But we are referring to the same universe you and I exist in. That's what I meant when I said, there's not much signals except the radioactivity because the universe is made of those elements. — L'éléphant

The fact that we have not received any signals does not mean that they are not out there, it just means that we have not received signals. We are in no position to say that we know all about the possible methods of communication between the stars.
What if they are still using smoke signals, live under water, have invented some sort of faster than light method, live on a planet that never has a direct line of sight with the earth, or are telepathic. Maybe they don't believe in extraterrestrial beings and see no point in trying to communicate.Just because they live in the same universe does not mean that they are like us in any way. Or maybe they just don't care.

I think that one of the biggest problems would be in the alien home world itself. It is doubtful that very many of the radio type signals leaving the earth are actually being received by anyone out there, so it is doubtful that they even know we are here.
Contrary to what a lot of people believe it is probably not that easy to detect soap opera transmissions over in the next solar system unless they are really trying. To reach over the distance between stars a very high powered, tight bean signal would need to transmitted over a long period of time directly at the target planet for them to detect it and figure out it was a signal to them. But they would need to be listening in the right direction as well. How much would it cost to be either listening for or transmitting these signals. Do you think that the earths economy would support such endeavors?
Then they would have to overcome language barriers first, to translate the data into something recognizable.

Their method of communication might be different. And yet, radioactivity is the universal language of the entire universe. — L'éléphant

You suppose, entirely without any base, that they are at least as advanced as we are.

There are 118 known elements in the universe, 92 found on Earth. Apparently, if there undiscovered elements, our scientists could predict what they are. — L'éléphant

Since it is actually just about a hundred years ago that other galaxies were proven to exist, it might just be there are many more that they could not predict yet.

At any rate, having this knowledge is in no way a guarantee that we have similar methods of communication. I thought that I had made that obvious in the comment about the glass and the deaf mute people on the other side of the wall. But you could also try giving that data to a tribesman in the Amazon and see how far you get with communication.

If aliens exist, they don't have much freedom as to what radioactivity they could emit -- they don't have the smorgasbord of elements to combine into their supersignal — L'éléphant

And exactly what is their "supersignal" going to be like? And what would we need to do to receive it?

It could peek into the distant past of 13.7 B years. — L'éléphant

It could also turn out to be a glass on the wall of a deaf/mute couple discussing Einstein's theories, absolutely useless.
If we do not know their method of communication, we might never stumble upon the thousands of cold calls their insurance companies have been making to us. We might even have blocked them without knowing it.

Extra question: Is the Fermi paradox actually a paradox? Or just two statements about different topics?

The general form of the remedy as it occurs to me is to provide for each individual an opportunity to recover what was taken. And again in general terms, what was taken was opportunity itself. — tim wood

As individuals in modern times, trying to reverse in some way the injustices of racism to these people would be a long way from appeasing the horrors of the actual uprooting their ancestors. One would be a way to compensate for recent events, the other would have to address the reasons or causes of them being placed in the recent situation

I recall pictures from 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, of soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army escorting nine students into their high school. — tim wood

I remember in the late 60's having a police car following the school bus as it started its new route to pick up kids in Afro American neighborhoods as well the the white kids from theirs. None of the Afro American kids were going to the white schools so the buses had to make 2 drop-offs. It was not a comfortable situation for a teenager.

But I still remember that in the 3 schools I attended in the USA, all students and teachers were white. But there was still discrimination of many sorts. Those from old families looked down their noses at almost everyone. The reasonably well off looked down their noses at the white trash. The city dwellers, the swamp and bayou living Cajuns had different points of view. Outsiders, like my family, were welcomed mostly as long as you did not go against their way of life. I got people angry sometimes for failing to follow their rules and earned a couple of bloody noses too.

And there were still "whites only" signs in a lot of shop windows.

Personally I think that almost everyone has been discriminated against in some way or other, the universe is not a fair place. In one town in England I had to go to a different school than my best friend across the road. Just because I lived across some imaginary line I was sent to a school and lost by best mate, who can I sue?

Have you ever heard of this gentleman? Some of his words were quite prophetic, but by today's standards, racist.

https://anth1001.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/enoch-powell_speech.pdf

Reparations are usually about either a fine/punishment, or an attempt to restore the victim to some status quo ante. — tim wood

I kind of agree with you here, both in the definition and that it will not be easy to implement.

