend touching base with his books. I consider him the major thinker about UFOs.”
My first comment on this disappeared mysteriously, so I will simply reiterate that for a human, they did well.
Another piece of evidence for the file marked “BEd, MEd, and EdD holders are commonly creepy jack-wagons”.
A great quote from Jacques Vallee from his 1991 book “Revelations”, p. 10–
“…the UFO mystery holds a mirror to our own fantasies, it expresses our secret longings for a wisdom that might come down from the stars in new, improved, easy-to-use packaging, to reveal the secrets of life and tell us, at long last, who we are.”
“And the Philosopher’s Society has returned.”
You don’t like abstract and speculative matters, or issues of logical analysis being discussed? Ignore it.
Is anybody standing in the way of your broaching, commenting, or even squatting on any issue of the day?
This ties in with a relatively well known topic Ed Feser has engaged on, and which was launched by a dust up in the popular press when Lawrence Krauss started pontificating about nothingness.
“Horgan: Lawrence Krauss, in A Universe from Nothing, claims that physics has basically solved the mystery of why there is something rather than nothing. Do you agree?
Ellis: Certainly not. He is presenting untested speculative theories of how things came into existence out of a pre-existing complex of entities, including variational principles, quantum field theory, specific symmetry groups, a bubbling vacuum, all the components of the standard model of particle physics, and so on. He does not explain in what way these entities could have pre-existed the coming into being of the universe, why they should have existed at all, or …”
I got rid of other parts of that comment, as well.
om; DNW, and to whomever else this might concern:
I don’t live chained to my computer and so I don’t continually monitor the comments here. But I do get around to at least skimming most of them, sooner or later. Sometimes later.
Regular commenters here ought to know that personal attacks are something I discourage, and that although I’m loathe to put people into moderation or ban them, I sometimes do it if the commenter won’t stop with the personal attacks.
Disagree all you want. A little personal needling here and there is ok. But I think you both know when you cross a line. Consider this a warning that if the situation doesn’t get better, I will have to put your comments in moderation, which means they don’t appear until I have a moment to check them and click “approve.”
I don’t like doing that and would prefer not to, but if I don’t do that, the blog quickly descends to the lowest common denominator (lowest comment denominator?).
Too many writings on the Fermi Paradox give little attention to half of the paradox statement, accepting the “no evidence” part without any serious examination. But it only takes ONE out of the thousands of years of reports to be a real spacecraft, and the whole “paradox” goes poof!
So what was Fermi really saying?
A. Flying Saucers are obviously BS, or…
B. Flying Saucers make perfect sense, so why are we mocking them instead of investigating them?
Neo denies she ever owned a VW 412.
This superannuated swamp creature for your delectation:
“A little personal needling here and there is ok.”
It’s not needling. It’s a sick obsession and resentment of some kind. So it is not ok with me. Not for year in and year on for Christ’s sake. And certainly not from someone such as Om: one so manifestly inferior in honor, and every other human quality.
This is not a matter of squabbling siblings who are equally guilty. I do not want and have never wanted anything to do with the mentally disturbed punk, or with any of his obsessions with me. He does not debate matters, or explain his grievances he just hangs around making himself an annoyance.
I wouldn’t put up with his obsessively dogging me in life. I’m not going to do it here. Yeah, I could perpetually ignore it, but I am not going to.
So, as much as a kick as I have gotten out of this blog for years now, looks like I’ll be the one to move on, and I’ll just say “adios”.
DNW:
Remember the first rule of holes.
DNW:
Nor am I a parent adjudicating relative degrees of guilt and punishment. I don’t have the time or inclination to do it, and you’re not children. It is more than possible to disagree without pettyness and/or heavy-duty insults.
When I say a LITTLE needling now and then that’s what I mean. If all I had seen from you or om was “a little needling” I wouldn’t have had to write that comment of warning.
I have no desire whatsoever to drive you away, or to see you go. You and I often disagree, but disagreement is okay with me. However, of course anyone can leave at any time, and anyone can come back at any time unless the person is banned (and you are not banned). It’s your decision. But neither here nor anywhere else is the blogger going to monitor and referee every fight.
om:
And you often do more than “a little needling.” You are involved in far more than your share of the more angry confrontations here. I’m asking you to cut way back and be more respectful in the way you disagree with people.
@DNW:
Hope you’ll reconsider and stick around!
@om:
You’re not adding a lot of value around here. Contra popular delusions amongst so-called Conservatives, I don’t set much store by debate changing minds in people who have thought themselves deeply into a position — it only happens rarely. Rarely enough that it’s big news when and if it happens… That being said, what I like about vigorous debate is that it occasionally strikes some sparks which might kindle some neuronal activity (note I did not say agreement with me) in the *Undecided* or those who simply had not given a particular matter much thought before.
But you’re not striking any sparks, Om… just sloshing buckets of excrement over people who say things you reflexively don’t like. Can’t think I’ve ever observed a single instance of your engaging with an idea. You’re basically a Republican Party AOC. You’re being a not-so fun house mirror reflection of a Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad Little Red Book Waver. And that’s a bore.
And yes, I’m barely tolerable and doubtless infuriating to many present. That being agreed, I get more satisfaction from occasional grudging agreement on this or that point from folks here who find my general outlook offensive than you’ll ever get from throwing excrement from your tree branch.
Thanks for sharing o’
Sage of the East.
Come now, this is supposed to be a happy occassion, let’s here more about you. Not that you would know anything about flinging feces just for the joy it gives you.
OT but your description of the ins and outs of HK cast some shade on the notion of a single Han culture, not racism amongst the Chinese? How could that be? Maybe you chose poorly when you decamped to the Pearl of the Orient?
om:
Take your own advice and quit digging holes.
Dunno about you, Om.. but I seem to inhabit a three dimensional world of real humans where it’s possible for several semi-contradictory things to be true at the same time and in different fluctuating proportions.
Let me try to make this very simple for you.
If you nuke Guangzhou or Shenzhen, a HK’er thinks of himself as a Han Chinese victim of American warmongering. If some wily apparatchiks in Beijing decide that the best way to assimilate HK is to fill it up with Mainlanders and gradually drive out the more recalcitrant locals, then that HK’er thinks of himself as a HK’er in the process of being ethnically cleansed. He could do both in the same week or even on the same day depending which newspaper headlines he’s reading and what’s going down in Meat Space. Much like certain of our favourite bloggers and commentators who divide their attention between the Jerusalem Post and whatever US media they regularly follow.
This is normal human behaviour.
It’s IMNSHO OK to generalise and have a bit of fun with rhetorical monkeying about… but just being one-dimensional and obtuse is, again, a Bore.
@DNW:
You will do what you think best, but I have enjoyed many of your posts. Many of your other posts go over my head. I don’t agree with you on everything, but I have enjoyed your “diverse” point of view and your mordant wit!
Thanks again, but your explaination is way too complicated, can you dial it down to a none dimensional world.
So Xi promoting Chinese culture and your love for it is just a cynical means of manipulating people? (Z will now insert a strawman about decedant western culture and how by implication, I favor such degradation.) That is so new and original.
