Discussion on:

Five extinction events more likely than the Mayan Apocalypse

I have often said: Any alien race advanced enough to reach Earth is smart enough NOT to.

nt

isn't going to be much help either. Now they're limited to the same technologies available at the time of their landing / crash. If Stonehenge could be built or the South American countryside get painted up without high-tech help, then there's no need to introduce aliens into the equation in the first place.

They Sanitize Telephones and ask is it available in any other colors.

So if the Aliens where Telephone Sanitizers and Marketers they may very well not have know what it is that they where being sent away from as they where destroying that society.

In a case like that the Society sending them away under any circumstances would think that it was for the best if they never saw them again and wouldn't necessarily worry about what happened to where they where sent.

Col

each supply ship to Mawson Base. At the least they could be useful stacked around the building as extra insulation.

had emergency vessels with all sorts of special gear to help them. Once the aliens got close they'd take to the emergency ships and then use the gear in them to recover what they can from the wreck and use all they can, and their knowledge, to do what they felt they had to do to survive as individuals and as a race. That's all it'll take and there's a lot of good sci-fi stories along that basis.

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this sub-thread official ended now.

And why exactly is that? Does being extremely intelligent make you less curious as an explorer? I thought that you only get smarter through investigation. Your statement seems contradictory.

"focus all our resources" !! using pictures of screen shots in a painful powerpoint procession, slow as molossas and twice as exciting? And regurgitating the same articles over and over again in the different newsletters ?
Come on, let the kids have a bit of creative downtime; a small laugh in a large busy work-a-day world and you can still sell the air space all around the articles
Guess there won't be any need to look at "the tech' on fridays.

It's legitimately terrifying, all right. But in saying that Iran and No. Korea "could build a crude nuclear weapon if they wanted to," you're opening a can of worms. Most people would say, and could prove to you, that that simply isn't true.
You're also reflecting the standard party line in the US - that Iran and North Korea are major threats to "our security." I won't address the issue of whether they are or not. But I'd just like to say that if they are threats, we should all think very hard about who created those threats. In both cases it was the US itself.
As a matter of fact, a lot of people, and more than likely a majority of people around the world, think that the US, not Iran or No. Korea, is THE major threat to everybody's security. After all, what country that possesses nukes (and that does not include No. Korea and Iran, but it does include Israel and of course the US) has ever actually dropped them on other human beings? And has seriously planned - not only since the end of the Cold War, but very recently - to actually use them again?

Is this verse 2 of the let's get rid of Jay song? I have been considering bailing out on all of CBS Interactive because of obvious biases, lousy blog flame wars etc but now may be the final straw. Geekend is the only remaining blog in the system that has any hope of relevancy. Malware de jour, who suing who for some stupid thing like "I own rounded edges." how tiring! Give us visions of advanced times and exotic lands to explore. It's time for massive invasion to Louisville to demand CONTINUANCE not the end!

Long Live Jay and GEEKEND..

Waiting for Geekend. Wow, how pitiful things must be at TR that you need to drop the thing that makes you unique, not just another PR handout spewing machine.

The super volcano in Yellowstone.
The shift of the continents all over the world. That baby elephant found in Siberia has fresh vegetation in it's stomach which means it was in at least a mild climate if not tropical.

I don't think anyone else in SF has tackled Yellowstone.

5+pb Jackpot 1 in 175,223,510
Gamma Ray 1 in 14,000,000
Super Nova 1 in 10,000,000
5 $1,000,000 1 in 5,153,632
Asteroid Impact 1 in 700,000
4+pb $10,000 1 in 648,975
4 $100 1 in 19,087
3+pb $100 1 in 12,244
3 $7 1 in 360
2+pb $7 1 in 706
1+pb $4 1 in 110
pb $4 1 in 55
Nuclear War 1 in 10

Don't forget the zombie-like ending.!

12 Monkeys?

Nanotechnology gets out of control and turns the surface of the Earth (and us) into grey gunk.

Prince Charles warned of that in 2004 and every one knows that the jug-eared Royal's 2.2 BA from Cambridge in anthropology, archaeology, and history qualifies him for authoritative pronouncements on science.

Odds: Royal Seal of Approval. Gonna happen!

