61–70 of 231 posts
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On the other hand, the past decade has taught us again and again how powerful crowdsourcing can be.
It may be useful for finding ideas to earn money, but I have seen no indications that crowd sourcing is at all useful for solving complex questions, designing complex machinery, or discovering any form of truth.
My theory is that we haven't met aliens yet because the aliens have been to earth sereptitiously, have taken some DNA samples, and have decided there's nothing to be gained from making contact with us. They've told everyone else in the universe that the planet is hostile and not particularly technologically developed. They have also noted that it is not a threat just as long as they don't get advanced space travel te…
HOWEVER, the author, in his own narcissist fog, forgets to mention that this is a fate that will befall only the wealthiest, the whitest (admit it) and the wittiest (educated). This is not the future of the species, although leaving the planet will not get any easier in time.
So really, why haven't we heard from the aliens? The answers are simple but boring so we search for more interesting ones, interminably.
a) They are too far away
b) Life is extremely rare
If alien species limited themselves to entertainment for such a long time, then where are the broadcasts from other solar systems? On the other hand, recent studies apparently hint that things like electrical and gravitational constants may not be the same everywhere, so maybe they don't transmit their signals with light. One more thing is that the argument that the age of the universe combined with its propensity to…
One reason I've read about is that when you consider humanity we were only broadcasting radio communication for a sliver of our history before we started using buried cables as a way to facilitate communication. The theory is that other civilizations would figure out the same thing and there is a limited window of time to intercept their radio communication.
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Sort of like panspermia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
Woah thats really similar. That's the problem with the internet: it makes you feel like nothing you think of is original. Thanks for the link btw.
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Woah thats really similar. That's the problem with the internet: it makes you feel like nothing you think of is original. Thanks for the link btw.
Unless you're really special nothing you think of is original. I'm not saying you're not special though. :)
A terrible article. So let's say something more interesting. There are several important ideas intertwined together around the Fermi Paradox: 1) Fermi Paradox Why haven't we seen any evidence in the observable universe of megascale activities and exponential growth comparable to those that we know that our descendants will be capable of, and fairly soon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox 2) The Outer Bounds…
A terrible article. So let's say something more interesting. There are several important ideas intertwined together around the Fermi Paradox: 1) Fermi Paradox Why haven't we seen any evidence in the observable universe of megascale activities and exponential growth comparable to those that we know that our descendants will be capable of, and fairly soon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox 2) The Outer Bounds…
Possible answer: First nearly every civilization that mastered, say, radio, did it millions of years ago. Second, nearly every such civilization long ago found much better means of communications than we know about. Third, they realize that trying to communicate via radio is silly and use much better means we don't know about. Net, they are out there and communicating, but we don't hear them and they don't hear us or…
Has anyone thought about this...astronauts release their waste into space. There's bacteria that gets frozen almost as soon as it leaves the ship/space station right? Couldn't it stay preserved until it lands on a distant planet that hasn't formed an atmosphere and be the seeds for life on infant planets? I'm no physicist (or scientist, period), but it's just a question that's been bugging me for a while.
Interesting thought! Something along similar lines: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/257096/crap-is-everyth...
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It may be useful for finding ideas to earn money, but I have seen no indications that crowd sourcing is at all useful for solving complex questions, designing complex machinery, or discovering any form of truth.
Missed the whole protein folding thing, did you?
Also, the crowd sourcing aspect of the whole protein folding thing merely involved doing the grunt work, of which there was so much the scientists that set up the parameters for it couldn't possibly do it all themselves. The true achievement was thinking up the parameters for the thousands of monkeys to twiddle, not the twiddling itself.