MARS, BITCH.

I know what the point of the equation is, but think about it like this. If F_i = 0 then there is zero chance for intelligent life to form, thereby humans (intelligent life) should not exist. So F_i≠ 0.

I don't believe aliens visit the earth or anything, but to say there is absolutely no other intelligent life in the universe is a supremely pessimistic view, and doesn't really make sense to me. To each his own though

The Drake equation is rather meaningless when it's based on guesswork. It's just a nice conversation piece. That said I firmly believe there is other intelligent life out there, perhaps some that is far more advanced than us, but them visiting us I find highly unlikely. If FTL-travel is impossible making these vast interstellar voyages would be very difficult. Perhaps were are the only ones in our corner of the galaxy and we'll never meet any other lifeforms even if we manage interstellar space travel. Maybe our galaxy is teeming with intelligent life but those that have mastered interstellar travel have a no-interference approach to less developed civilizations and only answer when directly spoken to. Who knows.

We'll just have to make our own intelligent life, and blast it out into the cosmos. THEN we'll have friends!

  On 8/22/2012 at 6:36 PM, hautlle said:

I know what the point of the equation is, but think about it like this. If F_i = 0 then there is zero chance for intelligent life to form, thereby humans (intelligent life) should not exist. So F_i≠ 0.

 

I don't believe aliens visit the earth or anything, but to say there is absolutely no other intelligent life in the universe is a supremely pessimistic view, and doesn't really make sense to me. To each his own though

No!

I'm not saying that it doesnt exist, it either doesn't exist or hides its existance from us. That seems kind of obvious because a civilization more advanced than us by millions of years would show obvious signs of itself. It would also be possible that its very far and its signs couldn't reach us yet, that would still make the result of Drake's equation 0 because it's not in our galaxy.

I don't believe one way or other, it's just a logical conclusion.

how would you find that specific grain of sand in all the sand in the earth?

  On 8/22/2012 at 6:50 PM, luke viia said:

We'll just have to make our own intelligent life, and blast it out into the cosmos. THEN we'll have friends!

You see that's the problem. We really shouldn't make our own intelligent life while we're still so inexperienced as a race. At this point we can't even make a perfect building for example. Almost everyting goes wrong: a carpenter is late, someone misinstalled a door frame, they supplied the wrong type of screw mounts, a concrete solution is made by the lowest bidder and needs rework... whereas, a fly that sits on the worker's sandwich is perfect!

Well, I was being facetious, but yes, you're right, we need to get better at building things. We have the robots that build robot parts, so that's a start.

There are some really cool fields of science opening fast right now, things like biomathematics and bionanotech, and I think engineers are starting to realize how much better it is to look to nature first, see what methods it has used to solve a problem, and emulate them, instead of building heavy, ineffective scratch-projects like The Live-In Cube with a Rectangle Entrance.

Curiosity landing site named Bradbury Landing in honor of Ray. nice one NASA

If there R extraterrestrials... We would B extraterrestrials 4 them too...

  On 8/23/2012 at 2:10 PM, Anchio Arch io Son Pittore said:

If there R extraterrestrials... We would B extraterrestrials 4 them too...

lol

i always liked carl sagans analogy about different forms of life and "civilizations" communicating. i'm going to use a lot of quotations because i'm horny.

think of existence as an ant. they are not aware of our existence on any level (unless we destroy their lives/homes, and even then not fully "aware" of "us"), let alone aware of our existence as a more advanced species. similarly, if we are in the "presence" of a more advanced civilization, likely their methods of communication are so far beyond ours that we cannot comprehend how/if they function.

imagine us trying to communicate with radio waves to some tribe in the south pacific.

the only thing wrong or misleading about that analogy is it compares earth (as a closed system) with the universe (also obviously closed in this scenario). and the scale of the earth is just about impossible to comprehend, let alone the scale of the universe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDRXn96HrtY

relevant to theSun's thoughts starting at around 7:30

pretty well put

nice

new crazy hires photo. more of the same, but i can't get enough of these.

edit: it's so hires it looks totally weird when viewed in the watmm image viewer thingy. right click / view image.

another one

look like some tasty alluvial striations in that rock up there, yep yep

  On 8/23/2012 at 5:43 PM, theSun said:

 

the only thing wrong or misleading about that analogy is it compares earth (as a closed system) with the universe (also obviously closed in this scenario). and the scale of the earth is just about impossible to comprehend, let alone the scale of the universe.

srry, im a dolt. what do you mean by closed system vs open system in this context?

Is this new?

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/681054main_pia16105-full_full.jpg

Think so, stunning landscape.

Taken from the reverse angle -

Looks untrodden.

Oh, hey, so apparently Will.I.Am's new single will be broadcast from the rover and played to the surface of Mars.

That's pretty fucking lame right there, but it makes you wonder why they put a speaker on the rover. Surely they wouldn't have put it there just for some marketing exercise. This is Nasa and a state-of-art spacecraft. Were they at least not-closed to the idea that they might actually encounter life?

So they get this thing all the way to Mars, and then make it play shit like Will.I.Am?

  On 8/28/2012 at 2:08 PM, Gary C said:

Oh, hey, so apparently Will.I.Am's new single will be broadcast from the rover and played to the surface of Mars.

 

That's pretty fucking lame right there, but it makes you wonder why they put a speaker on the rover. Surely they wouldn't have put it there just for some marketing exercise. This is Nasa and a state-of-art spacecraft. Were they at least not-closed to the idea that they might actually encounter life?

This is going to be our extermination.

21 December 2012.. The end is nigh.