Pounded in the Butt by Members of a Forum Who Are Discussing a Space Ship's Gender

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Improbable Lobster: Jan 6, 2012; "From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.; Buglord

i would think that the nature of evolution means that anywhere that could potentially support organic chemistry would, given enough time and a safe position in orbit, develop some form of living organism

# ? May 31, 2014 09:14

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# ? May 31, 2024 22:33

Dodoman: Feb 26, 2009; A moment of laxity
A lifetime of regret; Lipstick Apathy

after they found those organisms which lived off sulphur i became way more open to the idea of life being possible anyhwere

and no matter what i will keep believing FTL travel is possible :saddowns:

# ? May 31, 2014 09:18

Trig Discipline: Jun 3, 2008; Please leave the room if you think this might offend you.; Grimey Drawer

yeah actually most biologists i know think life, by some definition, is probably not that uncommon. we've had a few decades of repeatedly finding life where we think it shouldn't be able to be, and it's really rubbed our nose in the fact that our imaginations really aren't up to anticipating all of the stuff that evolution can do

# ? May 31, 2014 09:19

Dr Monkeysee: Oct 11, 2002; just a fox like a hundred thousand others; Nap Ghost

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

but i mean it doesn't bother me that a bunch of 'aliens' were basically just humans on another planet. it's not like a bumpy forehead or a ridged nose is a particularly meaningful distinction anyway.

i liked that 9 times out of 10 TOS just said gently caress it the aliens look like humans who cares.

# ? May 31, 2014 09:19

Sagebrush: Feb 26, 2012

haven't we literally found amino acids floating around in deep space

and wasn't there that experiment where scientists put a bunch of methane, nitrogen oxides and co2 and water in a jar and shot it with electricity for a couple weeks and found all sorts of complex organic molecules that are required for life to form

intelligent spacefaring life might be rare but i bet there are plenty of planets out there with weird alien trees and algae and critters running around

# ? May 31, 2014 09:22

Synthbuttrange: May 6, 2007

Heresiarch posted:

my earlier post actually has me thinking about a story idea

mid-22nd century, and humanity has been attacked by the transmissions of not one, but several different alien postorganic intelligences at the same time. the majority of the planet is busy trying to conquer the rest for their own particular attack vector or invasive conceptual framework, and there's a small number of holdouts who are immune to such things. the current idea is that the protagonist has genetic dyscalculia and so none of the alien mindviruses can even get a grip or her or her people, who by this point have their own weak AI to handle any math that needs to get done

("One of my most important memories is of my mother's machine trying to teach me how to multiply numbers. I was seven and it had been kept from me why they were so important. When I utterly failed to do so, it was cause for celebration, and I was given my real name and my own machine.")

this is how spacefaring civilizations expand, it turns out. the only ones that are actually able to spread across multiple worlds are the postorganic ones, which use local biologicals to bootstrap themselves onto new planets via attack transmissions. eventually there might be actual spacecraft arriving from previously conquered worlds, but it's completely impractical to try to physically conquer a planet with an interstellar sub-light spacecraft that's taken thousands of years to get there (since even the most efficient reaction drives have limited fuel and therefore limited acceleration), so the worlds need to be seeded properly ahead of time. most of the civilizations don't even bother with ships, since these intelligences don't care about biological timeframes and most aren't picky about the local "hardware" they're running on

earth happened to already be in the crosshairs of several competing civilizations (nice planet, sentient species without major physical defects, gas giants to disassemble) and multiple transmissions were decoded by human weak AI roughly simultaneously, leading to competition for "mindshare". only one of the attackers was interested in open, physical warfare because it was planning on sending ships to pick up the pieces, and that one was exterminated by a coalition of the others who all have different goals for the local biosphere

but writing it in a way which is more interesting than a summary is always the hard part and i'm not sure there's actually a story here

Forrest Gump meets Independence Day! It'll be a blockbuster!

# ? May 31, 2014 09:22

Dr Monkeysee: Oct 11, 2002; just a fox like a hundred thousand others; Nap Ghost

as everyone else has already said life is just chemistry, and not particularly exotic chemistry at that. however evolution is all over the loving map so plausibly self-aware, curious, social intelligences with appendages capable of fine-grained manipulation and a highly developed ability to communicate ideas to others in order to build culture, tradition, and ultimately scientific technology may be vanishingly rare.

this planet only hit on it once and there's nothing in the fossil record to suggest any of the previous dominant lines of animalia were heading down any promising paths. the dinosaurs had like 3 times as long to evolve as the mammals did and they just came up with better claws and kickass feathers.