Neo:
But you see the hole I’ve been digging didn’t involve wishing anyone to kill themselves. A subtle distinction? But I’m no philosopher. Just water off a duck.
Happy President’s Day!
Hi. I’d like to announce my shock at the news (several months after the accomplished fact) that Levon Aronian has switched chess federations to USA, which apparently, I am just now discovering, took effect just last December. Still trying to get my head around it.
It’s funny how formal nationality functions in the chess realm; it’s a much more fluid thing in that context. I’m just checking the FIDE regulations on this sort of thing and currently, it is not required that a player be a citizen of the country to which he or she is transferring. Residency for a certain amount of time, backed up by house rental/ownership contract or utility bills being paid at an address there, suffices. Now, Aronian having moved into a nice-looking row house in St. Louis next to the chess club there, he apparently has built up enough residency duration to satisfy this.
I have a couple of concerns about this sort of thing, one being that it makes it seem as if the St. Louis Chess Club under Sinquefield’s aegis is trying to vacuum up an overabundance of (especially but not exclusively) the immigrant high-powered talent. (Webster Univ., which is another such magnet, is also in St. Louis.) It seems odd to me to have so much professional chess talent concentrating in St. Louis, not exactly a chess mecca historically. NYC was the obvious destination back in the day, of course, and while it’s certainly healthy to have more than one dominant center, I just find St. Louis a rather non-obvious selection. Better than some possible alternatives, I suppose.
Maybe I should stop worrying about it, not least because having Aronian, Dominguez, Nakamura, etc. there regularly can perhaps do something to give the Midwest a bit of heft in a chess scene that is largely dominated by the coasts. I don’t recall Chicago, as large as it is, playing a significant role in U. S. chess since Verber’s passing, for example. And to be fair, having all of the important invitational national chess championships in the same place for years now must make some kind of difference.
(Caruana also lives in St. Louis, apparently; So resides not far from Minneapolis.)
@Philip Sells:
Those Rootless Cosmopolitan Armenians again 😀
It’ll take more than one Levon Aronian to erase the Kardashian stain.
Hate to say it… goes against the grain and all, but probably just best to enjoy the Chess Diversity and let the rest ride. Why I can say that with more than some sincerity about Chess (or Go or Contract Bridge) and not about skiing, or baseball, or track and field is a fertile field for thought and debate. But there *is* something different about intellectual pursuits and competition. Tub-thumping aside, deeply ingrained in most of us still, somehow is the notion that one only rightly competes in athletics for one’s village, polis, etc. and that Metics Don’t Count.
Philip Sells:
I’ve reengaged somewhat with the chess world in recent years, though not enough to notice Aronian’s latest move. Though, as you say, the more traditional displacement to NYC for global chess talent.
I did love the story of Korchnoi at 79 defeating Caruana at 18, ten years ago:
___________________________
The game’s mental and physical toll eventually forces most top players to stop competing. And those who continue to play tend to avoid the elite tournaments where the pressure is greatest.
Then there is Viktor Korchnoi.
He was a top player for more than 30 years and competed for the world title three times. The last of those battles was in 1981, when he was 50. Four years ago, when he was 75, he was still ranked No. 85 in the world.
If one followed those fabulous sixties-seventies World Chess Championship cycles which featured Spassky and Fischer at their peaks, there was always Viktor Korchnoi, grim-faced in the mix, not far behind either of them, though never quite cracking the final level.
___________________________
He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion. –Wiki
___________________________
But what a competitior! Also, one of the only Soviet Grandmasters who broke with Moscow and defected to the West.
Then there is Viktor Korchnoi. A man of iron.
His victory over Caruana was epic.
Interesting video. It calls to mind the very short story by Terry Bisson, “They’re Made Out Of Meat”. It gives an amusing reason why we’ve never been contacted. You can find it online at no cost.
Science fiction has come up with many ways to look at this problem. Cixin Liu’s trilogy, “The Three Body Problem” answers the question by positing a dangerous galaxy where it’s best to remain quiet.
I’ve just finished reading John Sandford’s “Saturn Run”. Another interesting way to look at this question. The book is based on the current state of our technology (so there’s no transporters!) and takes place in the near future.
Sandford’s take on this is much more likely. How could aliens ever know we are even here? Our EM signals only just started and fade with distance. Sure, maybe Proxima might notice as it’s only 4 light years out. But habitable planets with intelligent life might be hundreds of light years away. No one knows we’re here and they may never know!
As far as we know faster than light travel is just not possible. The warp of space, in theory, is possible but not likely to be developed any time soon. The energy required is far beyond what we are capable of. So the answer is some tech or another that is efficient enough to accelerate a ship to a speed approaching say 25% of the speed of light. Then travel between the stars is possible.
But we’re not even close.
“And yes, I’m barely tolerable and doubtless infuriating to many present. ”
Compared to whom, ymar? You are not even close to being infuriating.
Z doesn’t consider himself non human, unlike the fictional Zaphod Bebbelbrox. So there is that distinction.
Om, have you learned your lessons yet on how pretending to be christian/identity by finding people to project on and hate, has consequences?
God: Let’s see what he answers with.
Satans: I would like to know as well.
I rate people’s level of infuriation based on their emotions. In Om’s life, he has survived up to now by finding people to kick down at and superiors to kiss up at.
It is the little middle management that will abuse people he can in his environment, because of his limited powers, but will bootlick and appease anyone up the chain of command or with any real power over their career.
Detecting that emotion is an ugly experience, and most humans let alone ET psi users, won’t deal with human disrespect. THey have a high intolerance for it.
Z does not have the usual corrupt human mutated mix of envy, hatreds, anger, and jealousies (usually), thus Z is far easier to read and interact with.
I prefer dealing with humans (unmutated) like Zaphod. In fact, I prefer dealing with serial killers (they are purely animalistic in a way) than the corrupt ones online that show their ugly emotions so clearly.
Btw, Neo is the reason why Om has gotten out of hand, because whenever someone is capable of putting Om in his place, she moderates them. But for people with deep psychological imbalances or desires to punch down on people, just cooling down a fight by putting both in detention won’t fix the issue in the long term.
That’s a lesson Neo could learn from, but she does not see it as something very critical. Om is thus doing her a favor, albeit in a negative indirect fashion. It is the way of Karma.
“As far as we know faster than light travel is just not possible. The warp of space, in theory, is possible but not likely to be developed any time soon. The energy required is far beyond what we are capable of. So the answer is some tech or another that is efficient enough to accelerate a ship to a speed approaching say 25% of the speed of light. Then travel between the stars is possible.
But we’re not even close.”
The recent limited disclosure by the Pentagon about reverse engineered technology from Roswell should at least dispel the “improbability of getting here” premise.
In general, Earth’s level of spice resources and genetic data is so valuable that ET groups have actually intentionally crash landed vessels here (Roswell) in order to manipulate governments using fear into signing treaties with them.
Grenada Treaty.
This is all part of a long term strategy often used on more primitive civilizations. Crash land a ship, let them study the technology and realize how out classed they are. Then do some light intimidation on their capitals, make their leaders realize that they need equal weapons parity. THen come in and offer a deal, “we give you weapons, and in return you allow us to sample some of your people for DNA data gathering purposes, we will return them unharmed”.
