a nuclear attack in your lifetime?

[freemehul]

True. The funding will come eventually, especially if the Straits of Hormuz are ever shut down as has been threatened by Iran.

I don't think that closing down the straits of Hormuz will be enough to bring countries such as the U.S. to war. When Japan threatened to close off the Malakka straits during WW2 nothing happened. It's only when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened that the U.S. went to war.

No, funds will be made available, but only when it is too late and by then nukes will already have destroyed a lot of major cities causing millions upon millions of deaths. When war does come, the war itself will be long and protracted. I reckon that a protacted nuclear war will cause perhaps ten times the number of casualties than the last world war. Not a pretty foresight.

[lastunicorn]

I see it as more likely that a nuke will be dropped in our lifetime than discovering life on another planet

Only because science doesn't get the funding it should.

[freemehul]

Only because science doesn't get the funding it should.

I don't think it's the funding

[goodz]

Anyone see what happened in North Korea?

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04...official-says/

[lastunicorn]

I do. Nearly 50 years ago man landed on the moon. Now the government not only doesn't upgrade space shuttles, but sells them completely. The difference is that back then the entire country was excited about the space race, and now most people think science (other than maybe clinical science) is a waste of money. You can argue that life doesn't exist on other planets, or that we'll never make face to face contact with ETs, but with the recent developments in discovering new planets recently, it's only a matter of time before evidence is found of life on another one.

[freemehul]

While I don't wish to make this into an ET discussion, the universe is so big and life so incredibly rare and precious that I really disagree with that. We might just be the only planet with life in this (part of the) universe, so no matter how much money you throw at space travel, the odds of finding anything are practically none.

[Bishop]

and life so incredibly rare

Really? When did they release results of a detailed survey that determined this fact?

[goodz]

I think discovering a species are as far a long as human is unlikely, and why should we even have to look for them, they should look for us.

But I have no doubts that random bacteria and stuff can be found on planets within our reaches...

No one even cares then North Korea has planned another nuclear test for sometime in the next several days!

[lastunicorn]

I think discovering a species are as far a long as human is unlikely, and why should we even have to look for them, they should look for us.

But I have no doubts that random bacteria and stuff can be found on planets within our reaches...

Exactly. I wish I could find the quote by some scientist about solar systems with habitable planets might be the rule rather than the exception.

[freemehul]

Really? When did they release results of a detailed survey that determined this fact?

Ok since we're about to start an et discussion, let me begin.

They've already searched numerous planets ever since they've discovered the method of dimming light of stars (i.e. planets circling around stars). Sofar the only planet they've found that actually supports life is our own. So yes life is rare, incredibly rare in fact.

@Bishop it's not a question of the universe being so big and there being so many planets. The real problem is that the circumstances that make the presence of life possible are also very rare. So essentially that means that the size of the universe and how that affects the odds are nullified.

You need the right mass, right density, you need a moon, the right mix of molecules of the mass of the planet including a large portion of it being water, the right distance to a star, the right presence and absence of asteroids, the absence of radiation, the presence of a magnetic field, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The exact combination of which is incredibly rare. The results of these surveys you can probably get at the nearest astronomical society.

There are of course scientists that argue that you don't need a similar composition to earth, but those scientist are in the minority. I would argue in favor of the majority, for very obvious logical reasons. For example there are a minority of scientists that argue that a higher density (i.e. replace carbon with silicon) will do. The majority argue that this notion is false and I happen to agree with them. The reasons the majority gives are the following. The distribution of molecules is essentially a normal distribution accros a solar system. Hence if the density of that planet is higher, than the presence of heavy metals and metals in the bottom of the periodic table is also higher. Some of those metals are of course radio active. Radiation destroys DNA and one can logically assume that radiation also destroys a silicon based DNA like structure. We know that 6 out of 7 mutations are bad. So more radiation means more bad mutations, which in turn means impossibility of the existence of biological life.