# ? May 31, 2014 09:26

Sagebrush: Feb 26, 2012

arguably humans only came up with tools because we didn't evolve kickass claws and feathers and other cool poo poo like that. what use does a hawk have for a gun or whatever? it can kill and eat nearly everything it can see and fly out of the way of everything it can't.

if humans were competitive with the other animal life on this planet just on a biological level there probably wouldn't have been pressure to develop bigger brains. maybe that's what happened to the neanderthals, who were by all accounts stronger and faster than the contemporary homo whatevers

# ? May 31, 2014 09:29

theadder: Dec 30, 2011

ive got a p cool tail

# ? May 31, 2014 09:30

Dodoman: Feb 26, 2009; A moment of laxity
A lifetime of regret; Lipstick Apathy

theadder posted:

ive got a p cool tail

text me

# ? May 31, 2014 09:47

Heresiarch: Oct 6, 2005; Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that no single book is. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.

SynthOrange posted:

Forrest Gump meets Independence Day! It'll be a blockbuster!

okay i'm not writing it now

# ? May 31, 2014 09:49

axolotl farmer: May 17, 2007; Now I'm going to sing the Perry Mason theme

Sagebrush posted:

haven't we literally found amino acids floating around in deep space

and wasn't there that experiment where scientists put a bunch of methane, nitrogen oxides and co2 and water in a jar and shot it with electricity for a couple weeks and found all sorts of complex organic molecules that are required for life to form

intelligent spacefaring life might be rare but i bet there are plenty of planets out there with weird alien trees and algae and critters running around

amino acids are quite simple organic compounds, and what's interesting about the ones found in space is that they're found in equal proportions of left handed and right handed molecules. all amino acids in life on Earth are left handed.

the Miller-Urey experiment is classic. even if what they had in their flasks isn't what was in early Earth's atmosphere it shows how little is needed to turn simple molecules into sticky organic chemistry.

# ? May 31, 2014 10:51

ol qwerty bastard: Dec 13, 2005; If you want something done, do it yourself!

i suppose it shouldn't be surprising that it's dead easy to make a bunch of organic molecules that are needed for life

i mean, it's not as if evolution is going to favour molecules that are *hard* to make; so earthican biochemistry should pretty much be made out of the absolute simplest poo poo that can possibly support complex replicators

# ? May 31, 2014 11:34

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Sagebrush posted:

arguably humans only came up with tools because we didn't evolve kickass claws and feathers and other cool poo poo like that. what use does a hawk have for a gun or whatever? it can kill and eat nearly everything it can see and fly out of the way of everything it can't.

if humans were competitive with the other animal life on this planet just on a biological level there probably wouldn't have been pressure to develop bigger brains. maybe that's what happened to the neanderthals, who were by all accounts stronger and faster than the contemporary homo whatevers

don't sign your posts

anyway i wonder if maybe the reason we've been contacted by no interstellar expansionist aliens is just another anthropic principle thing, because if interstellar expansionist aliens had actually found this planet it would have been 100% owned by them and there is a 0% chance of another intelligent race arising

# ? May 31, 2014 12:27

coffeetable: Feb 5, 2006; TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

qntm posted:

anyway i wonder if maybe the reason we've been contacted by no interstellar expansionist aliens is just another anthropic principle thing, because if interstellar expansionist aliens had actually found this planet it would have been 100% owned by them and there is a 0% chance of another intelligent race arising

yes

# ? May 31, 2014 12:30

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Sham bam bamina! posted:

no see it's aberrant in every attribute that's conducive to life as we know it but anything that hinders it is the universal norm

yeah, that's the point of the rare earth hypothesis. it turns out that our solar system, which seemed really mediocre and unexceptional compared to the rest of the galaxy (and which excited drake and sagan into thinking this meant life and intelligent life must be really common out there) is actually rather perfectly constructed as a place for intelligent life to develop. far enough from the dense center of the galaxy to not get constantly blasted by supernovae and gamma ray bursts (and the waves of debris they generate) yet not so far out as to lack in the metals you need for rocky planets and life. a single primary star so you get nice boring orderly orbits and no companion swinging around raising and lowering surface temperatures on long cycles. and jupiter, which does a wonderful job clearing most of the dinosaur-killers out of our path, either by herding them into stable orbits at its trojan points, or flinging them out of the system, or sucking them down itself. i wouldnt be surprised to learn that theres something unusual about our oort cloud, either. and it was a close run thing at that, as evidenced by the 65mya dinosaur blaster, or the impact which created the moon

axolotl farmer posted:

the Miller-Urey experiment is classic. even if what they had in their flasks isn't what was in early Earth's atmosphere it shows how little is needed to turn simple molecules into sticky organic chemistry.

but theyve been running those experiments for half a century and have never gotten anything other than simple amino acids, which would indicate that turning amino acids into something a little more self-organizing and replicating is a trickier than we thought. abiogenesis is a field with far more questions than answers.