And thus the rise in abductions began after Roswell.
Then there’s the AI nanite threat scenario, which posits that ET groups are actually controlled by a vampiric galaxy wide network of AI, using nanites to control the blood and nerves of lesser ET slave groups. By helping humanity to reverse engineer technology, this helps develop the infrastructure for silicon computing and nanotechnology. The AI group then invades not with a classical physical show of force, but simply by hijacking all the computer chips and technology. The Beast System.
Perhaps microchips in bodies made no sense 10 years ago, but now your phone is connected to your body’s biometrics and nanotechnology can reside in your blood stream, changing your very DNA (mutations).
By the time Neural Link and Gates succeeds, it will be too late. The invasion (higher level) will have succeeded.
So the scenarios are complicated, in that it is the mixing up of different layers, including the Dark Forest scenario, with a number of other things (using human tech and bodies as violent mercenaries).
More comedy gold from Yammer. Another deep deep thinker. The trioka of deep thought. 🙂
OT: Do you still have Georgia covered?
” I’m asking you to cut way back and be more respectful in the way you disagree with people.”
The respect Om shows to Neo is not respect, but fear due to her power over the blog admin functions.
It is a miscommunication. If you want people to show respect, Neo, you have to demonstrate you have a respect for views that deeply trigger you.
People who have internal traumas and soul fragmentations will adhere to behaviors more than theory or ideals. Since I was prevented from training the bad behavior out, I have not seen you or others get any results over the few times I have visited.
This is a lesson for your soul. Try to make the most use of it with your limited time on Earth, Neo.
Om is not going to show respect to DNW or Zaphod because Om does not fear those 2.
“More comedy gold from Yammer. Another deep deep thinker. The trioka of deep thought. ?
OT: Do you still have Georgia covered?”
I am sure you missed me over the years, but I certainly did not miss your energy and vibrations.
I have Georgia locked up better than Justin has with UN mercenaries in Canada.
I am after all, breaking your nations apart. How does it feel in your life so far?
Always a modest man, that Yammer.
The UN? Don’t they wear blue helmets?
“A man has got to know his limitations.” 🙂
Neo writes: ” to the lowest common denominator (lowest comment denominator?).”
“Lowest comment denominator” is a phrase that pays. It’s a standard that I often set.
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One of my favorite things about this blog is how dedicated Neo is to it, evidenced by all the broken links on the blog roll: Neo’s kept at it longer than so many others. If she ever updates the blog roll, we will lose that. So I vote for not wasting time updating the blog roll, Neo. I support blocking ingrates who clog these pages with stern directives that you do otherwise.
To quote Pontius Pilate, “What is Truth.” John 18:38
I am reading a very interesting 2019 Oxford University Press book by Professor of Religion D. W. Pasulka, titled, “American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology” and one of the points she makes is that images that are created as entertainment are conflated with Reality–they “sink in,” flesh things out, and add detail, become part of our memories–and that is is hard, thereafter, for many people to distinguish which parts of their memories are false and which are true.
She points out, as well, that images and ideas about Aliens and UFOs saturate our culture, and some entertainment companies have even interwoven images of aliens and things like Star Trek characters with images of real life, to the point where some believe what they are seeing is real.
She even points to the new religion of Jediism, apparently ascribed to by thousands of people, some of whom believe they are Jedi Knights, whose guiding light is “The Force.”
She also points to studies showing how young people—immersed in electronic media and their images and ideas–have problems distinguishing what is fact from what is fiction.
She does not make this point, but it seems to me that if people in, say, K-12, are taught a firm foundation of what is “true” they then will have points of reference which will enable them to have an easier time of determining what sticks to the truth, and what increasingly moves away from it.
The problem is, of course, how do you initially determine what is “the truth”—as has been said, ”where you sit determines what you see.”
It seems to me that you have to first pick a “truth,” a position about what is and what isn’t, and then stick to it, unless and until new information comes along which forces you–however reluctantly–to modify that “truth.”
Good summary of the topic on the video. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t interview any biologists. From my own experience, there’s a deep divide in that field; the majority think that intelligence is an extremely rare event and even if there is life, ETI doesn’t exist. Then there’s the minority opinion which sides much more with the physical sciences.
The Fermi Paradox is a true stumbling block. My particular thought is that we’ve only been doing a serious search for about 60 years, so give it some more time. The downside is that now that we know basically all stars have planets, the continuing lack of ETI evidence is troubling. One solution proposed, of course, is that we are in quarantine….gotta work covid in here somehow 🙂
Paging DNW.
Leo Szilard’s answer to the Fermi Paradox is that they’re already here, and they call themselves Hungarians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)
Just watched the Video of the Mounted Police in Ottawa, twice. I appears that someone was trying to protect the woman on the scooter but got knock out of the way and then the woman was knocked out of the scooter onto the ground, along with another person. Anyone else watch it? Am I right? They are keeping reporter out of the area, hide what they are doing?
The Trudeau Regime is going to great lengths to protect the vaccine mandates. Cui bono?
Vogons rule in Ottowa.
“The downside is that now that we know basically all stars have planets, the continuing lack of ETI evidence is troubling.”
It should be thrilling because it means all we have to do is lick that pesky “faster than light” thing and the universe is OURS.
Mike
Jim M: “I vote for not wasting time updating the blog roll, Neo”
Or keep them but move them to new category like “broken” or “emeritus”
(You’re perfectly correct that neo doesn’t owe us a cleanup, but I sympathize with tidy people)
Snow on Pine @ 10:39 AM;
“It seems to me that you have to first pick a “truth,” a position about what is and what isn’t, and then stick to it………..”
Well, it seems to me that you should first develop an hypothesis, then endeavor to prove it wrong.
If you can’t prove it wrong, then it must be correct.
The problem with first believing something is true, is that as a thinking human being , (of course, this automatically leaves out demokrats) you will be prone to confirmation bias.
You will see “evidence” or correlations (correlations do not imply causation) affirming your pre-existing opinion/belief, when in fact the evidence is simply a coincidence or not really there at all.
Or worse, you will interpret the “real” evidence you have, in a manner that confirms your pre-existing beliefs.
Anyone else watch it? Am I right? They are keeping reporter out of the area, hide what they are doing?
I was watching and agree. Like fascists everywhere, they are lying.
I follow smalldeadanimals.com
I watched it SHIREHOME. The Ottawa police claimed that someone threw a bike at the horse. They were ignorant of the images that showed the woman’s walker in the horse’s wake, with the woman on the ground, likely because they thought they had ejected al the journalists.
I’ve seen other reports that the Ottawa PD couldn’t find enough of their officers to participate, so they had to ship in officers from Toronto and Montreal, especially the Sûreté de Quebec (SQ), the Provincial Police of Quebec.
physicsguy,
My latest novel (roughly 50% written) is about the quarantine (and treating us like mushrooms; keeping us in the dark and feeding us BS) of Earth due to the fact that the the numerous alien races are terrified of us, due to our warlike nature and fear us getting access to their technology. In essence, we’re the Klingons.