@goodz its the latter that even makes bacterial life incredibly rare and impropable

And then there is the question of the distance from earth to said possible discovered planet that is deemed similar to earth. That's another big problem. At present we don't have the means to go there, let alone communicate. Just to mention the problem of communication. Light itself would take centuries if not millenia to get there and then there is the problem of it getting noticed even if and when it gets there, which is questionable too because of gravity, decay and presence of other stars in the universe. Just to point out the problem of it getting noticed. At present we ourselves have no good methods of determining whether a transmission of light is due to life or nature. The biggest problem here is the existence of pulsars.

Of course there are other means that make distinction more likely, but things like radio waves are very slow compared to light. One can argue that by the time these reach other probable planets, we ourselves may have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

[freemehul]

Oh and one more thing. Suppose some planet does notice our communications, then that means that they are technologically superior to us. Biologists know that a superior technological entity is also more aggresive, in other words they're essentially deemed pioneer species. So basically what that means is that if they do notice us and they have some superior transport to our planet that can nullify the problem of distance, than what we'll see is an aggresive species that wants to conquer our planet. So in other words we should be glad that we haven't found ET.

Military geographers know this strategic situation as a rule or natural law. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of that rule anymore, but it is about the difference between "site" and "situation" (from the french word "site", not english). Essentially what that means is that if the difference is big, then you get military historic situations similar to how the mongol hordes captured the middle east, or how the United States conquered the prairies. I don't think, I need to point out how well that ended for the indigenous or natives. The Mongols basically torched every city they came accross and the american natives, well they got decimated. Now if the difference between "site" and "situation" is small and there is an overall equality of technology, things are very different. In such a circumstance peace and trade are prevalent. The problem is that the situation in the universe is not like that. So again that means you should be very glad that we haven't found ET, or rather that ET found us.

[Bishop]

Ok since we're about to start an et discussion, let me begin.

They've already searched numerous planets ever since they've discovered the method of dimming light of stars (i.e. planets circling around stars). Sofar the only planet they've found that actually supports life is our own. So yes life is rare, incredibly rare in fact.

Stop right there. They have searched 1 planet, ours. We have not searched numerous planets by any definition of the word. We have, from a huge distance, surveyed and speculated on a fantastically tiny amount of planets in an area of space very close to us. What we know about other planets could be written on the palm of your hand and is basically complete guesswork. We assume that a carbon base should be the norm, but we have literally 0 experience in this area outside our own planet. We assume because life is considered fragile on earth that it must be similarly fragile and require an exact mix of hospitable environments to succeed or even spawn elsewhere that we arrogantly assume must be similar to ours.

I like that you said biological life though, at least you are thinking.

Oh and one more thing. Suppose some planet does notice our communications, then that means that they are technologically superior to us. Biologists know that a superior technological entity is also more aggresive, in other words they're essentially deemed pioneer species. So basically what that means is that if they do notice us and they have some superior transport to our planet that can nullify the problem of distance, than what we'll see is an aggresive species that wants to conquer our planet. So in other words we should be glad that we haven't found ET.

Military geographers know this strategic situation as a rule or natural law. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of that rule anymore, but it is about the difference between "site" and "situation" (from the french word "site", not english). Essentially what that means is that if the difference is big, then you get military historic situations similar to how the mongol hordes captured the middle east, or how the United States conquered the prairies. I don't think, I need to point out how well that ended for the indigenous or natives. The Mongols basically torched every city they came accross and the american natives, well they got decimated. Now if the difference between "site" and "situation" is small and there is an overall equality of technology, things are very different. In such a circumstance peace and trade are prevalent. The problem is that the situation in the universe is not like that. So again that means you should be very glad that we haven't found ET, or rather that ET found us.

That ignores the argument that for a civilisation to get that far they have to overcome their more aggressive instincts, otherwise war would have annihilated them. Also, both what I have said and what you have said is applying human characteristics to a non human entity. You only have to look as far a people applying human emotions to animals to see how well that works.

