Special Paracast Episode: ET Hypothesis Debate

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Indeed Mike,
Saw this old youtube video

.

 

[Linton]

You can’t have it both ways: either some imponderable form of life which isn’t biological in nature has arisen on Earth without leaving any physical footprint, or a technological civilization has emerged previously to ours which builds solid technological devices that are visible to the human eye, return radar signals, and leave landing impressions.

My concern at first was that you had missed my point, but clearly the issue is that like many well-schooled in one realm of science or another you, perhaps, will only accept an alternate (not necessarily contrary) concept to the presently accepted norm, if it is submitted as a formal paper complete with all backing math and statistical data. Fair enough, but really not what will be accomplished here. So many sit around waiting for another Einstein, Gödell, or Tesla to come along to propell us forward but unfortunately the very people who would be qualified to be that next genius limit themselves from the very imagination necessary for fear of ridicule from their scientific peers. They take the stance that “it” hasn’t been found because it doesn’t fit the model of what we know to be true...until an Einstein comes along and says hey what about this and then generations are spent exploring where he was right and where he was wrong in directions that none would previously had entertained.
Let yourself be the Einstein. Instead of simply dismissing the posibility of an earlier civilization

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

My concern at first was that you had missed my point, but clearly the issue is that like many well-schooled in one realm of science or another you, perhaps, will only accept an alternate (not necessarily contrary) concept to the presently accepted norm, if it is submitted as a formal paper complete with all backing math and statistical data. Fair enough, but really not what will be accomplished here. So many sit around waiting for another Einstein, Gödell, or Tesla to come along to propell us forward but unfortunately the very people who would be qualified to be that next genius limit themselves from the very imagination necessary for fear of ridicule from their fellow science. They take the stance that “it” hasn’t been found because it doesn’t fit the model of what we know to be true...until an Einstein comes along and says hey what about this and then generations are spent exploring where he was right and where he was wrong in directions that none would previously had entertained.
Let yourself be the Einstein. Instead of simply dismissing the posibility of an earlier civilization

No - I'm not demanding an academic paper replete with mathematical analysis: far from it. I'm simply insisting that before anyone can be reasonably expected to take an idea seriously, a clear and sensible explanation of that idea must be offered that doesn't clearly contradict the known facts and simple logic, aka reason.

It's obvious that sophisticated technological prowess doesn't magically appear out of thin air - it has to progress from the simple to the sophisticated. That process would leave a lot of evidence behind, and yet we've never found any such evidence outside of known human artifacts. So it's up to the advocate of the "technologically advanced cohabitant hypothesis" to circumnavigate that paradox with a rationally defensible explanation. But I have yet to see one. Therefore we have no reason to take that idea more seriously any other completely unfounded notion, such as "The Wizard of Oz was a historical biography."

 

[Linton]

So it's up to the advocate of the "technologically advanced cohabitant hypothesis" to circumnavigate that paradox with a rationally defensible explanation.

Okay, so first off, frustratingly, the last paragraph of my previous post disappeared; cut off mid sentence.

What it amounted to was suggesting that rather than looking to others to provide some magical solution to prove their point that you yourself could let yourself entertain the concept and play the game of how such a traceless society might have existed, and from there extrapolate what one would have to look for that otherwise might be overlooked. This would, of course, mean that you would have to step out of the comforting shell that our progression as a society is the only way.

So here’s just one little scenario to take you out of your comfort zone. Would an emerging civilzation have to use pottery or craft arrow/spearheads or rough stone cutting utensils of any kind? We did, sure, but another, earlier civilzation, may have relied entirely on their environment for their tools, and eventually for their advances in chemistry, aeronautics and beyond.(can I get a Yo Joe!) In such a society the most prized mind might be that of the breeder, genetic shaman/alchemist/scientist that selectively breeds plants, animals, maybe even their own kind (we can not inflict our own morals on another society), to generate, likely over generations, characteristics that serve their scientific, and manufacturing needs. Such a society may have bred creatures, for example, capable of constructing complex structures, buildings, maybe even vehicles, such as boats, carts or aircraft, much in the same 3D printing-like way as a worker bee constructs a honeycomb. An entire society with all the luxuries, benefits, and abilities of any advanced culture, but entirely biologically based. They eventually head to space, maybe, or head deep underground, aware, perhaps that a catastrophic impact is imminent, or some other such calamity, or maybe being the hippie nature lovers they are, just decide to give another species a chance.In time their entire society decomposes; their once massive cities rendered by time to nothing more then massive deposits of oil...perhaps.