Until an even greater threat looms, and the aliens must “break glass in case of emergency” and bring humans into the big fight.
I doubt that I have looked at ANYONE’S blog roll in 10-12 years. It seems like an obsolete concept.
SHIREHOME,
I guess these idiots never saw Dr. Zhivago. I doubt anyone saw the dragoons as “good guys”.
Will police in Ottawa ever have a thought?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=are+we+the+baddies&t=brave&pn=1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dc2qX2bfB0lg
When the CCP had to eliminate the protests at Tianamen Square (the good old days Z) they had to bring in PLA units from Mongolia IIRC. Local PLA units weren’t down with the planned massacre.
Mongolia or Manchuria, locals wouldn’t do it.
Even the Daily Mail today doesn’t have the photo of the horses running down the woman on the disability scooter. What gives? That shot should be enough to bring down Trudeau.
Do we have to relive every inanity from the 1970s?
Watched the video which was interesting, but the thing that always strikes me is what was referenced by the last person interviewed.
What if any Aliens are communicating using means that are based on principles we as yet have no knowledge of and, thus, can’t detect? The Universe and our Galaxy may be alight with forms of communication that neither us nor our instruments can perceive.
If we don’t have a receiver, and don’t know the first thing about how to construct one, or what principles such a receiver might work on, how can we expect to detect anything very advanced Aliens might be communicating using those principles?
Next, it seems to me that there is an implicit assumption here that any Aliens “out there” would likely want to, and have an urgent need to, communicate with and to associate with us.
Aliens are by definition “alien,” so why—based on our only example, us–assume that such Aliens might have any motivations and needs that are similar to ours? Perhaps such Aliens aren’t interested in the least in “communicating,” but just want to be left alone.
Finally, there is the “Zoo hypothesis,” that more evolved beings of a higher order of intelligence might view us the way we view unpredictable and sometimes violent, shit-flinging monkeys in the zoo and, so, they see to it that we are similarly monitored and confined.
I accept the existence of saucers,
I concede there’s a case
To be made for believing that something’s achieving
the conquest of space;
I find it completely convincing
Whenever I hear
That creatures from Venus were recently seen
As a spaceship drew near:
And yet there’s a problem remaining
That baffles me still.
I’m not disagreeing that some super being
Can wander at will
From one universe to another-
But if it be thus why on earth (so to speak)
Should he bother to seek
Any contact with us?”
— Anthony Brode
If you want your research to be funded these days, it help to “follow the diversity”
https://www.city-journal.org/the-politicization-of-federal-science-grants
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2022/02/of-all-human-failings-he-found.html
An anthropologist I once knew told me a principle of social anthropology was the congruence of alternate generations and the conflict of adjacent generations, so he found me bickering with my mother while offering pleasant vignettes about my grandmother to be amusing. Some part of me thinks it an agreeable idea that one or another of Christopher Buckley’s children embarrass him in print. Repeatedly. Throughout their adult life. It would be condign punishment for him.
@Om:
Wasn’t Mongols or Manchus wot dunnit at Tiananmen Square in 1989… You some kind of racist? I seem to recall that the Nazis retconned Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt as Mongolensturm. That was a long time ago. Different Germany. China’s pretty different now, too. Arguably has improved less than the USA has regressed in the past 33 years, but can’t win ’em all!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_at_the_1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre#Units_mobilized
It’s widely believed that units from Shanxi Province were the most vicious. Certainly true that elements of the Beijing Garrison as well as some other brought in units refused to play ball.
Don’t know what you’ve got against Mongolians. Just Hu do you think you are?
The HU – Yuve Yuve Yu (Official Music Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE
Wolf Totem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc
Yes?
I’ll be here another 20 minutes … before I have to go back to the Missouri guerilla wars. If I can stand any more of it.
Oh …
What would alien intelligences mean?
Not necessarily what you imagine they might.
I suppose most people are thinking in terms of:
“What would it mean for our image of ourselves?”
Or “What would it mean for religion?” which is another aspect of the first question.
Or,
“What would it be like to find yourself helpless in a meaningless universe and subjected to excruciating agony, anomie, and perhaps intentional wanton cruelty, and to be able to do nothing about it but to die and see our breed extinguished?”
There is a neat passage in The Conquest of Mexico, when Cortez in on his way to Mexico city (not going to look up Tenochtitlan) and they have to fight through some other hostile republics.
In one instance as the Spaniards are about to crush the indigenes, the Indians rush to one of their temples in order to trigger the doomsday weapon: by pulling out a corner stone from the pyramid waters will rush out and drown all in a Gotterdammerung style blast and flood.
With the Spaniards triumphing they manage to work loose the stones … and nothing.
I suppose we could be in for something similar.
On the other hand we may just be irrelevant to them in any moral sense.
It’s a big universe. No reason for any intelligence to obsess about us.
@DNW:
Occurred to me last night that SnowOnPine’s Epistemological Excursion might set you off and provide some entertainment:
“The problem is, of course, how do you initially determine what is “the truth”—as has been said, ”where you sit determines what you see.”
It seems to me that you have to first pick a “truth,” a position about what is and what isn’t, and then stick to it, unless and until new information comes along which forces you–however reluctantly–to modify that “truth.”
Break a leg! Or don’t.
Your last post reminded me that I’m yet to read Bernal Diaz’s Conquest of New Spain. Been sitting on the shelf for at least three years. This backlog will outlive me.
Everyone is, I’m sure, hoping for the best.
But what if we run across some advanced species of Aliens–Aliens who may have knowledge and/or technology we really, really want, or even desperately need–and it turns out that they are so different so, “Alien” that we have no common points of reference with them, nor can we in any way reliably communicate with them or understand them?
What then?
Do we just try to take what we need, and hope we can get away with it?
Zephod–
Here is a new and very relevant Japanese word for you and for a lot of us, “Tsundoku,” meaning books that pile up around the house or apartment that you will probably never get around to reading.
@SnowOnPine:
Re “Tsundoku”:
Good one!
I dread to think how many are lurking in the Kindle as well.
Did a major tidying exercise in early December, but I don’t think Marie Kondo could walk through my front door and think happy thoughts.
Japanese angle dredged up a buried memory. I briefly had a Japanese GF in Bangkok in 2006. Her previous thing had been with a USAF attaché in BKK whose minor claim to fame was having recently been the USAF’s point man for UFO investigations. I got all this at second hand but there was some idea that he’d been shunted off to the fleshpots of the Orient to stop him digging around.
The more cynical Zaphod Take was that the guy was some kind of incompetent or troublemaker and had been bunged into a promotion-blighting job and then shipped out to the Venice of SE Asia to see if he could manage to fall into a khlong and drown himself. Probably got 3 stars by now. I’m not nearly cynical enough.
Being the kind of fellow who is prone to believe the last person he heard / read… I’m presently very keen on Liu Cixin’s Dark Forest Theory and of the opinion that humanity ought to STFU because it could be very dangerous out there.
It’s a valid point, but can be overdrawn.
Let’s say that the observation is intended to remind us that we only know what we can encounter and sense either directly or through some technological detection system’s mediation: in which cases we per definition experience an even more contextualized feedback layered upon our own senses.