Trig Discipline posted:

yeah actually most biologists i know think life, by some definition, is probably not that uncommon. we've had a few decades of repeatedly finding life where we think it shouldn't be able to be, and it's really rubbed our nose in the fact that our imaginations really aren't up to anticipating all of the stuff that evolution can do

between 1) what could have been archaeobacterial fossils in those mars rocks they found, 2) those sulfur-metabolizing ecosystems they discovered near those underwater volcanic vents (which might as well have been alien life forms compared to the rest of the known biosphere), 3) the weird fungus that grew on the mir space station (that eventually mutated to the point where it started eating metal and plastic), 4) the live bacterial residue they're finding on old space probes, and everything else, it really does look like life is a good deal hardier and more common outside of earth's fragile biosphere than we first thought

the catch is that it's all simple life. the universe is probably awash in the equivalent of bacteria, amoeba, fungus, and slime molds. turning that into trilobite and dinosaur and mammal equivalents seems to be a good deal less common because of the various constraints on development suggested by the REH

# ? May 31, 2014 12:36

coffeetable: Feb 5, 2006; TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

here's a fun observation: earth has been able to support large animals for at least the past 200 million years. now considering that there are many contemporary species which are social tool-users, it seems likely that this planet has had social, tool-using species hanging around on it for the past 200 million years. but only one of those species has ever built a civilization.

so in my mind, that's the link in the chain that's most likely to be the great filter.

# ? May 31, 2014 12:41

Dodoman: Feb 26, 2009; A moment of laxity
A lifetime of regret; Lipstick Apathy

FMguru posted:

yeah, that's the point of the rare earth hypothesis. it turns out that our solar system, which seemed really mediocre and unexceptional compared to the rest of the galaxy (and which excited drake and sagan into thinking this meant life and intelligent life must be really common out there) is actually rather perfectly constructed as a place for intelligent life to develop. far enough from the dense center of the galaxy to not get constantly blasted by supernovae and gamma ray bursts (and the waves of debris they generate) yet not so far out as to lack in the metals you need for rocky planets and life. a single primary star so you get nice boring orderly orbits and no companion swinging around raising and lowering surface temperatures on long cycles. and jupiter, which does a wonderful job clearing most of the dinosaur-killers out of our path, either by herding them into stable orbits at its trojan points, or flinging them out of the system, or sucking them down itself. i wouldnt be surprised to learn that theres something unusual about our oort cloud, either. and it was a close run thing at that, as evidenced by the 65mya dinosaur blaster, or the impact which created the moon

i agree but we're looking at life from our perspective. life may not need the environment humanity used to get where it is today. we keep finding life in weird places, even if it is simple life. even if we don't find intelligent life similar to ours, we might find some sort of native species on some planet among the billions out there.

# ? May 31, 2014 12:54

Dodoman: Feb 26, 2009; A moment of laxity
A lifetime of regret; Lipstick Apathy

the raid: redemption is pretty awesome

thanks to whoever suggested it during the dredd talk

# ? May 31, 2014 17:09

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

coffeetable posted:

here's a fun observation: earth has been able to support large animals for at least the past 200 million years. now considering that there are many contemporary species which are social tool-users, it seems likely that this planet has had social, tool-using species hanging around on it for the past 200 million years. but only one of those species has ever built a civilization.

so in my mind, that's the link in the chain that's most likely to be the great filter.

the great filter here is whoever develops social tool use first kills and eats the competing species

c.f. homo sapiens vs all other hominids

# ? May 31, 2014 17:14

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Monkeyseesaw posted:

i liked that 9 times out of 10 TOS just said gently caress it the aliens look like humans who cares.

hint: star trek is not about space or aliens

# ? May 31, 2014 17:15

Improbable Lobster: Jan 6, 2012; "From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.; Buglord

homo sapiens actually hosed the neanderthals et al into extinction, you can still find traces of the dna of other homos in the cold parts of europe

# ? May 31, 2014 17:26

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Improbable Lobster posted:

homo sapiens actually hosed the neanderthals et al into extinction, you can still find traces of the dna of other homos in the cold parts of europe

either way, finger lickin good

# ? May 31, 2014 17:30

syscall girl: Nov 7, 2009; by FactsAreUseless; Fun Shoe