But surely, you might argue, there would be some fossil record of something left behind by such a society. Not necessarily. I don’t know a paleontologist that would suggest that the fossil record gives us a look at more than 30% of the species of plants and animals that have ever been...over millions of years! I would argue 30% is probably even far too generous given the ridiculous number of critters alive and rendered extinct on this planet just within our society’s existance thus far. We’re still discovering creatures that make biologists go “wow, cool!”. And yet, what might such a society leave behind that might be found and where might we look for those traces if not the fossil record, and has it already been found? ....and discuss....

 

[marduk]

My concern at first was that you had missed my point, but clearly the issue is that like many well-schooled in one realm of science or another you, perhaps, will only accept an alternate (not necessarily contrary) concept to the presently accepted norm, if it is submitted as a formal paper complete with all backing math and statistical data. Fair enough, but really not what will be accomplished here. So many sit around waiting for another Einstein, Gödell, or Tesla to come along to propell us forward but unfortunately the very people who would be qualified to be that next genius limit themselves from the very imagination necessary for fear of ridicule from their scientific peers. They take the stance that “it” hasn’t been found because it doesn’t fit the model of what we know to be true...until an Einstein comes along and says hey what about this and then generations are spent exploring where he was right and where he was wrong in directions that none would previously had entertained.
Let yourself be the Einstein. Instead of simply dismissing the posibility of an earlier civilization

I don't think there's actually an argument or assertion in there anywhere.

 

[marduk]

Okay, so first off, frustratingly, the last paragraph of my previous post disappeared; cut off mid sentence.

What it amounted to was suggesting that rather than looking to others to provide some magical solution to prove their point that you yourself could let yourself entertain the concept and play the game of how such a traceless society might have existed, and from there extrapolate what one would have to look for that otherwise might be overlooked. This would, of course, mean that you would have to step out of the comforting shell that our progression as a society is the only way.

So here’s just one little scenario to take you out of your comfort zone. Would an emerging civilzation have to use pottery or craft arrow/spearheads or rough stone cutting utensils of any kind? We did, sure, but another, earlier civilzation, may have relied entirely on their environment for their tools, and eventually for their advances in chemistry, aeronautics and beyond.(can I get a Yo Joe!) In such a society the most prized mind might be that of the breeder, genetic shaman/alchemist/scientist that selectively breeds plants, animals, maybe even their own kind (we can not inflict our own morals on another society), to generate, likely over generations, characteristics that serve their scientific, and manufacturing needs. Such a society may have bred creatures, for example, capable of constructing complex structures, buildings, maybe even vehicles, such as boats, carts or aircraft, much in the same 3D printing-like way as a worker bee constructs a honeycomb. An entire society with all the luxuries, benefits, and abilities of any advanced culture, but entirely biologically based. They eventually head to space, maybe, or head deep underground, aware, perhaps that a catastrophic impact is imminent, or some other such calamity, or maybe being the hippie nature lovers they are, just decide to give another species a chance.In time their entire society decomposes; their once massive cities rendered by time to nothing more then massive deposits of oil...perhaps.

But surely, you might argue, there would be some fossil record of something left behind by such a society. Not necessarily. I don’t know a paleontologist that would suggest that the fossil record gives us a look at more than 30% of the species of plants and animals that have ever been...over millions of years! I would argue 30% is probably even far too generous given the ridiculous number of critters alive and rendered extinct on this planet just within our society’s existance thus far. We’re still discovering creatures that make biologists go “wow, cool!”. And yet, what might such a society leave behind that might be found and where might we look for those traces if not the fossil record, and has it already been found? ....and discuss....

And this society would have left zero trace for us to find in the 5000 years or so we've been civilized at some level and spread across the globe?

All that is just hand waiving the problem away and not really a logical argument. It's like me arguing (again) that there are invisible unicorns living in my anus that have all the answers. You can't prove that they're not there - therefore I'm right!

This is the logical fallacy called 'unfalsifiability' and is basically pretty played out.

Unfalsifiability

If you're going to assert that some other civilization arose on Earth and is the causal mechanism for UFO reports, then go ahead and do so. With evidence. Because the burden of proof is on you to back up your assertion, not on anybody else to prove it's not true.

 

[Linton]

And this society would have left zero trace for us to find in the 5000 years or so we've been civilized at some level and spread across the globe?