The idea of fining or punishing those with some sort of responsibility in slavery seems remote, all are dead. To pass the bill to their families would be the next step then maybe, but they are now mostly far removed from the fortunes made in those days. It would be difficult to prove that their wealth is a direct result of slavery in most cases.
To try and pass the bill to anyone that had in some way been benefited by slavery would mean that even the decedents of the peasants that went to work in the cotton factories would have to pay.
To say that a whole country is responsible and that the governments should pay the bill means that the everyday person in the street would have his taxes used for something that he has no responsibility for.
A very difficult problem indeed.

To attempt to restore the victim to some status quo ante would in my opinion be even more complicated. Even if their ancestors were traced and the victims were offered the chance to live the life that they would have occupied in the present if slavery had not sidetracked them, most would be a lot worse off than they are now.

On a slightly different note, has anyone ever heard of cases of claims for reparations being made against the African slavers that did a lot of the capturing of the people then sold them to the white men, or the slavers that captured and used them even before the white man appeared?

I make Mancunians responsible for the tomatina party, especially Sir2u. — javi2541997

You can blame them all you want, I have not seen another one for at least 40 years. :lol: :rofl:

If I had to choose a fruit representing philosophy, I would go for a coconut. — javi2541997

Maybe you are right, coconuts either ripen on the tree or not at all. Not like other fruits that will still ripen as long as they are cut after maturity. Coconuts just rot away if not used.

While on the topic, I have about 300 - 500 coconuts for sale every couple of weeks. $1 each.

A herd animal, by the looks. — AmadeusD

He wants to bang a herd??????? :gasp:

Can I just second that motion! :rofl:

I confess to being just an utmost humble servant of our Almighty Master, Lord of both worlds, and Creator of this universe. — Tarskian

All rise for the Flying Spaghetti Monster/

The solution is: no civil marriage, no cohabitation, no children, and preferably no sex (both in China and) in the West. That avoids serious legal problems for both men and women. That is why this lifestyle policy is clearly in everybody's best interest. — Tarskian

If enough of people like you follow this advise the world will be a much better place for the rest of us.

Close to half of the population will live through a harrowing court case, called "divorce". It is a byproduct of civil marriage. No civil marriage means no divorce court case.

But then again, I have also pointed out that you can avoid many of these problems by moving your private life outside the West. — Tarskian

It is just as you say here in the west, maybe we should all do as they do in the east. No divorce needed, just stone them to death.

RIP Alain Delon

Another one bites the dust.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/alain-delon-frances-flawed-screen-064114112.html

I’m not looking for advice, but simply to say that, maybe, philosophy, does not work in real situations. Or, maybe it work too well? Is philosophy the real truth-teller? — Rob J Kennedy

Philosophy is not a problem solver, it is a way of think that can be used to solve problems.

Any union of people in bad faith, whether a job, club or marriage is bad for your mental health.
Give it up and find something that that will make life pleasant.

Plants seem to desire sunlight when they move towards it. — praxis

A desire, which is basically an emotion, would mean that the being had a feeling of need or maybe an inclination towards something.

Plants only react to the changes in their environment.

Does it relate to the desire for consciousness? — Vera Mont

Is it even possible to have desires without consciousness?

RIP Jerry Fuller. The writer of so many great songs.



https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jerry-fuller-songwriter-whose-hit-113043618.html

The badly attached 10" I-beams are always in the ceiling. — Vera Mont

They would not be able to fall on the people if they were in the floor, and that would not be tension building as they wait to be rescued. Sci-Fi is still fiction even if the authors have made it as realistic as possible, it has to be exciting to sell.

Not quite following what would bend a convex support arch, but okay. — Vera Mont

High pressure or vacuum are terrible forces, they can bend or pull apart almost anything if it is not strong enough.
If you look at this image you will see that they try to keep the internal support beams straight as much as possible. On submarines and I would suppose star-ships the beams would be specially made in the form of the hull but they would not use curved beams for internal support.

Why do curved spaceships have so many straight steel beams in the ceiling and why do the beams fall down so easily? — Vera Mont

Same reason as ships and planes, for structural force. Curved beams are used to hold the outer plating but it is not a good idea to have curved support beams inside, the bend too easily.

As to why the fall, it would not be exciting if everything stayed in place would it? The same as sparks flying out of electrical equipment and in the next scene everything is normal and working.

