TheVat

This was the original concept when I first read about it back in the early Paleolithic. A miniature sun in a magnetic bottle. It also has the advantage in terms of "where do we put everything?" The inertial confinement with its stadium-filling array of LAZERS faces the thorny engineering problems of where you then fit all the thermal conversion stuff needed for an actual power plant.

Good point. Once you speculate on self-replicating probes there are so many possible speculative paths from that. And VN machines seem more practical especially in terms of collecting data in some unthinkably vast galactic survey. Yep. And terraforming is really hard work and massive scale investment, even if arsenic, mercury, lead, toxic chemicals, dangerous microbes, allergens, are not a problem. Alien biomes would likely have different protein structures and amino acids, so a colonist couldn't just start with "40 acres and a mule." The reality of most planet based colonies would likely be sequestered spaces beneath sealed domes. We have all really stayed with the FBI topic, haven't we? Hehe.

Makes sense, since Russian would transliterate to keep the "z" sound of the spoken word. And Russian S is C, which is only pronounced like the sibilant S. Добро пожаловать.

Cucumbers. They have fiber, electrolytes and good vitamins with nearly zero kilocalories of food energy.

I share the underwhelmed state here. As the lab director said: "300 megajoules at the wall, two megajoules at the laser.” The old "wall socket" problem. And agree that magnetic confinement might be the better path than inertial, in terms of the engineering hurdles. It's laser, btw, not lazer (forum pedant rears its ugly head briefly). It's originally an acronym. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Pretty sure if someone kept calling me "retarded," "professor," "liar," or my posts "mangled gibberish," I would terminate my conversation with them. Lorentz may find (cough) transformative benefits in candid self-reflection on his style of discourse. It's often more illuminating than self-justification.

It was probably easier to check IP addresses (and block them, or a small range around them) when the web was younger and fewer had multiple IP addresses or VPNs or the like. It's harder to decisively determine the electronic fingerprint of a sockpuppet, so one is forced as a mod to give BotD. It can be frustrating for a member who in good faith puts together a lengthy explanation at a novice level, as Studiot and others do. One hopes that somewhere out there a reader looks in who does benefit from such explanation. (That would be me, in some physics threads...)

Yes, and plus one to the whole post. I see this problem as part of a culture war, where people move away from conversations that are meant to find out what others are thinking (and how they got there) to agenda-driven conversations where the parties will comb over everything the other person says with a fine-toothed comb in hopes of finding something that could be spun as offensive. It's what partisans often do to politicians ("Hey, Hillary called us all deplorable!") and now it's become the tactic in more mundane encounters between ordinary people. The Antifa example you gave is a good one. Another is Social Justice Warrior. How could fighting for social justice be anything but good and desirable? So the term is twisted to be sarcastic, as if sarcasm is all you need to make a case. The Left sometimes will mock any use of the term "small government," closing off reasoned discussion of the concept. The Right will, in a similar vein, attack "socialism," mocking any top-down economic policy in advance by equating it with Stalinism or Nazis. A recent case regarding the question, "Where are you from?" struck me as one where the criticism of the questioner is often predicated on the assumption that they must be racist. No further examination of context or motivation needed. Guilty. I would heartily agree that the conversation between the Royal Household member (age 83) and a Black woman, recently recounted on BBC, revealed a rather rude and toxic cross-examination that was deservedly condemned. But not EVERYONE who has ever asked this question is being racist and rude. Many people in many places, where newcomers are prevalent, are simply taking a friendly interest in someone arrived from a different place and culture, their words meaning nothing beyond that. It was until recently a common question in many US university towns, because we have so many foreign students that come from all over the world and who enjoy talking about their adventures. Not everyone does, of course, and I have rarely seen the question followed up in a pushy way. Now, it's verboten.

I guess one can describe Earth as one data point, though it does have a multiplicity of civilizations with some variety in their ethical systems. So we can look at them, through history to present day, and see how some systems prosper more than others. While this is a meager data set, with regard to a galaxy, I was suggesting some guesses could be made. One guess, as I posted earlier, is that societies that favor trade over genocide are far more likely to thrive and develop planetary cooperatives that can afford space travel. It's fair to say my guess is a hypothesis maybe only testable by potentially exposing ourselves to possible "Borg" collectives or other threats. Or there may be a natural ceiling for intelligence, as @mistermack discusses. And we may find an empty galaxy, so far as big-brained toolmakers are concerned. Speaking as one of the big-brained toolmakers, I predict this is something we will try to determine even with the risk that the answer will disappoint us. At some point, if we are not finding any signs of intelligence, we might disseminate Von Neumann machines that could massively replicate and survey every star system. (Could some UFO sightings actually be of such devices?)

