Peterkin

Amount to much what on which scale of values, according to whose metrics? Unless it was evolving under there, ready to emerge when the conditions become favourable - only, by then the surface is already covered by aggressive earth life. And, once more, with scientific detachment: Why? We can't learn anything because of the time-scale. We can't benefit because of the distance. We make an investment of resources.... for what return? If somebody say, just for fun, or to beat the Chinese to an achievement milestone, or to take a few $billion out of the military budget - okay, I can see that. Because we can, or because it's our destiny, or because Life is precious - those, to me, are invalid reasons.

Probably trying to figure out your intentions. Makes me wonder.... She must have seen human divers before, so she's got you classified by configuration and motion. She can't have met any predatory humans before, or she'd be dead, so you're classified as benign (or provisionally benign) as to type. One would expect, in that case, to be ignored. So this one was checking you out particularly, as an individual. Gathering detailed information on the type? Making contact? Making a request? .... or investigating your chakras/aura/vibes with a sensory capability we don't know about?

If you're over 60, you'll never be in the correct timeline again.

You can write anything on a flag or a teeshirt and take it out in public. The future of civilization is not looking too rosy atm.

when I, and everyone else, had our fift5h of sixth vaccination.... (booked our third in march.)

Good to know! I may visit, after all.... what we used to say when the gods stepped on our plans: when this mess is over.

Intelligence is no immunity against stupid assumptions. Pet dogs, who have never lived in a pack, hunted for survival or had territorial rivals, don't have the same understanding of predator etiquette that coyotes or wolves have. Their residual instincts (like those of humans) are displaced and confused by civilization; can drive them to behaviour that would have been appropriate in a pack hierarchy (most of our pets are ranked higher in our pack than their capabilities would earn in the wild, so they tend to be overconfident), or defence of a perimeter they've marked (even though their territory overlaps those of a hundred dogs they've never even met, let alone matched up against.) but a helluva a lot mo snakes! I used to watch Bondi Vet at lunch sometimes, when we had regular tv.

Also rats, snakes, cats, possums and raccoons. It's a perilous life out there!

I mean real-world animals, not domestic ones. Yes, small dogs can be very stupid.

Long-distance truckers listen to their radio for company on the road. If they travel through the US, there are vast regions where they are subjected to the crazy network: gospel, country, vitriolic commentary and conservative propaganda.

Would have been fun to film! If we go softly about the world, we are often treated to touching, tragic, amusing, enlightening scenes. I watch the birds on my feeders now, the way I used to watch children in the schoolyard - as an interested observer, not as a predator.

That's what I assumed. A tiny animal will generally avoid provoking a big animal, unless it's quite sure that big animal has no culinary or hostile inclinations toward the tiny animal. Once amicable or at least laissez-faire relations are established, communication and some degree of accommodation can take place. I wouldn't put it past him. But i don't suppose the crab is intelligent enough to get that.

Not to much effect, I'd wager, unless the octopus were obliging. I have to suppose the crab had reason, through previous interactions, to expect co-operation.

The same way you know the blackbirds are telling you to stay away from their nesting site, or the dog tells the cat to get off his bed or a goat tells a horse to come and play: body language. Needs, wants and feelings are common to all life on Earth. The closer two species are in brain complexity, lifestyle and habitat, the more they can understand of one another's expressions.

That may all be so and worth discussing, but it's a much bigger discussion than the scope of this thread, and belongs in a different category.

In my case, it was another way of saying I don't want to hijack the thread. No, it wasn't about that. It was a simple caution against focusing on the details of a desired physical type, rather than individuality. There is more to engage with in a slightly homely woman who is interested and friendly than a supermodel who keeps looking at her own reflection. People who are born into the right sort of body also have, more often than not, to make peace with their own physical imperfections. People who have to make a superhuman effort to achieve the type of body they should have been born into are at greater risk of diluting their internal identity in the process. It's important to find the point at which you've made enough change to your appearance and retained enough of your original personality.

Yes and no. On one hand, the price of procedures reflects the cost of research plus the cost of training the practitioners and furnishing the facilities, so every breakthrough has to bring commensurate returns - and be predicted to bring worthwhile financial returns before the people who control money invest in it. Once a procedure is established and has a steady market, the cost of tools and training deceases, competition increases; in theory, that should bring the price down. Doesn't seem to apply in many areas of medicine, which remains highly specialized by field. I don't know what research is going on, or how the pandemic situation has retarded its progress. Really, the future of bone surgery is speculative. I'm simply not informed enough to address that question. "***" I suppose they have their reasons, legal, moral and religious. Medical research needs to be controlled, because Frankensteins do exist. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2726839/ Technically, I have no quibble with the advancements you're suggesting. For sure! Within reason. I would just caution you - and everyone who wants to change their physical appearance for whatever reason - about the risk of too deep an emotional investment in body-image. But that's not about anatomy; it's about psychology. It was an idle aside - i.e. off topic; thus' another can' - a speculation on the very complex question (thus 'can of worms', facetiously euphemized) of what motivates resentment from people who have no stake in the matter; nothing to lose (metaphorical slang idiom: 'skin off nose or ass'). Nothing to do with actual body parts. Sorry! I get a little carried away with language sometimes. "***" Quote option is really clever on this board. Highlight the passage you want to quote, it turns blue, wait for prompt: 'quote selection' (might not happen on first try) hit the button. The new quote pops into your reply box, exactly where the cursor was. Make sure there is clear space between it and any text below, or the quote may appear in the middle of your own sentence. (This, too, is off topic - there is a section for help with technical issues.)

It says I have no intentions.

OK then. If Human Destiny demands it, the scientific tool-kit must serve it.

project, not process You've given a remarkably one-sided and ideological view, yes. This is not scientific; this is a creed.

That's what zealots of Beetlejuice told the skeptics before they launched that black glass brick full of corona virus. It was intended for Europa, but overshot - just like the first time they tried it, 3 million years ago.

No, what? Of bleeding-course it's the humans! Who else?? Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Conclusion: all people should own guns. "It" doesn't speak; it doesn't breathe; it doesn't bleed; it doesn't breed.

None of the above. Science has no priorities, no responsibility, no will, no purpose and no consciousness. Science is nothing more than a methodology, a set of tools, wherewith humans - imperfect, subjective humans - achieve whatever aim their needs, wants, ideals and ambitions demand from moment to moment. Their injudicious, selfish, shortsighted, (not to mention downright evil and sometimes even the best-intentioned) applications of the scientific tool-kit has ended or blighted billions of lives, extinguished many thousands of entire species, committed genocide on groups of its own species and done irreparable harm to the only planet we know for certain to be habitable. I, as a human being, rather than a spokesman for Science or any other lofty Concept, am of the opinion that any meddling on our part has the potential of doing harm to other potentially habitable planets.

Your obsession with Earth based ideologies are clouding your sensibilities. I don't believe either of has been exposed to any ideologies that are not Earth-based. Where we differ is in our views on priority, responsibility and entitlement.

Whoooa! Round the twist, off his rails, and the most influential thinker in the world. Well, that should tell us something about where the world is going.