All that is just hand waiving the problem away and not really a logical argument. It's like me arguing (again) that there are invisible unicorns living in my anus that have all the answers. You can't prove that they're not there - therefore I'm right!

This is the logical fallacy called 'unfalsifiability' and is basically pretty played out.

Ah, Marduk, l’m just going to pretend that you didn’t try to school me on “unfalsifiability”. And really the whole “hand waiving” comment is really just so much hand waiving that it’s bound to collapse in on itself into an intellectual black hole, so I’ll navigate around that and your magical Schrodinger’s anus as well.

Your line of thought would have the sun still circling the Earth. I mean, look at it, clearly going around us. There is no mystery there, nothing further to debate, to be explored, look at it! Please. Let’s throw out the ridiculous waste of time that Einstein’s thought models were before anyone got around to proving any of it real while we’re at it. What a waste of time for generations of physicists.

Nothing I presented was outside the realm of possibility, given what we know. It is as solid, is my point, as the ETH, for which there is zero, and I mean zero evidence to support. There is as much of an indication, as much of a possibility, of E.T.’s existing, as the Flinstones that I described. The progress, development and potential scientific growth of our own civilization is support to no argument other than that we might be the first civilzation to develope to the point of being space faring. Beyond that you are just trying to play a game of cup and balls and hammer.

 

[marduk]

Ah, Marduk, l’m just going to pretend that you didn’t try to school me on “unfalsifiability”. And really the whole “hand waiving” comment is really just so much hand waiving that it’s bound to collapse in on itself into an intellectual black hole, so I’ll navigate around that and your magical Schrodinger’s anus as well.

Your line of thought would have the sun still circling the Earth. I mean, look at it, clearly going around us. There is no mystery there, nothing further to debate, to be explored, look at it! Please. Let’s throw out the ridiculous waste of time that Einstein’s thought models were before anyone got around to proving any of it real while we’re at it. What a waste of time for generations of physicists.

Nothing I presented was outside the realm of possibility, given what we know. It is as solid, is my point, as the ETH, for which there is zero, and I mean zero evidence to support. There is as much of an indication, as much of a possibility, of E.T.’s existing, as the Flinstones that I described. The progress, development and potential scientific growth of our own civilization is support to no argument other than that we might be the first civilzation to develope to the point of being space faring. Beyond that you are just trying to play a game of cup and balls and hammer.

Is there an argument in there somewhere?

 

[Linton]

Is there an argument in there somewhere?

Not for you, unless you want to jump blindly on board the ETH. To condense down my point for anyone that may have missed it in my meandering....

The ETH has as much to stand on as any other outlandish theory (based on cartoons or otherwise).

To assume that what is seen in the sky comes from the sky can take us all back to dancing around crates of orange crush, and needlessly throwing beloved movie actors into volcanos.

 

[mike]

So here’s just one little scenario to take you out of your comfort zone. Would an emerging civilzation have to use pottery or craft arrow/spearheads or rough stone cutting utensils of any kind? We did, sure, but another, earlier civilzation, may have relied entirely on their environment for their tools, and eventually for their advances in chemistry, aeronautics and beyond.(can I get a Yo Joe!) In such a society the most prized mind might be that of the breeder, genetic shaman/alchemist/scientist that selectively breeds plants, animals, maybe even their own kind (we can not inflict our own morals on another society), to generate, likely over generations, characteristics that serve their scientific, and manufacturing needs. Such a society may have bred creatures, for example, capable of constructing complex structures, buildings, maybe even vehicles, such as boats, carts or aircraft, much in the same 3D printing-like way as a worker bee constructs a honeycomb. An entire society with all the luxuries, benefits, and abilities of any advanced culture, but entirely biologically based.

I can recommend Harry Harrisons west of Eden trilogy, which explores just that scenario.

The Yilanè, having had millions of years of civilization, have a very advanced society primarily based on a mastery of the biological sciences, especially genetic engineering, so much so that almost every tool and artifact they use is a modified lifeform. Their boats were originally squids, their submarines are enhanced ichthyosaurs (here called uruketos), while their guns are modified monitor lizards which eject projectiles using pressurised gas.

West of Eden - Wikipedia

 

[mike]

the ETH, for which there is zero, and I mean zero evidence to support.

That's not entirely true.

The existence of extra terrestrial planets constitutes some small evidence in favor of the possibility as does this:

Building Blocks of Life Found in Comet's Atmosphere

Astro-boffinry breakthrough: Loads of ingredients for life found on Saturn's Enceladus

Its not proof ET's are whizzing around our atmosphere in saucers, But nor can we state absolute zero either.