An interesting experiment (gedankenexperiment, at this point) would be to hook up a conscious volunteer to a device that transfers the function of each neuron and synapse (nondestructively, so that neuron stays alive) to a silicon analogous unit. After all neurons have transferred, you would then show something to the resulting silicon brain through artificial sensory channels, a set of images perhaps, while having a chat with it. Then you would have this silicon analog transfer its current state (of each neuron analog) back to the biological brain, shut it down, and wake the volunteer. Then ask them what they remembered. Would they have any memory of briefly existing as the silicon-based brain? IIRC philosopher Derek Parfit came up with a series of thought experiments like this. Mine is a modification of one of them.

All these theories of planet destroyer aliens seem rooted in one particular human flavor of paranoia. As @Moontanman noted. I find the Bright Forest scenario vastly more probable, that civilizations that reach a high technology level rely on cooperation, curiosity, and a propensity for trade and intellectual exchange over annihilating. For all the bad chapters in human history, violence and warfare per capita have plummeted in the past few centuries (I think Stephen Pinker has a graph of this) and less warlike nations have discovered the mutual profit of peaceful trade vastly outweighing the gains of war. (Putin is notable in how much he is an outlier, and presides over a shrinking economy which will soon have the GDP of a third world country). Even very primitive H-G bands are now trading woodcarvings or orchid bulbs for cellphones and tools. If our human civilization manages to get through the nuclear weapons phase and the relics of xenophobia and ancient religious hatreds, we will emerge as a curious and friendly outpost of sentience that can actually assemble the brainpower and economic engines needed for starfaring if that's still seen as desirable. And I don't believe we will cling to the Stay Silent option, which is the belief system of a mouse not a human. I think Fermi's "where are they" relates to the limiting factors in the Drake Equation, not to a galaxy of trembling nervous nellies.

(Delighted to find a question concerning a field in which I have formal training) Measuring blood glucose will not be a reliable measure here. A specific food is usually a complex blend of nutrients which, as they make their way through the small intestines, are absorbed through the villi at different rates. Most nutrients pass through the mucosa layer of villi in the jejunum, however some minerals absorb in the duodenum. Coffee leaves the stomach in as little as ten minutes and is absorbed shortly thereafter, while ruminant meat might take several hours to leave the stomach and then as long as a day to be absorbed in the intestine. A white flour pastry with minimal oils could be absorbed in a fraction of the time of meat or fatty foods. Same for fruit juices. Whole wheat moves slower and absorbs slower due to high dietary fiber content. Whole rolled oats are also slower, with even slower mineral uptake due to phytic acid content. (Many foods have so-called anti-nutrients, which are chemicals that actually block complete digestion and reduce specific nutrient absorption.) There are also resistant starches, mainly polysaccharides, which due to various features (like amylase resistant cellular walls) are simply not digested by us, but nevertheless contribute to colon health and feed intestinal flora we need. Lentils, green bananas, dates, and many other foods have these resistant starches. Soluble fiber and resistant starch are quite similar, and there is some overlap. Anyway, point is, you have to look at what goes in to making a specific food, and learn how its components will be absorbed at different rates. The table sugar on that doughnut may absorb in under an hour, while oleic acid, an omega-9 fatty acid in the cooking oil, will take longer to access.

Yes. And the hope that prawn and fishing industries would have high motivation to pay in to seagrass pasture expansion and mangroves seems well founded. Potential billions for them. And IIRC seagrass is fairly hardy and handles water temp rises well. While land based solutions must also be implemented, they involve plantings that are more vulnerable to shifting rainfall patterns, wind erosions, increased wildfire, etc. Rainforest, for example, makes its own weather and so when its lost you have areas that no longer have enough rain to readily bring it back. There you are looking at generations before a forest can come back from scrublands and savannahs, and only with immense effort.

Has a St. Anselm feel to it, for sure. Unicorns always exist.

It is a bit scary how much one extreme band on the political spectrum seems to take every concept of social progress and infuse it with pejorative meaning. Instead of having a real conversation about what there could be to awaken to, the woke person is put on the defensive to counter the repressive Maoist caricature being painted over them. And I'm sure there are conservatives of integrity and conscience who get into similar defensive mode when they get painted as part of some monolithic cadre of racist misogynist plutocrats warming their fat hands over book bonfires. All the while we could be having real conversations about actual policy philosophies - when is small government useful, when is it a copout on necessary pooling of community resources? What's the difference between a natural right and a privilege? Who should determine what children are taught in school? What is the legitimate function of a national military defense? What are the pluses and minuses of a global economy with globe-spanning supply chains? How should state regulatory power be levied on a free market? How should freedom of religion apply to businesses that serve the public? Can quotas or targeted goals remedy historical systemic racism and if so how? And a hundred other questions. And one discussion we especially need in the US regarding systemic racism is to examine the difference between being responsible for a systemic problem and taking responsibility for it. I might not be personally responsible for something, but it could be that because of my advantages and privileges I should go ahead and take responsibility. If I see an old man fallen on some ice, I might stop and help him up and call for medical help if needed, even though I didn't personally cause the ice to be there.

Loan Sharknado.

