So with Hawkings releasing recently about why we shouldn't broadcast our presense, I felt the need the weigh in on this topic. You know, because a part of me thinks I know more about Stephen-the-man-Hawkings right?
Really the only reason aliens would be a threat is because they were dicks. BUT, this is actually pretty viable. Lets look at some of the reasons we've seen in the past as to why aliens have come to be a problem.
1) Colonization
Other than being jerks this is actually somewhat of a valid threat, which is why i'm touching on it first. An overful planet of oxygen breathing life forms then starts to spread out looking for habitable planets. This is definitely a possibility. But there are a LOT of holes in this idea.
a) The air we breathe consists of 0.03% Carbon Dioxide, 0.93% argon, 20.95% oxygen and 78.09% Nitrogen. Followed by trace amount of all other kinds of fun stuff. Too much oxygen would be lethal to humans as i'm sure it would be to aliens if there was too much or not enough. At different atmospheric pressures the percentages of there different airs we need change to allow them to absorb into our system. There's a LOT of factors that make the air we breathe specific to earth life.
b) Gravity is a bitch! So is air pressure. If any of these are off by even say... 50% higher? That's a HUGE different, and not difficult to have happen on a planetary level.
c) Pre-existing life could be lethal. If a planet is perfect for human life, what does that mean? It means there's already life on the planet. This isn't a "maybe" scenario either. Our planet filtered itself because of the life in it, plants slowly filtering the air, evolving it to evolve. What if one of the microbes on the planet we go to think certain parts of our brain taste like candy, or LOVE bonding to the cells of our lungs? yup, D...E...D... ded.
2) Gold!
Ok the most people probably dont get the reference because the movie was sooooooooooo bad. In Battlefield Earth the race of giant aliens (played by Scientologists) wants earth gold.
So imagine this scenario if you will. You're a gold farmer... you're positive there's 20 pounds of gold 100 feet deep, so you get your shovel out and start shoveling. At the 10 foot mark, you slam into a gold vein containing tens of thousands of pounds of gold... but nope, you completely ignore it because you want the 20 pounds of gold much further down. That giant vein of gold you first hit is known as the Kuiper Belt. It's a giant asteroid field orbiting the solar system slightly past Pluto. It's full, FULL of asteroids that have all the metals you can possibly imagine. There are also giant chunks of methane and ammonia which can be used as fuels, water for drinking etc etc. Also, to reach the Kuiper belt, you have to fly past the Oort cloud, which is, again, a MASSIVE space of asteroids. Now yes, the Oort cloud has never been directly observed, but mehh, lets pretend.
3) The hassle vs the technology.
There are only like... 3 ways an alien civilization could get here, and only one of those ways in which things would really be an issue.
a) FTL (faster than light travel)
b) spacial travel (worm holes, teleportation, etc)
c) Generation ships
FTL ships I dont think would be a bother. Oh there's a planet, oh there's life on it, the next habitable planet on sensors is 3 days that way... off we go.
Spacial travel same thing, they'd just warp to the next place on the map.
Generation ships might be anxious. But even then, a generation ship that makes it all the way here without killing one another, i would think, would be a tight knit community. This, to me, would be a situation of a group of people who have strong loving ties, some would want to stay (assuming our gravity, air pressure and composition, and microbes wouldn't be letal to them) some would ask for help and leave.
In the end, I could easily see civilizations living in places like the kuiper belt. Effectively umlimited resources, you could spread out as far as you wanted. The technology that a civilization would attain by this time I would think would allow for super fast terraforming so like... Come here, terraform Mars, and we have buddies we can borrow sugar from.
Like I said, the only people that would have any reason to be a threat would be a civilization full of dicks. This being said though, a civiliation that does have the technology to make it all the way here wouldn't be defeated by a high pitched country folk song, or water, or anything really. We would just either wake up one day and they'd have won, or we wouldn't wake up.
So to Hawkings, I do agree. The risk of total anhilation, although seemingly low, isn't worth that risk. It's a shame though, first contact with a species of good willed people who just want to know they're not alone in the universe, would be spectacular.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
I'd like a Seal sandwich... and can you club that for me?
You know, because when you club a sandwich you get tomato and lettuce and... yeah i'm going to hell...
Ok so this is the primary focus of todays Blog, which was going to start out to be just sealing, but will now be primarily about protestors. And I promise i'll enrage someone soon so keep reading.
This year there is a quota of 330,000 seals to be killed. Sealing-protestors (and not all) dont want any killed.
But this is a debate right? There are pro and cons, reasons why they should and shouldn't be killed. That's how a debate is supposed to go. Measure the pro's and the con's, and meticulously determine which is the right step to take. But the sealing-protestors dont see why it's needed, they just see white snuggly soft seals on their snow white snow with hellish red blood spilled everywhere. And baby seals are totally super cute for the record.
Now this isn't just a jab at sealing-protestors either... it's a jab at all protestors. Abortion protestors for example, stating their causes for pro-life... by blowing up clinics and killing people (again, not all do this). When they're told that there isn't even brain activity until th 4th tri-mester their main argument is "you're killing the potential of life". So does this mean you're abhorently against condoms and masturbating? Becuase you're killing the potential?