 

[marduk]

Not for you, unless you want to jump blindly on board the ETH. To condense down my point for anyone that may have missed it in my meandering....

The ETH has as much to stand on as any other outlandish theory (based on cartoons or otherwise).

To assume that what is seen in the sky comes from the sky can take us all back to dancing around crates of orange crush, and needlessly throwing beloved movie actors into volcanos.

This doesn’t make sense to me.

Number one, the ETH and the crypto terrestrial hypothesis are unrelated. They both could be true, they both could be false, or one or the other could be true independently. They are unconnected. So contrasting the two creates a false dichotomy.

Number two, we have plenty of evidence to suggest the CTH is not true - we live here after all and can simply go check. The only negative evidence for the ETH is SETI, which is woefully problematic.

Number three, we could replicate much - if not all - that we see here on another world in a generation or two if we decided to. In short, we could do this to someone else, therefore somebody else could be already doing it to us.

There is no evidence of an unknown terrestrial civilization. No heavy industry, no launch facilities, no energy generation capability, no environmental impact, hell, there’s not even a CT garbage dump.

Besides we as humans seem to have wiped out our non-homo sapien relatives. If there were another intelligent civilization here we probably would have done the same to them by now.

 

[marduk]

I can recommend Harry Harrisons west of Eden trilogy, which explores just that scenario.

The Yilanè, having had millions of years of civilization, have a very advanced society primarily based on a mastery of the biological sciences, especially genetic engineering, so much so that almost every tool and artifact they use is a modified lifeform. Their boats were originally squids, their submarines are enhanced ichthyosaurs (here called uruketos), while their guns are modified monitor lizards which eject projectiles using pressurised gas.

West of Eden - Wikipedia

I loved those books!

Although the reptile on human sex squicked me out.

 

[mike]

Humans and aliens may share the same DNA which could be part of a 'universal structure', according to researchers.

The building blocks of life exist in low temperatures and low pressure meaning they are far more likely to flourish than if they were more complex.
The theory was put forward by Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario who built on existing research into amino acids.

In total there are 20 standard such chemicals, which contain the DNA from which human life developed.

Researchers have already synthesized the 10 which are thought to have existed millions of years ago - and also discovered these are most likely to be found on meteorites too.


Purditz said: 'This may implicate a universal structure of the first genetic codes anywhere...

'There's a theory that they could be made in the warm interiors of large-enough meteorite'.
He added: 'Thermodynamics is fundamental.
It must hold through all points of the universe. If you can show there are certain frequencies that fall in a natural way like this, there is an implied universality.
'It has to be tested, but it seems to make a lot of sense.'


Read more: Why aliens might look like you: DNA could be a 'universal constant' - making humans and ET closer to 'cousins' | Daily Mail Online

His point on thermodynamics is a good one, it is likely to hold through the entire universe, the model of the universe does contain constants. And its those constants that increase the chances that whet we see here could happen elsewhere too.

 

[Burnt State]

Please quote me properly

I was quoting the argument from ignorance dictum which states as a logical fallacy the suggestion that:

A proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true.

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!"

-- Carl Sagan, Astronomer



Nor has it ever been my suggestion that a post biological society has settled here, at best Ive suggested such a group might have seeded this planet and or genetically uplifted a native bioform to sentience and technological proficiency. I cant see why a post biological society would settle a planet.

Ok well let's go back to Sagan then:

"Other arguments purporting to dispute the legitimacy of UFOs have been submitted by Friedman,694 Sagan,20,1317 Abell,1908 and Chiu.1311 The logic proceeds as follows: Using the acceptable estimates that there are a million communicative extraterrestrial civilizations (in our galaxy of 200 billion stars) each having a lifetime of ten million years, then if each culture dispatches one exploratory starship per year, Earth -- by random chance -- should be visited only about once every 100,000 years. Of course, if the ETs discovered something interesting happening on our planet they’d come more often to keep closer tabs on us. What is not clear is whether humans are of such inordinate interest as to justify the large investment of alien time and resources that ufologists claim is being made."

From:3.0 - The Aliens Among Us

Now Rutkowski's annual ufo report documented about three cases per day last year and Canada is a fairly small population. So if you do the math extrapolation for the rest of the planet and then subtract 95% of those as probably bogus, to stick to your 5% validity piece, and then multiply that across the UFO era that's still a ridiculous amount of UFO's visiting us daily up against Sagan's claims. So is he full of it? Or do you think just perhaps there's something else going on here on this planet with regards to the UFO phenomenon that isn't about ETH parsimony?