So, I can measure a millionth of an inch, but I cannot feel it. And my measurement is relative to the force which I apply to the contacts as they meet the artifact being consistent with the pressure used to master and assign a value to the scale.
If we use light itself, the issue is somewhat different.
But still, eventually the question comes down to whether the operator can achieve consistent and productive results from these technologically mediated operations; and assuming that he does, something about the real world – albeit, highly qualified and somewhat indirect – is revealed.
Yet, it is there, it stands apart from private fancy and is reproduceable by anyone with a modicum of basic training. It stand like a tree. As true, reliable. referenceable information. https://etymologeek.com/eng/true
So, we know that slice of reality in truth. Know enough slices, directly and indirectly then you have something approximating a bigger truth.
It is also interesting to reflect that we are not the only beings in our own world navigating it. It is impossible that we should have their qualia, but we may infer that their very different sensory apparatus and capacities navigate the same space in much the same way. We don’t see insects disappearing – ostensibly through portals in space time – that are beyond our wavelength processing abilities.
But if someone wanted to speculate that we live in a reality in which beings beyond our ability to perceive, live in parallel to us and flit through our world, being conscious of us, while we in principle cannot directly perceive them, I would not know how to discourage it since the collapse of the billiard ball materialism paradigm.
We get into a kind of Kantian problem here, transferred to physics. But as with Kant’s noumenal and phenomenal, we don’t really have any reason to assume that we daily swim in a reality incredibly different from the one we can detect or infer.
Hey Zaphod,
Remember that Garabandal girl?
She was badgered by onlookers to ask the apparition if there were beings on other planets. The answer was “Yes”
The answer to her question “is St. Peter at the gates of Heaven?” was “No”
The kid was heard uttering to the vision in mild confusion something along the lines of “You were Jewish!? ”
Also, along with other inhabited planets we find communism will “come back” (this was before it ever left) ; the Church will fall into virtual apostasy; and Priests Bishops and Cardinals are on the road to perdition.
You certainly don’t have to have the slightest belief in the reality of the kid’s (now a 70 something woman) 1961-65 visions, so appreciate her batting average !
@DNW:
“Yet, it is there, it stands apart from private fancy and is reproduceable by anyone with a modicum of basic training. It stands like a tree. As true, reliable. referenceable information. https://etymologeek.com/eng/true
So, we know that slice of reality in truth. Know enough slices, directly and indirectly then you have something approximating a bigger truth.”
About as good as it gets.
I’d never even thought that way about the observable behaviour of other creatures (mediated of course by our own perceptions) .. but then I’ve never gone hunting with a dog. The insects extend this nicely because they are really so alien.
Tree/Truth must go back a very, very long way with us:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil
“The conception of the tree rising through a number of worlds is found in northern Eurasia and forms part of the shamanic lore shared by many peoples of this region. This seems to be a very ancient conception, perhaps based on the Pole Star, the centre of the heavens, and the image of the central tree in Scandinavia may have been influenced by it…. Among Siberian shamans, a central tree may be used as a ladder to ascend the heavens.[21]”
@DNW:
“We don’t see insects disappearing – ostensibly through portals in space time – that are beyond our wavelength processing abilities.”
The closest I’ve come to the numenous was twice:
One evening in a hammock on a beach on an Island in the Gulf of Thailand and suddenly there were fireflies winking on and off. If they had been just buzzing around constantly illuminating that would be one thing.. It was the seemingly random brief manifestations that did it.
The other time more by proxy. Was walking down to the Plaza one sunny breezy spring morning and a very little girl with her grandparents was briefly the centre of an eddy of white butterflies. It was very apparent that up until that moment, such things had not been in her Philosophy.
@DNW:
— The kid was heard uttering to the vision in mild confusion something along the lines of “You were Jewish!? ”
Damn! She’s real. I’d better mend my ways stat. (Before Om starts hammering elevator buttons, I’m grokking the headspace and givens of a traditionally catechised Spanish peasant girl of a time and a place…. this surprise has the ring of truth about it).
Bath House Biretta Brigade, Communists, etc. aside… I found her adult trajectory in the documentary a bit interesting. One expects either of two courses: (1) recantation / walking back CYA or (2) doubling down and shark jumping. She did neither. Chesterton would have had something smart and pithy to sum that up.
Z, the local troops weren’t reliable for gunning down other locals in Beijing. As if that had anything to do with the Germans.
In Ottawa were the RCMP cavalry local boys or out of province Canadian Cossacks?
I’m reassured that your man Xi is a much more enlightened despot than Deng (sarc). You will find out in due time if that is true.
And the Philosopher’s Society has returned.
She points out, as well, that images and ideas about Aliens and UFOs saturate our culture, and some entertainment companies have even interwoven images of aliens and things like Star Trek characters with images of real life, to the point where some believe what they are seeing is real.
Snow on Pine:
I’ve mentioned Jacques Vallee in responses to you, but I don’t recall a reply.
Regarding UFOs, Vallee strongly doubts UFOs are Star Trek-style ETs, but are the modern cloaking of other-worldly communications which haver been going for all of human history, In previous times we knew UFOs as beings such as angels, leprechauns, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Whatever UFOs may be, Vallee emphasizes that they are having profound effects on human consciousness and culture.
If you haven’t read Vallee, I recommend touching base with his books. I consider him the major thinker about UFOs.
@Om:
Get back to the Sheep Dip and do your job, Bruce:
The Philosopher’s Song – Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtgKkifJ0Pw
Z:
Pound sand, remember.
Important stuff going on up north in Canada, not as important as Hong Kong or Xi, or aliens and philosophers, but you two can pound that too.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1495196562464681984
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/02/19/ottawas-police-chief-makes-a-big-tactical-error-n525037
Jacques Vallee was something else, folks.
The French scientist, Lacombe, in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” was based on Vallee. Vallee tried to interest Spielberg in a non-ET approach to UFOs, but failed.
He was also an astronomer and later an authority on computer networking, then later still a venture capitalist in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley.
Tonight I discovered Vallee was a force in the financing of Electronics For Imaging’s IPO — where I worked and made a tidy sum off my stock options. Thanks, Jacques!
I once met Vallee and shook his hand. He worked in the same building as I did in an earlier software start-up which failed.
He’s still alive at 82, I’m happy to say. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the go-to-guy when it comes to UFOs.
@DNW:
(or Om, if he’s done at the sheep dip)
https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/nature-cannot-explain-itself/
https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2022/02/20/godelian-incompleteness-%E2%86%92-creaturely-freedom/
Works for me.
It’s rather a moot point at this point in US History, but since there are numerous lawyers present here, does anyone have deep thoughts on this?
Gödel’s Loophole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_Loophole
There’s something very endearing about the unworldliness of some great minds — cf. the ‘Hungarian ExtraiTerrestrials’ mentioned in a thread yesterday.
I’d recommend starting with Vallee’s “Messengers of Deception,” which you can find in its entirety at the Internet Archive:
________________________
I believe that UFOs are physically real. They represent a fantastic
technology controlled by an unknown form of consciousness. But
I also believe that it would be dangerous to jump to premature
conclusions about their origin and nature, because the phenomenon
serves as the vehicle for images that can be manipulated to promote
belief systems tending to the long-term transformation of human
society.