Ben, I hope you are keeping up your debt payments because if you miss one, the boss is sending Vinnie over to adjust your kneecaps.

I don't wish to mar your bliss, but what exactly was it you appreciated?

Many do their best thinking in certain places. For some, it may be outside in an open space like a park or woods, for others, a quiet room at home, for others, a library or office. I know people who do their best thinking sitting in their car, or claim to. I would guess the general effect, indicated in OP, is that complex and dynamic environments like an urban street with crowds tend to call on the mind to direct attention outward to the immediacy of what's going on. Also, any setting perceived as unsafe. My experience is that lists are useful because, for example, modern supermarkets have 50,000 different items and it's easy to lose track of why you came in to the store in the first place. I go in because we need milk and potatoes and I come out with spinach polenta, pasta sauce, avocados, kettle chips, almonds coated with Himalayan salt, rice noodles with miso, turmeric gummies, mushroom goulash mix and....wait, why did I come in here? (If I don't have a list, I usually go to produce aisle, where anything I've forgotten is fairly visible)

So AI can now compose dull poetry. That said, the line discussions and debates that never end seems uncannily accurate! 😀

I would say more on the philosophic approach to mortality, but Seth has covered much of it quite well. I would add only that modern medicine has been a string of remarkable breakthroughs in treating conditions that either result in early mortality, or lives of suffering and reduced capacity/mobility. (it would be good to see these breakthroughs distributed more evenly throughout the human population - that would require a breakthrough in politics, I'm sure) For example, I am grateful for advances in nutrition and wellness routines that result in me suffering far less from the familial curse of joint problems than previous generations. In spite of the high noise-to-signal ratio of the Web, we have a society with access to far more information on how to stay reasonably vital and fit well into old age. Advances in holistic health have been nothing short of astonishing. (a quick thank you to those who worked out the anti-inflammatory powers of algae oil) Also advances in the replacement of failed joints, limbs, anatomical structures in the ears and eyes, and most of the internal organs. Surgery can now do amazing reconstructions on the most grievous facial disfigurements, and we are not that far from a fully functional artificial eye. People can run and do gymnastics with prosthetic limbs. Thanks to advances in blood pressure regulation, fewer people have their lives cut short by stroke and the average age for a first stroke has been pushed back a decade or more. These are all game-changers that have radically altered the experience of middle and old age for billions of people. And also the lives of young daredevils who get out there and shatter their bones and tear up internal organs on a regular basis. The most important task for a civilized planet would be to extend the fruits of these breakthroughs to the 2-3 billion people who were not fortunate enough to emerge from the right wombs and have access to modern healthcare. (this would also help reduce population growth, because people who are confident their children will live to adulthood tend to have fewer children - it's what population biologists call the demographic shift)

Interesting chat, which prompted a couple thoughts: One, an ET race that coldly calculates and affirms a high value on annihilating an entire planet of sentient beings...strikes me as very likely to be the sort of race that bombs itself back to the Amish farm level of civilization well before they make it into interstellar space. It's hard for me to see a fairly united planetary civilization evolving that would lack an ethical reluctance towards mass murder. I would think such an amoral perspective would lead more towards a planet of small balkanized states too busy feuding to be able to allocate sufficient resources to starfaring. As for "malevolence," I guess this depends on how one defines that term. Some might argue that a race that could justify such abhorrent acts as wiping out an entire sentient race, on a mathematical algorithm, would have a rather profound malevolence "baked in" to their character. And again, it's hard to see this character being one suited for longterm survival of an advanced civilization. My sense is that they would always be skating over very thin ice above a Hobbesian nightmare. (this is one reason I found the Klingons a rather improbable spacefaring race in the Star Trek franchise)

Like @studiot I've had a couple bloopers. One, as it happened, was me utterly misreading the phrasing of some innocuous post of his and reacting contentiously and stupidly. I wanted to deep six my post, but didn't even edit a correction in time. It was fortunate that someone else, @StringJunky maybe, alertly pointed out the misunderstanding. Blessed are the cheesemakers.

Good question. I don't know why we should assume B is male. Or that, another possibility, B could not be a female of reproductive age who had a child on her own using artificial insemination or IVF. As for deceased, my mother is still my mother though she is deceased. I hope the linguistic basis for this is clear: mother is a term that defines a relationship, even if it was in the past.

I don't see what can be determined about his bias solely from him being paid consulting fees (which is a common procedure when experts are brought in). Someone who offered to do it for free could also have an agenda. Arriving at conclusions like misidentification could result from the data that was available to him, and not necessarily personal bias. I will have to, as you suggest... ...before I would have any chance of discerning any special zeal on Menzel's part to debunk everything. What would be the best primary source to view all the reports? Re Dark Forest, I have doubts about that whole evaluation of probability, but maybe will address that in another thread (seems like we had one here in that topic, in the past year). As you note, the conquering or wiping out of a planetary civilization would be an enormous undertaking.