Because that path of least existence makes us such an incredible hot spot you might as well start charging intergalactic landing fees for all the enormous attention we are getting. If there's that much life out there you'd think they wouldn't waste such an extraordinary amount of time visiting species they don't even interact with in any real proper exchange outside of probing us in medieval manners and picking up soil samples. You can say rhetoric here if you like but after all they put on these very specific shows for the benefit of many, many human witnesses. And I'm not being insulting here when I say the prospects for that all appear laughable. We still have no real smoking guns of evidence following all those many millions of visits, just a lot of very curious indicators. That should raise some red flags no?

 

[mike]

We live here after all and can simply go check

The possibility does exist that previous species have cleaned up or have been cleaned up by older ET's for them as per Brins uplift scenario

The civilization of the Five Galaxies has several "Institutes", which are bureaucracies that specify how species deal with each other and the uplift process. One of the most significant of these is the Library Institute, the repository of all knowledge. Humanity prides itself on using the Library as little as possible. For instance, instead of drawing upon the highly refined starship designs available in the Library, humanity tends to develop its own (generally vastly inferior) vessels. Humans generally feel that this is a way to exercise their own independence and creativity, and it occasionally allows them to find solutions to problems which surprise more powerful races.


The Institute of Migration determines what planets can be colonized and under what environmental restrictions, primarily to ensure that suitable races can still evolve for later uplift. The Institute also ensures the separation of the hydrogen-breathing and oxygen-breathing orders of sentient life. Other intergalactic institutes regulate the uplift of sentient species, navigation, warfare, etc. Bureaucrats are recruited from all races but are expected to put the interests of their bureau before that of their race and maintain strict neutrality; however, this does not always happen.

In Brins hypothetical universe considerable resources are thrown at planetary cleanup once the evolved species becomes space faring. (It should be noted he is also a space scientist as well as writer)

He graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in astrophysics, in 1973.[8] At the University of California, San Diego, he earned a Master of Science in applied physics in 1978 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in space science in 1981.
Brin is a 2010 fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.[9] He helped establish the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination (UCSD). He serves on the advisory board of NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts group and frequently does futurist consulting for corporations and government agencies.


Brin consults and speaks for a wide variety of groups interested in the future, ranging from Defense Department agencies and the CIA to Procter & Gamble, SAP, Google and other major corporations. He has also been a participant in discussions at the Philanthropy Roundtable and other groups seeking innovative problem solving approaches.

Brin has a very active side career in public speaking and consultation. He appears frequently on science or future related television shows such as "The Universe," "Life After People," "Alien Encounters," "Worlds of Tomorrow," and many others.

Planetary biomes are considered to be valuable and are managed accordingly, so they can serve as sentience hatcherys multiple times. A single planet can over a massive timescale serve to nurture many sentient species none of which are aware of the previous tenants for good reason.

 

[marduk]

Ok well let's go back to Sagan then:

"Other arguments purporting to dispute the legitimacy of UFOs have been submitted by Friedman,694 Sagan,20,1317 Abell,1908 and Chiu.1311 The logic proceeds as follows: Using the acceptable estimates that there are a million communicative extraterrestrial civilizations (in our galaxy of 200 billion stars) each having a lifetime of ten million years, then if each culture dispatches one exploratory starship per year, Earth -- by random chance -- should be visited only about once every 100,000 years. Of course, if the ETs discovered something interesting happening on our planet they’d come more often to keep closer tabs on us. What is not clear is whether humans are of such inordinate interest as to justify the large investment of alien time and resources that ufologists claim is being made."

From:3.0 - The Aliens Among Us

Now Rutkowski's annual ufo report documented about three cases per day last year and Canada is a fairly small population. So if you do the math extrapolation for the rest of the planet and then subtract 95% of those as probably bogus, to stick to your 5% validity piece, and then multiply that across the UFO era that's still a ridiculous amount of UFO's visiting us daily up against Sagan's claims. So is he full of it? Or do you think just perhaps there's something else going on here on this planet with regards to the UFO phenomenon that isn't about ETH parsimony?