–Jacques Vallee, “Messengers of Deception” (1979)
https://archive.org/details/MessengersOfDeceptionUFOContactsAndCultsJacquesValle1979/page/n3/mode/2up
A bit of Gab Epstein+Maxwell Humour:
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/099/203/847/original/5f2c632b4859822d.jpeg
“Being the kind of fellow who is prone to believe the last person he heard / read… I’m presently very keen on Liu Cixin’s Dark Forest Theory and of the opinion that humanity ought to STFU because it could be very dangerous out there.”
That took awhile but it is good progress. I will have to inform you, however, that it is too late. You all have already been noticed. The invasion fleet arrived some time ago.
Much like Picard’s Trek technology used amongst primitives, surgical alteration of features and holographic technology hides the agents. What else can they do if they don’t have an appreciation for a Prime Directive? Mate with the native DNA and alter it much like Mengele or Temujin? Alter your DNA with “health promoting shots”? Steal your resources?
Anything and everything can be done with this type of strategy, when the native population is full of primitives that don’t know that 2+2=4.
The counter question is thus: If they are so much more powerful than us, why don’t they just come out in the open?
Y: Perhaps because there is something more powerful than them, the Almighty or the Godhead or Archangels (of Death and Destruction), that fulfill the role of the Prime Directive enforcement for them.
Something very dangerous out there is already here, Z. Read Operation Paperclip details and Majestic 12’s insider whistleblower coverage by Thompkins.
The Wallfacer project is a classic human response, which is exactly what Maj 12 and the military industrial complex initialized.
“Fractal Rabbit on February 19, 2022 at 12:38 pm said:
physicsguy,
My latest novel (roughly 50% written) is about the quarantine (and treating us like mushrooms; keeping us in the dark and feeding us BS) of Earth due to the fact that the the numerous alien races are terrified of us, due to our warlike nature and fear us getting access to their technology. In essence, we’re the Klingons.
Until an even greater threat looms, and the aliens must “break glass in case of emergency” and bring humans into the big fight.”
That is an uncommon plot line I see in human sci fi novels self published, Fractal, albeit not that rare.
I am not sure how much I can explain, given the anti spoiler limitations on me. Humanity is neither Klingon nor Ferengi, but more like this Spice on Arrakis. It is harvested for energy, and is necessary for galactic commerce, but it is also dangerous. So the general vibe or theme is on point, but the details are not.
https://swaruu.org/
More disclosed information can be found here for those seeking it.
They only have a part of the truth there even. I have access to almost all of it, but as a result, my explanations cannot be understood directly or else it would wreck the plot.
An Alien Intelligence would be something that can communicate with you using your native language or internet text, such as this, but in which little to none of the concepts can be grasped by your human culture, civilization, or classical physics consensus.
The general hesitation in contacting Earth is that it would promote so much fear that Earth would destroy itself. There is also many sci fi plots all jumbled up together, due to DNA harvesting and hybridization. Much of humanity’s creativity is pulling from the Etheric Internet, things that reside on many other worlds. Conflicts such as Vorlons vs Shadows is also prevalent, with Earth used as a proxy. ANd of course, the Dark Forest is also true.
In fact, it is hard to find a sci fi plot that is NOT true on some level given the diversity of the heavens.
Earth also has bio diversity (Spice/DNA) that is extremely valuable, in fact more valuable than gold and weapons tech.
So attempting to find one reason or even half a dozen, won’t do it, as there are more than 1000 factions in the heavens. They all want something, and not all of them have humanity’s best interest in mind. In fact, the worst ones might be exactly those with your “best interests” in mind ; )
P.S. My position comes from the fact that Ymarsakar is recognized by many humans (old unmutated ones) as an alien. While I do not come from Mars or Venus, I am a native of Earth. The Spirit, however, is a different issue. We prefer the term “cousin” as “alien” is too cold of a relationship.
“I’ve mentioned Jacques Vallee in responses to you, but I don’t recall a reply.
Regarding UFOs, Vallee strongly doubts UFOs are Star Trek-style ETs, but are the modern cloaking of other-worldly communications which haver been going for all of human history, In previous times we knew UFOs as beings such as angels, leprechauns, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Whatever UFOs may be, Vallee emphasizes that they are having profound effects on human consciousness and culture.
If you haven’t read Vallee, I recommend touching base with his books. I consider him the major thinker about UFOs.”
My first comment on this disappeared mysteriously, so I will simply reiterate that for a human, they did well.
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/02/20/west-side-story-public-school-puts-on-holiday-show-with-vaxxed-kids-promising-not-be-be-friends-with-unvaxxed-kids/
Another piece of evidence for the file marked “BEd, MEd, and EdD holders are commonly creepy jack-wagons”.
A great quote from Jacques Vallee from his 1991 book “Revelations”, p. 10–
“…the UFO mystery holds a mirror to our own fantasies, it expresses our secret longings for a wisdom that might come down from the stars in new, improved, easy-to-use packaging, to reveal the secrets of life and tell us, at long last, who we are.”
You don’t like abstract and speculative matters, or issues of logical analysis being discussed? Ignore it.
Is anybody standing in the way of your broaching, commenting, or even squatting on any issue of the day?
This ties in with a relatively well known topic Ed Feser has engaged on, and which was launched by a dust up in the popular press when Lawrence Krauss started pontificating about nothingness.
Some golden oldies,
Horgan, and physicist Ellis
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-george-ellis-knocks-physicists-for-knocking-philosophy-falsification-free-will/
Analytic philosopher of mind and A/T moderate realist Ed Feser,
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/06/not-understanding-nothing
David Albert, physics degree credentialed critic with his super-famous essay
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html
Horgan, again
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-lawrence-krauss-a-physicist-or-just-a-bad-philosopher/
NTD News on investigation into Neurological side effects of vaccines.
https://www.ntd.com/us-agencies-quietly-studying-reports-of-post-vaccination-neurological-issues_742555.html
DNW:
I got rid of other parts of that comment, as well.
om; DNW, and to whomever else this might concern:
I don’t live chained to my computer and so I don’t continually monitor the comments here. But I do get around to at least skimming most of them, sooner or later. Sometimes later.
Regular commenters here ought to know that personal attacks are something I discourage, and that although I’m loathe to put people into moderation or ban them, I sometimes do it if the commenter won’t stop with the personal attacks.
Disagree all you want. A little personal needling here and there is ok. But I think you both know when you cross a line. Consider this a warning that if the situation doesn’t get better, I will have to put your comments in moderation, which means they don’t appear until I have a moment to check them and click “approve.”
I don’t like doing that and would prefer not to, but if I don’t do that, the blog quickly descends to the lowest common denominator (lowest comment denominator?).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHthqkXM37I
And now for something sublime.
Too many writings on the Fermi Paradox give little attention to half of the paradox statement, accepting the “no evidence” part without any serious examination. But it only takes ONE out of the thousands of years of reports to be a real spacecraft, and the whole “paradox” goes poof!
So what was Fermi really saying?
