Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Nov 28, 2007 17:54:13 GMT -4
Here's a new analogy. I would say that "Fermi's Paradox" is as much a scientific theory as Intelligent Design is.
And Col. O'Neil has long known that all advanced technology is basically "magnets".
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Post by wdmundt on Nov 28, 2007 18:59:14 GMT -4
Fermi had a hypothesis. No more than that.
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reynoldbot
Jupiter
A paper-white mask of evil.
Posts: 790
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Post by reynoldbot on Nov 29, 2007 5:00:14 GMT -4
What guarentee do we have the the human race will survive that long? I certainly don't have high hopes in that regard. We've only had the capacity to destroy ourselves for a few decades and twice already we've come pretty close. You mentioned Cosmos (the tv show) and the equation presented to calculate the number of planets in the galaxy that could bear life. But you left out the rest of the story as far as Carl Sagan was concerned. After explaining the equation, he goes on to talk about the life expectancy of intelligent technology-driven civilizations on other planets. How many of the potential life forms promptly destroyed themselves soon after being technologically capable? We only have ourselves as a model and we don't have a great track record so far.
You also forget that ETI may purposefully be keeping their distance from earth, or may be observing from afar, or may even be visiting earth discreetly. Maybe there is a whole galactic federation that declared earth was off-limits from visitation for some reason or another. Or maybe earth is a small planet orbiting a mediocre sun in the backwoods of the far edge of a spiral arm on the outer rim of the galaxy, and alien civilizations don't feel the need to come out here. Galactically speaking, earth is not really a centrally-located planet.
What I'm trying to say is that there may be any number of reasons we see no evidence for ETI. Only a fool would jump to the conclusion that ETI doesn't exist. I mean, for god's sake the farthest probe we've ever sent is not even out of our solar system yet! The best and most accurate thing I could say about Fermi's paradox is that it is short-sighted.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Nov 30, 2007 14:52:27 GMT -4
I am sick of this place. You are all idiots, and lunar orbit is the biggest idiot of all. Does it make you feel importent to be an admin? This is bullsh*t, anyone can do it. Yup, anyone can do it, which is why whenever someone complains about my moderation style I always point out that you can start your own forum. No, when I pick up girls in bars I first make a dumb joke about "Uranus". I follow that up by insulting their political and religious beliefs, and by complaining about how other bars threw me out for no reason. After she slaps me in the face for being rude I stand up and yell at all of the other people in the bar that they are all idiots. Before I can be thrown out I pour a pitcher of beer over the bar owner's head and storm out. And then I return a few hours later and pretend to be someone else. Oh wait... that's what you do. I would highly recommend that you don't return, Bill. I'm sure your bosses would love to see how you have behaved here using their computers. Ah, yes, a lesson on logic from Bill Thompson, the guy who simultaneously believes that a math equation proves that extraterrestrial intelligence doesn't exist AND that you can't prove something doesn't exist. Very logical. Boo-hoo. I'm sure you'll be leaving behind a lot of disappointed people.
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raven
Jupiter
That ain't Earth, kiddies.
Posts: 509
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Post by raven on Jan 7, 2008 12:33:48 GMT -4
You know, I had a thought, I am not sure it is a good one but it is a thought. So boo yeah for me. *ahem* What if the reason we haven't seen anybody, is because they are like us, too much like us in fact. All these lovely ideas that we have to get out eventually, ignore another fact that can keep us stuck here. Politics. (Dun dun dun....DA!) Look at us, we went to the moon, and may not go back till, 2018 or some time like that. We have some people working on commercializing space, like they have for the past 30 years, and while things are being done, they are lucky most of the time to go suborbital. We haven't been to mars, we haven't even been back to the moon. It took the worlds wealthiest nation, and all the political will possible, just to get to send some guys to plant flags and pick up moon rocks. They were designing a ship that could go to the outer planets in a few months, in the 50's! With project orion we could have sent a submarine into space! Aliens are likely to face the same difficulty. That governments would rather shoot each other to radioactive dust, then send people to the stars.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 7, 2008 12:49:01 GMT -4
Did I point that out somewhere earlier in this thread? There are any number of possible explanations as to why we might not meet anyone else out there. The point of our disagreement with Bill was his refusal to admit that any of these could possibly be valid, or even accepting that we lack the data to begin to determine wether any might be valid.
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raven
Jupiter
That ain't Earth, kiddies.
Posts: 509
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Post by raven on Jan 7, 2008 13:58:31 GMT -4
oh sorry, I didn't read ALL 15 pages of this, maybe I should have? Still if someone else thought it up, I guess it must be a fairly good idea, great minds think alike, (and fools seldom differ )
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