Just as every newspaper needs a comic section, this site needs GeekEnd. Keep it.

I believe the ancient Mayans were predicting the end, not of the world, but of 'Geekend', which is only slightly less catastrophic.

And they were only a few days out!


Farewell Jay and thank you for the enjoyment your weekly column has given me for so long.

All the best.

Andrew Robertson
Wellington, New Zealand

Apparently, you do not consider either (1) eventually, unsustainable population, AKA overpopulation, or (2) global warming with consequent climate changes and sea-level rise, to be existential threats. Those seem far more likely to me than any of the others and we are about as hapless to prevent either one.

Of course, either condition could lead to nuclear warfare, although I believe that a rage for revenge and/or fantasies of glorious martyrdom are more likley to lead to some religious fanatic using a nuclear bomb. What then?

--- Ocie3

Imaging a world where you insert a couple slices of bread into the toaster, only to have the bread molecules somehow commanded to line up, enabling the toaster to communicate with other toasters letting them know that you are attempting to eat breakfast. Suddenly the Rebellion is in full swing, and OUR BREAKFAST IS CANCELLED!! NOOOO!!!!!!

Trust me, it could happen. Once, my blender attacked my right foot and it really hurt.

Which is constantly asking can it cook you some toast because that is what it was Created to do. When it's not making you toast it doesn't have a reason for it's existence.

Col

I think, therefore I toast...

The less menacing and less popular ancient Aztec prediction of a 3rd Fiscal Cliff proposal?

If you believe in Ancient Astronaut theory - then there is a possibility that human genetic modification did occur and that our alien buddies may return.

I find it difficult to believe an intelligent race would travel several light years just to conduct the cosmic equivalent of some high school pranks and to pee in our gene pool.

nt

So you're saying that transforming cro magnon's into humans is the equivalent of peeing in our gene pool? Well I don't want to argue with your notion, however I will assume that you do atleast believe in alien life.

I don't 'believe' in much, and not in anything that has neither scientifically verifiable evidence nor personal experience.

No, I'm not saying 'transforming' cro magnon's in to humans is peeing in our gene pool. I'm saying I find it difficult to accept the notion that anyone traveled light years to perform that 'transformation', especially without following up regularly; or that said 'transformation' occurred outside the processes of Darwinian evolution.

If indeed there is life out there, and it had no reason to visit us other than crop circles and pyramids every 2000 years, then we're better off without such practical jokers.

The White Mice are here and are easily seen.

They not only traveled Light Years but they had the planet made to their Specification especially for this experiment.

It did however take them a very long time to recover from those Telephone Sanitizers and Add people crashing into the planet and Peeing in our Gene Pool early on in the life of the planet and as yet all of the damage that they did has yet to be undone.

Just because so many people don't realize that they are part of the experiment and that they are being observed doesn't mean it's not happening. Like it's so hard to believe that the Experiment wasn't designed to make the Observers seem to be part of the experiment to those involved in it is it?

Col

nt

But let's look at that. We study various small life forms with lifespans much shorter than ours. We don't examine them based on our lifespan, we check them based on theirs.

While we may be involved in Short Term Observations it's also possible that others are involved in Long Term Observations.

There are many experiments here which involve requiring quite a few generations of a life form to be produced and then checked for changes which are not apparent with each individual generation. In a case like that Close Observation can and does cause problems of changes not being recognized as those involved in making the observations don't see any change because the changes are so gradual and those observing them are to closely involved to see what is actually happening.

Col

experiments with Petri dishes etc where you leave them along for a long time to see how they go? Also, who says they aren't watching us all the time and the reports we get about aliens is just additional stimuli they apply?

I'm not saying that's the case, just that it could be.

And our "alien buddies" do return, there's a strong possibility they take one look at the results of their experiment, conclude it was a failure, eradicate their work, and start over.

There's your earworm for the New Year's weekend.

... it was a success, they extract the alien version of antibiotic that the planet produced and toss the rest.

I hope this wasn't about producing oil. They should have kept a closer eye on us.

if the object was to produce CO2, the experiment is an admirable success...

The solution to global warming is for the BEMs to siphon off the CO2. Just keep spewing it and don't worry, folks; our overlords will be here soon.