[freemehul]

Stop right there. They have searched 1 planet, ours. We have not searched numerous planets by any definition of the word.

wrong we have

ever since scientists discovered that when the light of a star dims for a short moment, they know that this is due to the circling of a planet around a star. I don't know the exact number of planets they've found yet, but it's a lot.

[freemehul]

We assume because life is considered fragile on earth that it must be similarly fragile and require an exact mix of hospitable environments to succeed or even spawn elsewhere that we arrogantly assume must be similar to ours.

That ignores the argument that for a civilisation to get that far they have to overcome their more aggressive instincts, otherwise war would have annihilated them. Also, both what I have said and what you have said is applying human characteristics to a non human entity. You only have to look as far a people applying human emotions to animals to see how well that works.

Yes we assume that it is fragile and hence rare. It's not an invalid assumption. So far the opposite, namely what you're saying that it is an invalid assumption, has been proven wrong thus far. See above post.

No, I compared it to a biological entity (i.e. life) and biologists know that this rule applies to any life, whether human or non-human. You see humans are life too. So if you were to argue that this rule doesn't apply to humans, then what you are essentially saying is that we are not life. Which is of course ridiculous. So again you're in the wrong here.

That's not like applying an emotion to an animal. Anger is an emotion, agression is not. So yet again you're in the wrong here. To show the distinction, for example martial artists can have an aggressive stance in battle, but they don't necessarily have to show anger.

It does not ignore the argument of civilization. There are aggresive civilizations and yet we exist. This continued existence is due to the golden rule of self preservation of a species. Again a biological rule. This rule states that with humans, that no sain human will kill more humans than his or her own inherital worth. For example, say we have a family and the father is at war with his children, then he may kill his son, but if he kills his son, then he won't kill his second son, or daughter. Why do you ask? Because one child is half his inherital worth, so if he killed two of his children. He would have broken the golden rule, because then he would have killed 2 * 0.5 = 1 his inherital worth.

Historians have shown us that this rule checks out ok. So the conclusion is that it is true. The textbook example they come up with to show the case, is usually the war of the roses in England. In this war he wouldn't kill his cousin, because he already had killed a brother and a cousin, so if he killed another cousin he would have broken the golden rule. Instead what happened is that he imprisoned his cousin. This rule is based on an instinct, so it isn't a learned rule like the Westermarck effect (which is of course imprinting).

Unfortunately because it is an instinct it doesn't work for humans whose mental health is serverely impeded. One such example are psychopaths. Hitler for instance broke the golden rule.

But military historians know that those who break the golden rule, in the end always lose a war, or lose power (i.e. dictatorships don't last).

This is due to the fact that people whose mental health is affected and who break the golden rule, miss two important military conditions and hence are at a severe disadvantage. The conditions being, the first, and seventh condition stated in Sun Tzu the art of war chapter one. Namely they are evil, and their army has no constancy in reward and punishment. In some cases these conditions become knock-on effects. Hitler for instance killed the generals who had ability (Rommel). Hitler didn't enforce discipline when he should have (it is due to his substance abuse that the allies were able to succesfully land at Normandy). Stalin for example weakened his army when he killed the officers due to his paranoia. The are numerous more examples to be found and they all show the same thing.

The fact that these mad dictators and tyrants lose war so often, is because there are other powerful leaders in the world who are motivated by altruism, which although the opposite of selfishness is motivated by self interest. The best example I can come up with is how Roosevelt acted in WW2.

Because we humans are all of the same species, this instinct works with the preservation of human civilization. Because ET is not the same species as earth human, then the golden rule does not apply to the hypothetical "first contact". That is because ET is not human! Hence not the same species.

[freemehul]

btw..

If you look at the above post, it may look like a dark and bleak foresight, but in essence it has a very optimistic outlook for humanity. Because although we may be plagued by war, war will never completely destroy humanity. In other words human life is like a cheap television series. In the end, the bad guys never win!