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Settle in folks, this is a long one (and not in the Rob sense of the word). First up, Powerline’s Steve Hayward (and the host of the Powerline Podcast available on the Ricochet Audio Network) drops by to discuss the inauguration and preview the Biden administration. Then, a segment we have been looking forward to for a long time. Avi Loeb is a Professor of Science at Harvard University and the longest serving chair of Harvard Astronomy Department. His new book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, posits that an alien craft visited our solar system in 2017. He makes a compelling and science based case for it, and if he’s correct, it’s one of the most –if not the most– significant scientific discovery in human history. You heard it here first, folks. Finally, Antonia Okafor is the host of the Speak-Easy podcast,one of our newest shows and one of our best. We talk to her about her passion for guns and the 2nd Amendment and why Kamala Harris becoming Vice President is significant to her, even though Antonia disagrees with almost all of Harris’ policy positions and politics. We urge you to listen to her 4 minute long solo edition of Speak-Easy on this topic. It’s enlightening and moving.
Music from this week’s show: Waiting For The UFOs by Graham Parker and The Rumor
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I know I was responding to you, but my response wasn’t actually directed at you. More of a general plea to the universe (no pun intended).
On the other side of the argument for aliens we find o group of Oxford scientists that released a paper arguing that the chance that there is intelligent life elsewhere is vanishingly unlikely:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/all-alone-oxford-study-says-chance-of-intelligent-life-elsewhere-extremely-rare
They may be here to check on the “over and under”.
For all the admonishment that we should listen to the podcast I can’t help but notice nobody is responded at all to the 40-minute video I posted.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Carl Sagan. Astronomer. Get back to me when you actually have evidence and not a crack pot theory.
The podcast begins by stating that words were recycled in the Biden speech?
Hmm, any Neil Kinnock?
Yes indeed, I read that when Rod posted it. Nothing is immune, but I’m not going to assume all the hard sciences are corrupt.
This does not exclude that Mr. Baird is also a colorful crank, albeit an educated one. After all, AOC has a college degree too.
I aspire to be a colorful crank.
From what I remember Carl Sagan was a complete global-warming crackpot.
Not to say that all claims against global warming are false, but we know that there have been both warming and cooling periods, etc.
I did watch the video. As they say about hammers and nails, though, when all you have are anthropomorphic assumptions about culture and technology, everything looks like a Dyson sphere. When you look at his five conditions for the Dyson Dilemma, three seem arguable. If I understand correctly – always a dangerous assumption – they’re necessary for setting up the argument, but not exactly objective evidence.
In an earlier post, you wrote:
So there are no aliens, anywhere, is “out there” defined locally?
This I do not understand.
By which I think you mean we have the ability to detect one if it existed, but since we haven’t detected one yet, that argues against their existence in the first place, and hence argues against a high-tech civilization. But that only works if you accept the first and third (and maybe the fourth) conditions.
If we follow that logic far enough, doesn’t it prove that we don’t exist either?
It used to be all were not corrupt; now many are not corrupt. In a few years it will be that some are not corrupt.
And at that point the job is only to bayonet the wounded.
This puzzled me some too. It seems to either assume that there is no life anywhere else that could send something, therefore nothing could be sent because there’s no place it could come from; or that assuming the speed of light is actually inviolate, nobody would bother sending anything since it would take hundreds or thousands of years to get anywhere even potentially “interesting.”
I’m reminded of when Isaac Asimov wrote his essay “Impossible, That’s All” in early 1967, which Arthur Clarke responded to with “Possible, That’s All” in late 1968. Asimov’s assertion was that FTL travel simply could never be achieved, which seemed like an odd position for someone who wrote the kinds of stories he wrote. But when I found out how much of a Luddite that Asimov basically was himself, it was more understandable. And Clarke did a commendable job of… debunking?… Asimov. (Indeed, one of the biggest failings I found with Asimov’s “Foundation” stories and his fictional “psychohistory” in general, was the assumption that no means of travel faster than his “people” already had, would ever be discovered. I think it’s pretty clear that speed and capacity – cargo, etc – of travel is one of the main things that has changed progress on Earth. But again, Asimov’s essential… Luddite-ism… explains a lot.)
Some of this seems to ignore factors such as, if a Dyson swarm was built 5,000 years ago, at a distance of 10,000 light-years, we still wouldn’t be able to detect it for another 5,000 years.
And of course, if it was built just LAST year, we won’t detect it for almost 10,000 years.
Read the comments. So, is the podcast worth listening to? I’ll trust Lileks’ opinion.
Yeah, “psychohistory” and the rest of Hari’s stuff was BS, but it did prompt an interesting tale. You have to love a narrative that starts with disconnected pulp-fix stories and wrangles it all into a grand tale. I’m curious to see how the upcoming miniseries deals with it, and I presume weary disappointment.
Well, even if they do a good job of putting a BS story on screen, it’s still a BS story, right?
Somewhat. See Larry Niven’s “World of P’Taavs” and related Known Space series stories in which Pak Protectors play a role.
I do mean locally, yes, because they have to be local to visit which is what we are talking about. Thus, there is no place for them to come from.
We have no evidence at all, it is all speculation. Everything seen has mundane .
I do not find the alien motivations to be anthropomorphic, but what happens if you survive the food chain.
The Fermi paradox exists because if someone else is out there we should be able to see them. The signature of an interstellar civilization cannot be hidden under known laws. There is no way to do it.
If, somehow there is a way to do it, then if defies logic they are well hidden but just happened to screw up this one time. That is what you are asking me to accept.
The chances that we are that close in time to another civilization bigger the imagination. In cosmic time, they would be millions of years ahead of us. When we don’t have data, what is most plausible is to go with the odds.
They will muck it up
Check out John Michael Godier’s videos on youtube. He also had a channel called Event Horizon.
Yes, if you skip the first segment where they discuss Biden “winning.”
And the last segment where they discuss why Kamela Harris’ “achievements” are noteworthy examples for women to be proud of (or something to that effect, I admit I threw up during that segment).
I am familiar with him, and indeed, Issac has been on his show.
Moderator Note:
Redacted Crass Comment[Redacted]
The intersectionality of time is perhaps the single biggest issue. If we do find something that someone sent here, odds are that they are gone by now. Even if we could reach them “back” which we cannot.
Moderator Note:
Redacted There Is No Need To Repeat a Crass Comment[Redacted]
Moderator Note:
Crass Comment RepetitionLOL
Her biography and track record is so bad it’s unbelievable. Another member here from California called her an “authoritarian with no principles”. I think Peter Schweizer has done the best work on her.
I’ve read them. That’s one theory of course, and would make us basically a “failed” colony if we didn’t follow their program for one reason or another. But the Pak were still bipeds and stuff.
25 minutes of Peter Schwitzer tearing apart Kamala Harris.
Never Trump really needs to take a bow.
You should post that over at Speak-Easy too, if you haven’t already. Antonia Okafor Cover seems to need some educating.