Tag: neighborhood

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.



No. More. Stupid. – Wikileaks and Dead Animals

NOTE: Somehow this never got published and I found it while traipsing the jungle of unfinished entries in my journal. While it is dated I don’t liek the idea that I didn’t put this on the site. So enjoy! -Tony 8/16/2012

WikiLeaks isn’t the problem.

Assange isn’t the problem.

The government classifies far too much information, and the information that is actually extremely sensitive isn’t guarded well enough. But that doesn’t matter, because Assange is a scapegoat. Let me ask you something.

If your HOA was deliberately turning a blind eye to its largest contributor because of the money they contribute by constantly ignoring disturbingly illegal activities in the neighborhood, would you hang your next door neighbor, who is in the exact same situation you are, when that neighbor gives all the incriminating information about those activities to the media?

I don’t bloody think so…although you may want to spank them for the inconvenience.

It’s simply astounding. Julian Assange is being sensationalized by the media. The media has made the Wikileaks agenda so much more successful than any one man could have. I daresay he’s also being completely misrepresented by the governments he’s blowing the whistle on. Another point I’d like to make is that the Wikileaks organization is not being treated properly, due process is only being followed where there is direct public scrutiny.

Coming full circle, the media isn’t giving much info on the actual leaks…its just focusing on how evil Wikileaks is and hype. At first it really seemed like the news organizations were in it to go through the documents and out everyone who’d been playing dirty. This is entertainment at its best people…what are we doing about it? The governments…specifically big banking, stopped giving Wikileaks to accept payments via Visa, MasterCard, etc. Governments tried to actually freeze Wikileaks accounts, even though there was no government action ordering that it happen (and there still isn’t).

Let me throw you a curve ball. Wikileaks isn’t anywhere near as “rogue” as you think. Before releasing the information, they consulted with a large number of the worlds largest news organizations to recruit help in making sure the wrong information wasn’t released…you know…the stuff that will get people killed kind of stuff. NOW EVERYONE FORGET YOU JUST READ THAT, so you can go on about your wonderful day thinking that Wikileaks is criminally negligent in allowing this information to be released.

Instead of addressing the very large number of examples of poor candor and decidedly unprofessional monologues…our tax dollars are going into focusing on the owner of WikiLeaks…like he wrote all these things about all these countries.

Please don’t get me wrong. I understand the need for national security…but Mr. Assange didn’t steal the documents, and he’s not bound by US law. He’s just the front-man for Wiki-Leaks.

Assange didn’t leak the information. The US military did. Wikileaks is just another media outlet, the only difference is that people pay more attention to Wikileaks than the hundreds of thousands of blogging and conspiracy theory sites that publish the same ideas and data.

And by the way, the sensationalism has caused some of the WikiLeaks crew to start OpenLeaks. Another venue for people to submit leaks to the media anonymously. Don’t be mad at them, the media allowed them to get the backing for it. The same media putting Assange on the boxtop instead of all that juicy material that was leaked.

Wikileaks Til Ya Puke via Google News Feed

The Sky Is Not Falling!

I just have to get this out there.
I know there were tons of mass animal deaths. I don’t even buy into the whole “fireworks” theory that the birds were frightened by fireworks and flew off head first into the ground.
Maybe in an instance or two, but not all of those instances in three different areas.
But I cant stress this enough. The sky isn’t falling.

Our awareness of world events and is getting more and more…well…acute. As with any experience, as we become accustomed to those experiences I am sure we’ll remain a tidbit more calm about them even though the severity of the situation may be critical. If you truly feel the sky is falling, do something about it. I am not talking about any radical action that would endanger anything, but look for a viable answer, and run with it. There are some REALLY smart people out the that need your help in solving these crises.

That said, I’ve been watching the news, and been reading a FEKTON of documentation on this stuff. Mass animal deaths have been occurring for a long time, with documented events going back more than a hundred years. The USGS has actually been tracking mass animal death for decades, and so does the CDC. Between the two, they apply a body of knowledge incredibly more suited to sift fact from fiction in these matters, and thankfully, unlike the media, they aren’t in the habit of scaring the shit out of us civilians without some credence.

What I think we should all do is what we’ve already been doing. Be more aware. Know where to report news when you see it, and be more responsible when discussing these things so that you don’t start a scare. There is NOTHING wrong about feeling something is important or and there certainly isn’t anything wrong in helping resolve these events, but causing panic and unrest is the media’s forte, not yours. As individuals please try to exhibit some sense when you decide to talk about this.

If you look at the really cool Google Map of animal deaths (linked below), you will notice that there have been a bunch, and if you research them you’ll see a number of them have already been explained. As a species, we ourselves are doing so many things to contribute to this that the numbers are just heartbreaking. For every new method we find to live without destroying our planet, there are a hundred poor choices made for us that hurt the environment. Awareness in a huge factor. As in being aware we can expect at least some people will change their course.

Here is the Google News link for the animal deaths in the news.