[HN Gopher] The search for extraterrestrial life as we don't kno...
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The search for extraterrestrial life as we don't know it
Author : gkuan
Score : 16 points
Date : 2023-02-02 22:07 UTC (52 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| likeabbas wrote:
| For those who don't know, there's a very significant movement
| happening within factions of the US government to push disclosure
| on potential non-human intelligence visiting earth. This 15
| minute guide is worth the read https://www.uap.guide
|
| Other significant efforts searching for alien life include the
| Galileo Project by Dr. Avi Loeb of Harvard
| https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/home
| technothrasher wrote:
| > there's a very significant movement happening within factions
| of the US government to push disclosure on potential non-human
| intelligence visiting earth.
|
| <yawn> Pushing for disclosure is very different than there
| being anything to disclose. Get back to me when they actually
| disclose anything worthy of being attributed to non-human
| intelligence.
| sammalloy wrote:
| There is zero consensus that there is a "non-human intelligence
| visiting Earth". There is, one could argue, a phenomenon of
| some kind, either real or imagined, but nobody seems to know
| what it is. And yes, I'm familiar with the subject, and I've
| been following it for decades.
|
| Also, I think "disclosure" is somewhat of a misnomer. If people
| don't know what it is, there's nothing to disclose. People have
| been beating the disclosure drum for years. Nothing really has
| happened except some people made a bit of money selling people
| on the idea.
|
| And for all intents and purposes, our world-spanning
| civilization is much too primitive to even begin to disclose
| something like this if it were true. 85% of the people on this
| planet believe in superstitious nonsense. We aren't ready to
| accept the existence of aliens on other worlds or parallel
| universes, let alone accept our own brothers and sisters who
| have a different skin color.
|
| Given what I've seen of humanity, the zoo hypothesis is the
| best thing we can hope for. We just are incredibly stupid as a
| species at this time and place. I can't imagine why any alien
| would want to have anything to do with us.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| > (when they really, really love one another) can mix and meld to
| form a new organism that can replicate itself in turn
|
| I know it's a bit tongue-in-cheek but I kinda wish they'd go with
| something more realistic that also explains our perspective,
| something like "when two organisms feel compelled to have sex".
| Even in humans it's a big stretch to say that deep love is a
| prerequisite and I think adds some harmful personification to the
| natural world
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| The mention of silicon as a potential carbon replacement is
| also explored a bit in the movie "Ecolution" from 2001 - the
| half-life for replication is way short and (spoiler) they use
| an analog of cyanide to destroy the silicon-based aliens
| alasdair_ wrote:
| The first alien intelligence we humans will encounter is likely
| to be one created by ourselves.
| belter wrote:
| "V'Ger": https://youtu.be/kHUZCVl28lg
| [deleted]
| babelfish wrote:
| The book Solaris by Stanislaw Lem is a really great read,
| describing something alien that is obviously alive, yet too
| foreign for humans to comprehend or interact with.
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