A. Flying Saucers are obviously BS, or…
B. Flying Saucers make perfect sense, so why are we mocking them instead of investigating them?
Neo denies she ever owned a VW 412.
This superannuated swamp creature for your delectation:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3167751/winston-lord-room-mao-and-nixon-examines-us-china-relations
It’s not needling. It’s a sick obsession and resentment of some kind. So it is not ok with me. Not for year in and year on for Christ’s sake. And certainly not from someone such as Om: one so manifestly inferior in honor, and every other human quality.
This is not a matter of squabbling siblings who are equally guilty. I do not want and have never wanted anything to do with the mentally disturbed punk, or with any of his obsessions with me. He does not debate matters, or explain his grievances he just hangs around making himself an annoyance.
I wouldn’t put up with his obsessively dogging me in life. I’m not going to do it here. Yeah, I could perpetually ignore it, but I am not going to.
So, as much as a kick as I have gotten out of this blog for years now, looks like I’ll be the one to move on, and I’ll just say “adios”.
DNW:
Remember the first rule of holes.
DNW:
Nor am I a parent adjudicating relative degrees of guilt and punishment. I don’t have the time or inclination to do it, and you’re not children. It is more than possible to disagree without pettyness and/or heavy-duty insults.
When I say a LITTLE needling now and then that’s what I mean. If all I had seen from you or om was “a little needling” I wouldn’t have had to write that comment of warning.
I have no desire whatsoever to drive you away, or to see you go. You and I often disagree, but disagreement is okay with me. However, of course anyone can leave at any time, and anyone can come back at any time unless the person is banned (and you are not banned). It’s your decision. But neither here nor anywhere else is the blogger going to monitor and referee every fight.
om:
And you often do more than “a little needling.” You are involved in far more than your share of the more angry confrontations here. I’m asking you to cut way back and be more respectful in the way you disagree with people.
@DNW:
Hope you’ll reconsider and stick around!
@om:
You’re not adding a lot of value around here. Contra popular delusions amongst so-called Conservatives, I don’t set much store by debate changing minds in people who have thought themselves deeply into a position — it only happens rarely. Rarely enough that it’s big news when and if it happens… That being said, what I like about vigorous debate is that it occasionally strikes some sparks which might kindle some neuronal activity (note I did not say agreement with me) in the *Undecided* or those who simply had not given a particular matter much thought before.
But you’re not striking any sparks, Om… just sloshing buckets of excrement over people who say things you reflexively don’t like. Can’t think I’ve ever observed a single instance of your engaging with an idea. You’re basically a Republican Party AOC. You’re being a not-so fun house mirror reflection of a Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad Little Red Book Waver. And that’s a bore.
And yes, I’m barely tolerable and doubtless infuriating to many present. That being agreed, I get more satisfaction from occasional grudging agreement on this or that point from folks here who find my general outlook offensive than you’ll ever get from throwing excrement from your tree branch.
Thanks for sharing o’
Sage of the East.
Come now, this is supposed to be a happy occassion, let’s here more about you. Not that you would know anything about flinging feces just for the joy it gives you.
OT but your description of the ins and outs of HK cast some shade on the notion of a single Han culture, not racism amongst the Chinese? How could that be? Maybe you chose poorly when you decamped to the Pearl of the Orient?
om:
Take your own advice and quit digging holes.
Dunno about you, Om.. but I seem to inhabit a three dimensional world of real humans where it’s possible for several semi-contradictory things to be true at the same time and in different fluctuating proportions.
Let me try to make this very simple for you.
If you nuke Guangzhou or Shenzhen, a HK’er thinks of himself as a Han Chinese victim of American warmongering. If some wily apparatchiks in Beijing decide that the best way to assimilate HK is to fill it up with Mainlanders and gradually drive out the more recalcitrant locals, then that HK’er thinks of himself as a HK’er in the process of being ethnically cleansed. He could do both in the same week or even on the same day depending which newspaper headlines he’s reading and what’s going down in Meat Space. Much like certain of our favourite bloggers and commentators who divide their attention between the Jerusalem Post and whatever US media they regularly follow.
This is normal human behaviour.
It’s IMNSHO OK to generalise and have a bit of fun with rhetorical monkeying about… but just being one-dimensional and obtuse is, again, a Bore.
@DNW:
You will do what you think best, but I have enjoyed many of your posts. Many of your other posts go over my head. I don’t agree with you on everything, but I have enjoyed your “diverse” point of view and your mordant wit!
Thanks again, but your explaination is way too complicated, can you dial it down to a none dimensional world.
So Xi promoting Chinese culture and your love for it is just a cynical means of manipulating people? (Z will now insert a strawman about decedant western culture and how by implication, I favor such degradation.) That is so new and original.
Neo:
But you see the hole I’ve been digging didn’t involve wishing anyone to kill themselves. A subtle distinction? But I’m no philosopher. Just water off a duck.
Happy President’s Day!
Hi. I’d like to announce my shock at the news (several months after the accomplished fact) that Levon Aronian has switched chess federations to USA, which apparently, I am just now discovering, took effect just last December. Still trying to get my head around it.
It’s funny how formal nationality functions in the chess realm; it’s a much more fluid thing in that context. I’m just checking the FIDE regulations on this sort of thing and currently, it is not required that a player be a citizen of the country to which he or she is transferring. Residency for a certain amount of time, backed up by house rental/ownership contract or utility bills being paid at an address there, suffices. Now, Aronian having moved into a nice-looking row house in St. Louis next to the chess club there, he apparently has built up enough residency duration to satisfy this.
I have a couple of concerns about this sort of thing, one being that it makes it seem as if the St. Louis Chess Club under Sinquefield’s aegis is trying to vacuum up an overabundance of (especially but not exclusively) the immigrant high-powered talent. (Webster Univ., which is another such magnet, is also in St. Louis.) It seems odd to me to have so much professional chess talent concentrating in St. Louis, not exactly a chess mecca historically. NYC was the obvious destination back in the day, of course, and while it’s certainly healthy to have more than one dominant center, I just find St. Louis a rather non-obvious selection. Better than some possible alternatives, I suppose.
Maybe I should stop worrying about it, not least because having Aronian, Dominguez, Nakamura, etc. there regularly can perhaps do something to give the Midwest a bit of heft in a chess scene that is largely dominated by the coasts. I don’t recall Chicago, as large as it is, playing a significant role in U. S. chess since Verber’s passing, for example. And to be fair, having all of the important invitational national chess championships in the same place for years now must make some kind of difference.
(Caruana also lives in St. Louis, apparently; So resides not far from Minneapolis.)
@Philip Sells:
Those Rootless Cosmopolitan Armenians again 😀
It’ll take more than one Levon Aronian to erase the Kardashian stain.
Hate to say it… goes against the grain and all, but probably just best to enjoy the Chess Diversity and let the rest ride. Why I can say that with more than some sincerity about Chess (or Go or Contract Bridge) and not about skiing, or baseball, or track and field is a fertile field for thought and debate. But there *is* something different about intellectual pursuits and competition. Tub-thumping aside, deeply ingrained in most of us still, somehow is the notion that one only rightly competes in athletics for one’s village, polis, etc. and that Metics Don’t Count.