Not really. They never tell you who or what the aliens are praying to or invoking or whatever they're doing when they're alone in their cabin with a burning candle, chanting or deep in some kind of trance. — Vera Mont

I think that most movies base their aliens and their customs on human expectations and ingrained beliefs.
Some scientists seem to believe that the need for the existence of a higher being is innate in humans and many authors try to pass that on to the aliens they create. Others create aliens based on basic fears of humans to make them appear more threatening to the readers or viewers, fear and scary are good for sales.

Personally I believe that if any alien ever gets here the must be smart enough to realize that there are no higher beings.

Another question I cannot find an answer to is why space traveling beings are depicted with claws or tentacles that can never have been used to create the spaceships they ride around in.

Has anyone else here had a sense that what they were experiencing in early life wasn't truly real or that it was highly stripped down?

Or is that natural when one hasn't yet accepting things as they seem to be? — TiredThinker

I think that would depend on how old you are. As a kid in the late 50's and early 60's I was out and about in reality, others have mentioned the same thing. We saw reality all the time. The only problem for many was the size of that reality, how far you managed to get from home. Obviously then, where we could not go we did not know first hand. So in some ways it was a limited reality.

Kids nowadays have the ability to see more through the different internet medias than we ever imagined. But it is always once or twice removed from reality. A lot of kids today have never thought about playing in puddles while it rains, and most parents are too protective to let them even if they did think about it.

Maybe that is what you mean.

Why do all the deities in the explored galaxy like to be invoked by an open flame? — Vera Mont

What exactly do you mean by "deities"? Could you give an example maybe?

Say good morning to your new Prime Minister, lads. — javi2541997

I am still so glad I left England when I did, that place is fucked up.

The VAT has to be reduced, and the price of a pint of beer will be £1 from now on. — javi2541997

I remember when we used to go out with three quid and go home very happy (drunk), well fed and sometimes even with a bird after dancing all night. We all got pissed off when the price went up to 10 pence a pint. Them was the days mate....

Sir2u has to be the next Chancellor of Oxford University to teach Spanish there. — javi2541997

Porque me está molestando con esto, puesto de basura. Dame el puesto de primer ministro y rapidito arreglo el país.
Y la mitad que van a este universidad ni saben bien el inglés.

On the other hand, Plato argues that there cannot be a dog that eats the most, because there is always a dog that eats more. — javi2541997

Does infinity actually mean that there is always one more, or does it just mean the possibility of it?

There doesn't have to be any surplus, as this is done once. The task is that the philosopher is to define in some way all the amounts of food and hence all the dogs, that they don't leave some dogs out. As no dog eats the same amount, then it's easy for the goddes to put the dogs in an growing or decreasing line based on their amount of food. — ssu

Ok, so if there is no surplus and no dog that goes without food then there has to be one that will eat more than the rest and one that will eat less.

The only other option would be an infinite amount of food and an infinite number of dogs. And as you said there is a limited area in Greece, so that does not seem likely.

And even if there were an infinite number of dogs, there would still have to be the one that eats less than any other dog.

I can't fathom it would be for anybody else. — ssu

Maybe I asked the wrong question.
If all of the dogs are fed, is there anything left over? Until it is time to feed them again at least. Or does the food continue to be 100% even if some of it is removed?

And what is "all the food" for the dogs since the food can be compared among the dogs?

1. There's enough of food, the goddesses made sure about that. — ssu

Let me ask you a question. Is the 100% of the food is for 100% of the dogs. It makes no difference the actual quantity of the food, only the correspondence of food to dogs.

2. If there was a quantity that could be defined to be different from all other quantities, then there is a dog that would eat this quantity. There are no limitations on the quantities (physical or other), and hence on the dogs. — ssu

Plato is right. By definition #2, there are no physical limitations. A dog that eats the most, and a dog that eats the least implies two physical limits, which violates #2 — Metaphysician Undercover

While it is stated that there are no limits, that does not mean that there is no dog that eats the most or the least.
It is doubtful that the food could be broken down to anything less that a molecule and still be counted as food even though the food is dividable. That would be the food for the dog that ate the least.
And because the food is dividable to share amongst the little beasts, that would limit the amount that could be eaten by the one that ate the most. No dog could eat all of the food as there would be none for the rest of them.