Because that path of least existence makes us such an incredible hot spot you might as well start charging intergalactic landing fees for all the enormous attention we are getting. If there's that much life out there you'd think they wouldn't waste such an extraordinary amount of time visiting species they don't even interact with in any real proper exchange outside of probing us in medieval manners and picking up soil samples. You can say rhetoric here if you like but after all they put on these very specific shows for the benefit of many, many human witnesses. And I'm not being insulting here when I say the prospects for that all appear laughable. We still have no real smoking guns of evidence following all those many millions of visits, just a lot of very curious indicators. That should raise some red flags no?

To me, it only raises red flags if we go into it with the following biases:

1. ‘They’ are here for scientific or data gathering purposes - at least how we understand those things.

2. ‘They’ are here for reasons that include human beings.

3. ‘They’ are actually one ‘They.’

4. ‘They’ are actually competent at whatever it is they are doing.

I doubt all four.

 

[mike]

Ok well let's go back to Sagan then:

"Other arguments purporting to dispute the legitimacy of UFOs have been submitted by Friedman,694 Sagan,20,1317 Abell,1908 and Chiu.1311 The logic proceeds as follows: Using the acceptable estimates that there are a million communicative extraterrestrial civilizations (in our galaxy of 200 billion stars) each having a lifetime of ten million years, then if each culture dispatches one exploratory starship per year, Earth -- by random chance -- should be visited only about once every 100,000 years. Of course, if the ETs discovered something interesting happening on our planet they’d come more often to keep closer tabs on us. What is not clear is whether humans are of such inordinate interest as to justify the large investment of alien time and resources that ufologists claim is being made."

From:3.0 - The Aliens Among Us

Now Rutkowski's annual ufo report documented about three cases per day last year and Canada is a fairly small population. So if you do the math extrapolation for the rest of the planet and then subtract 95% of those as probably bogus, to stick to your 5% validity piece, and then multiply that across the UFO era that's still a ridiculous amount of UFO's visiting us daily up against Sagan's claims. So is he full of it? Or do you think just perhaps there's something else going on here on this planet with regards to the UFO phenomenon that isn't about ETH parsimony?

Because that path of least existence makes us such an incredible hot spot you might as well start charging intergalactic landing fees for all the enormous attention we are getting. If there's that much life out there you'd think they wouldn't waste such an extraordinary amount of time visiting species they don't even interact with in any real proper exchange outside of probing us in medieval manners and picking up soil samples. You can say rhetoric here if you like but after all they put on these very specific shows for the benefit of many, many human witnesses. And I'm not being insulting here when I say the prospects for that all appear laughable. We still have no real smoking guns of evidence following all those many millions of visits, just a lot of very curious indicators. That should raise some red flags no?

Only from our human perspective, The motivations and agenda of ET's would naturally be alien to us and incomprehensible.

Or It could be as simple as the China example.

Stealing intellectual property has enormously benefited Chinese companies. But, it has crippled their ability to develop the next version or innovate.
China never really stopped being a copycat, and that’s why its tech companies aren’t changing the world

The behaviour may be designed to walk that fine line between teasing and coaxing our imaginations, and not crippling our own ability to invent and innovate.

Indeed it makes perfect sense to see if we can invent new and novel ways to do things that they themselves may then copy.

Think of earth as a new and novel thinktank, they just wheel in the trolley of red bulls from time to time to keep us motivated.

 

[mike]

A HUUUUUGE part of this problem is we see this from the inside looking out.
Our assumptions are that of the goldfish in his bowl trying to figure out what those funny humans who walk past are.
The goldfish cannot know what they do when they leave the room, cannot possibly guess at their motivations other than make guesses as to why they drop food in from time to time.

Its not easy, its perhaps impossible, but the challenge is to try and stop thinking like humans and try and see the earth and universe from an ET's(plural) pov.

 

[marduk]

A HUUUUUGE part of this problem is we see this from the inside looking out.
Our assumptions are that of the goldfish in his bowl trying to figure out what those funny humans who walk past are.
The goldfish cannot know what they do when they leave the room, cannot possibly guess at their motivations other than make guesses as to why they drop food in from time to time.

Its not easy, its perhaps impossible, but the challenge is to try and stop thinking like humans and try and see the earth and universe from an ET's(plural) pov.

To use a metaphor, could we explain bitcoin farming to a medieval peasant?

Let’s see... there’s these magnetic fields that when you arrange in certain ways we call it money... and if you do really hard math over and over again but slightly different you can invent more money... but not too much because there’s rules in other magnetic fields that limit you... uh... do you need a quill?