When I was little, my mom dropped me and her friends kid off at a church for arts and crafts, I was 5. We we given toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaner, glue, and some other stuff to make butterflies. I studiously started making mine, I got the wings, the antenna and asked what I was supposed to use for the legs. A full grown ass women look me right in the eye and said “Butterflies don’t have legs”.
I had seen butterflies land on flowers and latch on with legs, I was so confused how an adult wouldn’t know that.
I suppose it depends on why they’re being quiet. If other civilizations view each other as competitors for rare resources like worlds that would be inhabitable with out large scale terraforming, then being loud may get your planet targeted. That’s the basis for the “Dark Forest” theory. I think that theory is interesting, but it’s a bit pessimistic in my opinion. What’s way more likely is, if there are other civilizations out there, the odds of them existing during the same time frame that we’re here, AND being close enough to receive radio waves in a timely fashion, AND are at a technology level to send and receive those radio waves… it’s all very very very unlikely.
For me, what’s way scarier is, it isn’t that everyone is being quiet, it’s that there isn’t any one else out there, and we’re one of the first civilizations to develop. If there were other highly advanced civilizations out there, there’d be signs of them, signs of their technology. Shit, I read that large ships moving at close to the speed light would generate detectable gravity waves. But so far, nothing.
I highly recommend the book series! There are enough differences from the show to keep it fresh, AND the story in the books goes much further then the show got to.
I love the first Dune book, and I love the goofy 80’s Dune movie, which was pretty close to the book in terms of getting a lot of the internal dialog in place. But I hated the new Dune movie. I didn’t like how sterile and empty they made the palace, or the weird anus mouth design of the sand worms. Or the silly use of balloons to help lift harvesters. I very much didn’t like how they made Lady Jessica an emotional mess, instead of being in control of her outward emotions, as she was trained to do.
They also screwed up the personal defense shields REAL BAD. The idea that the shields react to kinetic energy, so a fast moving project from a firearm would get stopped, but a slow moving blade would pass through. The fight near the end had people being killed by fast sword strikes by hitting the shields, it was just so jarring and lazy. They also completely misrepresented who and what the Sardukar are. Based on how many people loved the movie, I have an unpopular opinion. Though I found that most people who absolutely loved the movie hadn’t seen the original movie, or read the first book, so they didn’t know anything to color their impression.
That and deus ex machina named Jarlaxle, he’s a god damn swiss army knife of plot resolution. Shit, in a live VR QA with R.A. Salvatore, he even said as much, that when he doesn’t know how to resolve a plot he leans on Jarlaxle.
I’m 42, I was fat in my 20s and didn’t lose 100 pounds and get in shape until 31. I’d gladly take that pill right this instant, make a lot of different choices, lose my weight and get in shape at a younger age too. I would have a very different life I bet.
But alas, your theoretical pill just taunts “Now Me”!
I agree about the Dark Forest hypothesis. Also the idea that other alien life just knew to be quiet up front is silly, for the same reason we’ve been blasting radio waves into the universe the moment we figured out how.
Nah, us being first is scary to me in the sense if life is nearly impossible to form, and we’re all alone, that means we can search planet after planet, after planet and only find dead lifeless environments. That’s not nearly as fun of a thought as the universe being full of life, and all the amazing discoveries we’d make exploring. That’s all I meant.
The worst part was, the C’tan which ended up being known as The Deceiver convinced them that they could make the Necrontyr immortal, fixing their cancer ridden short lives, and aid them in their war against the Old ones. This was accomplished by a process called bio-transference using the bio furnaces. As the Necrontyr either willingly or unwillingly lined up to burn up their bodes in the furnaces, the C’tan could be seen above the bio furnaces gorging on the souls of the Necrontyr burning.
I feel that way about guns and I’m American. It isn’t a hobby, it isn’t a passion, it’s a fetish. They never want to admit why they’re so adamant on having access to any amount of guns they want isn’t for any practical purpose outside they think they’re cool and they feel powerful owning them. There’s also a subset of gun owners here who have guns for “home defense” but they fantasize about someone breaking into their house so they can shoot them. It’s god damn sick, I hate gun ownership culture here. The last reason people love to trot out is the 2nd amendment will help protect the people against a corrupt government, again playing to the sense that gun nuts are some how on part training and mentality wise to a professional military. If the US government ever tried suppressing the population using the military, no amount of Big Gun-Nut Energy and a closet full of guns will stop the real soldiers.
The only way we’ll ever curb mass shootings is to pass laws restricting gun ownership to the types of guns with low capacities like break action shotguns or low capacity bolt action rifles. Essentially just down to hunting firearms. But that will never happen here, it’s typically right leaning folks who love their guns an unhealthy amount, and right leaning politicians are swing further and further into crazy shit to appease their extreme voting base.
So instead of any good sense gun laws, we get laws being repealed to make gun ownership easier and easier, open carry, conceal carry etc etc. To even hint at laws to bring down the the amount of mass shootings, people screech like howler monkeys. They love the “slippery slope” argument, where any law to restrict any type of gun will lead to the government coming and forcefully taking their guns. They are crazy people.