Philip Sells:
I’ve reengaged somewhat with the chess world in recent years, though not enough to notice Aronian’s latest move. Though, as you say, the more traditional displacement to NYC for global chess talent.
I did love the story of Korchnoi at 79 defeating Caruana at 18, ten years ago:
___________________________
The game’s mental and physical toll eventually forces most top players to stop competing. And those who continue to play tend to avoid the elite tournaments where the pressure is greatest.
Then there is Viktor Korchnoi.
He was a top player for more than 30 years and competed for the world title three times. The last of those battles was in 1981, when he was 50. Four years ago, when he was 75, he was still ranked No. 85 in the world.
At 79, ‘Viktor the Terrible’ Outsmarts an 18-Year-Old
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/crosswords/chess/30chess.html
___________________________
If one followed those fabulous sixties-seventies World Chess Championship cycles which featured Spassky and Fischer at their peaks, there was always Viktor Korchnoi, grim-faced in the mix, not far behind either of them, though never quite cracking the final level.
___________________________
He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion. –Wiki
___________________________
But what a competitior! Also, one of the only Soviet Grandmasters who broke with Moscow and defected to the West.
Then there is Viktor Korchnoi. A man of iron.
His victory over Caruana was epic.
Interesting video. It calls to mind the very short story by Terry Bisson, “They’re Made Out Of Meat”. It gives an amusing reason why we’ve never been contacted. You can find it online at no cost.
Science fiction has come up with many ways to look at this problem. Cixin Liu’s trilogy, “The Three Body Problem” answers the question by positing a dangerous galaxy where it’s best to remain quiet.
I’ve just finished reading John Sandford’s “Saturn Run”. Another interesting way to look at this question. The book is based on the current state of our technology (so there’s no transporters!) and takes place in the near future.
Sandford’s take on this is much more likely. How could aliens ever know we are even here? Our EM signals only just started and fade with distance. Sure, maybe Proxima might notice as it’s only 4 light years out. But habitable planets with intelligent life might be hundreds of light years away. No one knows we’re here and they may never know!
As far as we know faster than light travel is just not possible. The warp of space, in theory, is possible but not likely to be developed any time soon. The energy required is far beyond what we are capable of. So the answer is some tech or another that is efficient enough to accelerate a ship to a speed approaching say 25% of the speed of light. Then travel between the stars is possible.
But we’re not even close.
“And yes, I’m barely tolerable and doubtless infuriating to many present. ”
Compared to whom, ymar? You are not even close to being infuriating.
Z doesn’t consider himself non human, unlike the fictional Zaphod Bebbelbrox. So there is that distinction.
Om, have you learned your lessons yet on how pretending to be christian/identity by finding people to project on and hate, has consequences?
God: Let’s see what he answers with.
Satans: I would like to know as well.
I rate people’s level of infuriation based on their emotions. In Om’s life, he has survived up to now by finding people to kick down at and superiors to kiss up at.
It is the little middle management that will abuse people he can in his environment, because of his limited powers, but will bootlick and appease anyone up the chain of command or with any real power over their career.
Detecting that emotion is an ugly experience, and most humans let alone ET psi users, won’t deal with human disrespect. THey have a high intolerance for it.
Z does not have the usual corrupt human mutated mix of envy, hatreds, anger, and jealousies (usually), thus Z is far easier to read and interact with.
I prefer dealing with humans (unmutated) like Zaphod. In fact, I prefer dealing with serial killers (they are purely animalistic in a way) than the corrupt ones online that show their ugly emotions so clearly.
Btw, Neo is the reason why Om has gotten out of hand, because whenever someone is capable of putting Om in his place, she moderates them. But for people with deep psychological imbalances or desires to punch down on people, just cooling down a fight by putting both in detention won’t fix the issue in the long term.
That’s a lesson Neo could learn from, but she does not see it as something very critical. Om is thus doing her a favor, albeit in a negative indirect fashion. It is the way of Karma.
“As far as we know faster than light travel is just not possible. The warp of space, in theory, is possible but not likely to be developed any time soon. The energy required is far beyond what we are capable of. So the answer is some tech or another that is efficient enough to accelerate a ship to a speed approaching say 25% of the speed of light. Then travel between the stars is possible.
But we’re not even close.”
The recent limited disclosure by the Pentagon about reverse engineered technology from Roswell should at least dispel the “improbability of getting here” premise.
In general, Earth’s level of spice resources and genetic data is so valuable that ET groups have actually intentionally crash landed vessels here (Roswell) in order to manipulate governments using fear into signing treaties with them.
Grenada Treaty.
This is all part of a long term strategy often used on more primitive civilizations. Crash land a ship, let them study the technology and realize how out classed they are. Then do some light intimidation on their capitals, make their leaders realize that they need equal weapons parity. THen come in and offer a deal, “we give you weapons, and in return you allow us to sample some of your people for DNA data gathering purposes, we will return them unharmed”.
And thus the rise in abductions began after Roswell.
Then there’s the AI nanite threat scenario, which posits that ET groups are actually controlled by a vampiric galaxy wide network of AI, using nanites to control the blood and nerves of lesser ET slave groups. By helping humanity to reverse engineer technology, this helps develop the infrastructure for silicon computing and nanotechnology. The AI group then invades not with a classical physical show of force, but simply by hijacking all the computer chips and technology. The Beast System.
Perhaps microchips in bodies made no sense 10 years ago, but now your phone is connected to your body’s biometrics and nanotechnology can reside in your blood stream, changing your very DNA (mutations).
By the time Neural Link and Gates succeeds, it will be too late. The invasion (higher level) will have succeeded.
So the scenarios are complicated, in that it is the mixing up of different layers, including the Dark Forest scenario, with a number of other things (using human tech and bodies as violent mercenaries).
More comedy gold from Yammer. Another deep deep thinker. The trioka of deep thought. 🙂
OT: Do you still have Georgia covered?
” I’m asking you to cut way back and be more respectful in the way you disagree with people.”
The respect Om shows to Neo is not respect, but fear due to her power over the blog admin functions.
It is a miscommunication. If you want people to show respect, Neo, you have to demonstrate you have a respect for views that deeply trigger you.
People who have internal traumas and soul fragmentations will adhere to behaviors more than theory or ideals. Since I was prevented from training the bad behavior out, I have not seen you or others get any results over the few times I have visited.
This is a lesson for your soul. Try to make the most use of it with your limited time on Earth, Neo.
Om is not going to show respect to DNW or Zaphod because Om does not fear those 2.
“More comedy gold from Yammer. Another deep deep thinker. The trioka of deep thought. ?
OT: Do you still have Georgia covered?”
I am sure you missed me over the years, but I certainly did not miss your energy and vibrations.
I have Georgia locked up better than Justin has with UN mercenaries in Canada.
I am after all, breaking your nations apart. How does it feel in your life so far?
Always a modest man, that Yammer.
The UN? Don’t they wear blue helmets?
“A man has got to know his limitations.” 🙂
Neo writes: ” to the lowest common denominator (lowest comment denominator?).”
“Lowest comment denominator” is a phrase that pays. It’s a standard that I often set.