Now not all protesting is bad either. Infact I'd probably say that all non-violent, well thought out protesting is good. To be so passionate about something that you would dedicate so much time and energy into it, in some cases dedicating your very life to it is amazing, and quite honestly something I've never had the grace to experience. An old old friend, next door neighbour is very much like this. She has so much passion, so much drive. I might not agree with her all the time, but she does it in a way that actually makes her credible and that people would listen to what she says.
Ok so why is sealing good? Well for starters, the basic need to hunt seals stems directly from man. We both have a common food source, fish. Salmon to be specific if i remember correctly. So what happens if we just leave the seals alone? Well, the 330,000 seals that are alive eat more fish, depleting our own food source. They reproduce, next year there's more, etc etc etc. It's at a point that the seals would actually eat themselves out of food. Not to mention they would eat a lot of food that people would also eat. And a large percentage of the world depends on the food from these areas. Not to mention the food that we actually get from the seals.
However...
Running up to a seal, smashing it's skull, taking it on the boat while it's still alive, skinning it alive, and throwing it's still moving body into the freezing water so it can freeze to death while it drowns is absolutely horrendous. Realistically speaking how sealing should work is simular to how other slaughter-type areas are "supposed" to work. And I say "supposed" because we all know the actual conditions of some of these chicken coops and cattle farms.
If we're going to keep doing this (which really we have to) it should be done humainly and as pain free as possible. We should use all the seal meat, there should be VERY strict guidelines to how this works. Spiked clubs though? Really come on!
Stopping all sealing is impossible the way things are now. You'll never get the government to do it. So the faster you realize this, the faster you can make the changes that actually can (and should) happen.
A Final Message:
To the protestors. Your passion is admirable, and your drive is inspiring, but you need to use enough thought to realize which battles can be won, and which ones can't. There are a lot of people that do this already, but there are alot (like PETA) who dont, and just attack anyone who does something even remotely wrong. Take this fantastic drive that you have and start using it towards actual achievable goals. If you do this, the good and amazing changes you could do would be world changing. Yes we know you want more, and there's nothing wrong with you message, but when it comes to the fight, fight for what you can change, and change it what you will see.
Ok so this is the primary focus of todays Blog, which was going to start out to be just sealing, but will now be primarily about protestors. And I promise i'll enrage someone soon so keep reading.
This year there is a quota of 330,000 seals to be killed. Sealing-protestors (and not all) dont want any killed.
But this is a debate right? There are pro and cons, reasons why they should and shouldn't be killed. That's how a debate is supposed to go. Measure the pro's and the con's, and meticulously determine which is the right step to take. But the sealing-protestors dont see why it's needed, they just see white snuggly soft seals on their snow white snow with hellish red blood spilled everywhere. And baby seals are totally super cute for the record.
Now this isn't just a jab at sealing-protestors either... it's a jab at all protestors. Abortion protestors for example, stating their causes for pro-life... by blowing up clinics and killing people (again, not all do this). When they're told that there isn't even brain activity until th 4th tri-mester their main argument is "you're killing the potential of life". So does this mean you're abhorently against condoms and masturbating? Becuase you're killing the potential?
Now not all protesting is bad either. Infact I'd probably say that all non-violent, well thought out protesting is good. To be so passionate about something that you would dedicate so much time and energy into it, in some cases dedicating your very life to it is amazing, and quite honestly something I've never had the grace to experience. An old old friend, next door neighbour is very much like this. She has so much passion, so much drive. I might not agree with her all the time, but she does it in a way that actually makes her credible and that people would listen to what she says.
Ok so why is sealing good? Well for starters, the basic need to hunt seals stems directly from man. We both have a common food source, fish. Salmon to be specific if i remember correctly. So what happens if we just leave the seals alone? Well, the 330,000 seals that are alive eat more fish, depleting our own food source. They reproduce, next year there's more, etc etc etc. It's at a point that the seals would actually eat themselves out of food. Not to mention they would eat a lot of food that people would also eat. And a large percentage of the world depends on the food from these areas. Not to mention the food that we actually get from the seals.
However...
Running up to a seal, smashing it's skull, taking it on the boat while it's still alive, skinning it alive, and throwing it's still moving body into the freezing water so it can freeze to death while it drowns is absolutely horrendous. Realistically speaking how sealing should work is simular to how other slaughter-type areas are "supposed" to work. And I say "supposed" because we all know the actual conditions of some of these chicken coops and cattle farms.
If we're going to keep doing this (which really we have to) it should be done humainly and as pain free as possible. We should use all the seal meat, there should be VERY strict guidelines to how this works. Spiked clubs though? Really come on!
Stopping all sealing is impossible the way things are now. You'll never get the government to do it. So the faster you realize this, the faster you can make the changes that actually can (and should) happen.
A Final Message:
To the protestors. Your passion is admirable, and your drive is inspiring, but you need to use enough thought to realize which battles can be won, and which ones can't. There are a lot of people that do this already, but there are alot (like PETA) who dont, and just attack anyone who does something even remotely wrong. Take this fantastic drive that you have and start using it towards actual achievable goals. If you do this, the good and amazing changes you could do would be world changing. Yes we know you want more, and there's nothing wrong with you message, but when it comes to the fight, fight for what you can change, and change it what you will see.
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