I found the other one I was looking for.

That reminded me of the joke about the guy that committed murder and went on the run. As he guessed that one day he would be caught and sentenced to death he decide to accustom his body to high voltage electricity. Every day he connected himself to a higher voltage until he managed to withstand over a 100,000 volts.
When he was caught and tried he was all smiles knowing that if the death penalty failed he would have to be set free.
The judge sentenced him to death, but the law had changed and now they used a lethal injection. :worry:

A similar phenomenon has been taking place around cities like Nairobi, Kenya. — BC

Yep, there are lots of places around the world that this has happened in. It is like a replay of the early industrial revolution in Europe, except that here they are not even modernizing the farms to produce more food.

I lived in a house with a kitchen sink and an outhouse with cold water only, but the rent was cheap. You got by or you got ahead and moved up to something better.
Individuals have that opportunity, towns, cities and countries don't really.

Do you know the reasons why politicians don’t even bring it up as a goal, even if it’s not 100% possible to provide clean water in all of Mexico? — schopenhauer1

Not exactly sure whether they do or not bring it up in Mexico, I live further south, but here it is now usually local authorities that are responsible for water and sewage. There used to be a national water service but it became unmanageable as so many towns and cities grow. So it is not really a national political issue any more except for rivers and reservoirs.

Why wouldn’t it be like something akin to a space race or something with lofty goals that maybe would take many years? — schopenhauer1

Politicians come and go every 5 years in Mexico, and spend most of their time trying to get through today to worry too much about tomorrow.
Yes they pass laws to try and control abuse of the land, forests and water, yes they have sanitation laws, and yes they all sorts of wonderful ideas about how things could be made better.
But what they don't have are the means and methods to enforce the laws. I don't have any figures for Mexico, but here there are about 250 police officers for every 100,000 people. As you can guess there is not a lot that they can do.

It would also create jobs, I would imagine. Why would clean water not be a part of any comprehensive national infrastructure plan? — schopenhauer1

Jobs like that cost money that is not available to the authorities whether local or national. People would have to pay more taxes to make the money available. Apart from there being a lot of informal labor that do not pay taxes, corruption also means that those that do, business and industries, find ways to pay less by arguing that the informal commercial section is taking away their business and profits.

And if you go into the rural areas then there is very little that can be done because there is little money available.

Mexico will clean up their water as soon as they solve the cartel problem. — BC

Not to be pessimistic, but I really doubt that.

Just like a lot of large cities here in Latin America, Mexico cities has grown without a lot of planning happening. Whole areas have been taken over by people moving in from the country to the cities, these areas are nearly always without permissions or environmental studies. Many of them are set up along river banks and most of them do not have running water, electricity nor sewage systems. They also tend to go up the sides of hills that have no other use
Many of the cities do not have anything more than the old sewage system from when it was a town, and there are lots that do not have even that but depend on septic tanks for each house.
Because of the rapid expansion of a lot of the cities over the past 50 or so years, many of the newer areas do not have even basic storm drain and those that do are usually just an open ditch alongside the road.

The cost of implementation of water, sewage and drainage systems for these cities would astronomical and far beyond the capability of many of the local authorities even with the support of central governments.

First choice:
Spam, sausage, Spam, Spam, Spam, bacon, Spam, tomato, and Spam. With toast and a pint of Tetleys best bitter

Second choice:
Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.

Images like this, with a human like robot doing something as if it is a human. You see images of them sitting in front of a bank of monitors and flying planes.

The funny thing is that it is never going to happen because it will always be cheaper to incorporate the AI into the system instead of building a separate entity. Why would a robot sit and look at monitors when all of the information could be processed inside a small box? A robot pilot would still have the problem of time lapse because of observation/movement delay, whereas the incorporated AI would not have anywhere near as much.

Is it just because the want people to accept the fact that there might be robots around soon or is it just that they think people are stupid?

I mean that the TV viewers started to compare themselves with rich TV heroes and feel envy to them. — Linkey

Still works the same, only now there are the kartrashians instead of mobsters. Same thing I suppose though.

As a result, we have the feeling of envy. When we see that other people live better then we, the fact of their comfort makes us unhappy. — Linkey

Some many of those popular people live much better than me, I don't envy them at all. In fact I feel sorry for them having to work so hard to be popular.

Thank you.