Tag: AWESOME

Awesome art by Nick Risinger - Blue Bot by Adam Grossman ;)

Are we the noisiest planet in the neighborhood or what?!

This could make you rethink your estimate of proportion. Apparently, (at this time) we’ve been transmitting our whereabouts to every alien within one hundred light years…

Awesome art by Nick Risinger - Blue Dot by Adam Grossman ;)

I read this short article on something fairly interesting (HERE)…apparently our earthly radio transmissions are are now reaching places very very very very far away.

A thought crossed my mind about this. Any society as advanced as us or more so will almost certainly either be receptive to radio waves…but here’s the problem: Exactly how receptive?

I would like to point out that while we can attribute radiation for a significant amount of our evolution, we can also attribute the scarcity of life outside our planet to it…it is the double edged sword that makes earth so rare. There isn’t just life here…theres a TON of it.

SO now that we know that the number of planets capable of supporting life is waaaaaaaay higher than we guessed1, we really need to entertain the idea that we’re not alone, because to ignore every possible indicator that it’s true would really put us in a scary and indefensible position.

We assume also that other intelligent species wouldn’t sweat us blasting everything within 100 light years with lots and lots of noise. I mean, in our quest to make sure we’re not alone…what are we prepared for when they finally do show up and surprisingly expect our society to be a derivative of the Lucile Ball Show2

The bigger problem is the assumption that the signal would actually be received as a communication…what if it is considered noise…or worse…interference? My point is that we are making a whoooole lot of assumptions and firing off a whole lot of EMR into space under the premise of scientific space exploration that we wouldn’t dare point at ourselves because it would fry us faster than a man-sized microwave oven.

On the big scheme of things, we’re like galactic infants, all we want to do eat, shit, and scream our guts out. We can’t see very well, we barely know what to make of everything we do know, we’re only marginally communicative on a mathematical scale, and all we know to do is grow, eat more, shit more, and scream more. I think we give ourselves far too much credit, and the one thing we can expect is for who-or-what-ever we encounter will very likely have an agenda similar to that of a scolding, fed-up, and irritable parent….because we’ve been flooding the neighborhood with nothing but the crap from the entertainment industry for decades.

The only species we’re likely to encounter right now will either be far more advanced at least technologically3 or would be equipped for a one way trip to settle here, thus immediately causing 7 billion humans to go into fight or flight mode thanks to Hollywood giving us all the wrong information we could ever want in order to prepare. Do you see a happy ending here? I don’t.

On the cosmic scale, we now know very clearly that we’re incredibly lucky to be alive at all, that we’re constantly surrounded by deadly factors completely outside our scope of control, and that we’re facing the limits of our own sustainability through very rose tinted glasses.

…and yet here we go…inviting yet another factor that our own observations and indicators of self-preservation should be screaming at us not to do.

I just can’t help but think…if the Milky Way was our neighborhood, the earth would be that house in the neighborhood that everyone hates for being loud, noisy, messy, and completely oblivious to the people around us that might not be so cool about the noise pollution.

I am sooooo not saying we should all be prepared for the next alien invasion. I am just saying that maybe, just maaaaaybe…pointing all those radio transmitters out there to communicate who, what, where, and when we are might easily be construed as that godawful neighbor that feels the need to run a speaker out onto his front porch and share his taste in music with everyone on the block.

Okay…rant over…have a great night.

-T

Show 3 footnotes

  1. Check out this awesome database and see how many have already been found: CLICK HERE.
  2. *SMH* …Look up I love Lucy HERE
  3. They’d would have to have the tech to reach us, which at this time means they probably are able to travel at least 30+light years in a single generation. Which means they would have been planning to meet us in some capacity for decades and very likely have FTL capabilities. Any society that has FTL would technologically ROFLSTOMP a society that didn’t have it. Why am I making a gaming reference? Because the only adequate allusion to our ability to defend against tech like that is like trying to defend against a Zerg rush when all you have is tech from SimCity.



If you’re an ex, you need to read this…

…and even if you’re not an ex, you might still something.

Yaknow…I have to start this quick rant by saying…I honestly feel blessed to have been in the relationships I’ve been in, and to have met, called friends and regarded as loved ones some of the most awesome women on the planet. Seriously. You all know who you are and should be smiling 😉

…but every once in a while “people” pop up (by *people* I mean women with a weird obsessive grudge and some sort of creepy need to cyberstalk me) that really make my arse twitch.




Everything in extremes…

Everything was awesome today…but extreme acts in other places make much it harder to feel good about.

After what was nothing short of an extremely awesome day for me today, I was so busy that I didn’t pay attention to the news…and then once I did, I obviously found it drastically disheartening to hear about the tragedy in Aurora last night.

Of course every political machine on the continent is now using this tragedy as a platform, and it makes me think.

It’s as if we’re given the impression that our sense of security is an illusion.
It’s as if we’re given the clear means with which to feel secure.
We hear about upcoming laws and acts that will take these away.
We’re pummeled with the idea that our rights can and will be taken away.

But when it comes down do it…it just seems like everyone has been programmed to react to this instead of actually choosing.

I would like to point something out…the minute you allow another person to determine your rights, you’ve forfeited them already. With the uncertainty and revelation of having such a level of self-autonomy, the real effects of social responsibility and accountability shines clearly.

Every living being knows the difference between right and wrong. Every single one. Unfortunately, the power of the human mind is such that it can muddy moral waters so much that convincing ourselves to commit horrible acts is only one violent movie away from tragedy.

Do I think the movie was involved with it? Hell yes.
Do I think the movie caused it? Hell no.

To hold blameless the obvious relationship is definitely ignoring part of the problem, but not in the context that “the movie did it”. That’s just stupid.

But then how do we “fix” the problem? The deranged lunatic could have just as easily used a far more insidious and indefensible means…so regulating the weapons isn’t going to work. Regulating the movies will not work, as the movie companies will simply make the ratings even less useful, and the theaters will not enforce them anyhow.

I honestly think that the only method in reacting to this type of problem proactively is in education. Where we not only teach but believe in them, an idea or value prevails. We already have all the laws in place we need, I think now it’s time people we taught to value those boundaries. If we’re going to be a society of gun-toting self-autonomy fanatics…we must impress upon ourselves values that will give us the mental fortitude not to walk into a building full of defenseless people and take life indiscriminately.

Why do I phrase it like that?…because not clarifying that there are situations where defending one’s self and loved ones is entirely appropriate.

We praise an industry that glamorizes the violent and immoral.
…and place blame on the individual that succumbs to it.
We render judgement on the mind that no longer knows better.
…and hold blameless the society that fostered the mind.
We dispute the tools of war we all now lovingly bear…
…pray continually that we all are lucky enough to never have to use them.

To me, this is living in fear. I do honestly uphold everyone’s right to keep and bear arms, but do not feel that everyone has the moral and mental fortitude to keep and bear them responsibly. In their gambit to glamorize violence, the film industry now teaches children the basics of stealing cars, the basic rules of stealing without getting caught, the idea that what happens in those movies is not only possible, but probable or certain.

We’re talking about a guy that planned all this. His apartment was wired with so much explosives that the news implied it could have taken out several of the apartment buildings. Why did he chose that venue? More importantly…what happened that he felt this was necessary?

This tragedy makes me wish I knew more about and had greater faith in people, because then I might be aware of and maybe stop whatever it was that caused that guy to feel this was necessary…

-T