Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aliens and the Enlightenment

historytoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 61 posts

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#31

Post by BirAdam »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #8
boomboomsubban wrote: post #2

The idea that other worlds would be your deal breaker on Christianity is strange. They were fine with two continents needing over a millennium to first hear about Jesus, but a plurality of worlds would be "irreconcilable." Maybe they couldn't imagine space travel ever being possible?

Space travel isn't currently possible. It ever becoming possible is pure speculation on your part. No man has ever left the Earth and set up shop elsewhere and lived. None. Zilch. It's science fiction.

Space travel is not science fiction. Living somewhere other than Earth permanently is science fiction.

Science fiction often becomes reality. There are companies, governments, and NGOs working on extraterrestrial habitation as we discuss this. While it will be expensive and make many rather unhappy, it will likely happen… assuming that humankind doesn’t annihilate itself first.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#32

Post by the_af »

itsanaccount wrote: post #30

I wonder how much articles like this are popping up as the hive mind of humanity becomes aware of the phenomenon that exceeds our physics watching us as years of government suppression finally cracks. Watching Lue Elizondo going on the daily show with his clinical understatement being met by the interviewer yelling "you're talking about fucking aliens man!" Its been wild to me to see people start to grapple with the…

Almost all (all?) ideas in the article are philosophical arguments from Enlightenment thinkers. I wouldn't call this "evidence" for the existence or absence of aliens.

What evidence is there of aliens that people are starting to grapple with?

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#33

Post by FrustratedMonky »

mcculley wrote: post #27
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #25

Sometimes reading things like this from the Enlightenment period, I wonder how humans can move backwards so much. Within last 100 years we developed atom bomb, went to moon and yet we can still have the current anti-science religious radicals in the US. They can be driving a car full of technical marvels, and have an iPhone, but still believe in creationism and that the earth is 6000 years old. Then, see article like…

Humanity has not moved backwards. Just more people vulnerable to certain kinds of memes have the ability to publish them to a big audience. Even if we have billions of people believing nonsense, we still have billions moving forward.

I worry about when the line gets crossed, when there are more non-science group and outweighs the making-progress group.

I'm just surprised that in the modern world, it isn't 99%-1%.

In US it is more like 45%(burn the witches) -to- 55%(yeah, I'll take a measles vaccine so my kids don't die).

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#34

Post by zikduruqe »

mcculley wrote: post #27
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #25

Sometimes reading things like this from the Enlightenment period, I wonder how humans can move backwards so much. Within last 100 years we developed atom bomb, went to moon and yet we can still have the current anti-science religious radicals in the US. They can be driving a car full of technical marvels, and have an iPhone, but still believe in creationism and that the earth is 6000 years old. Then, see article like…

Humanity has not moved backwards. Just more people vulnerable to certain kinds of memes have the ability to publish them to a big audience. Even if we have billions of people believing nonsense, we still have billions moving forward.

> people vulnerable to certain kinds of memes

That, but also with the vast amount of information at our fingertips, we are finding out how big and complex our societies and world really is. It is too much for some to handle and process, so they like to boil it down into simple terms that make sense to them. Hence, conspiracy theories and memes.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#35

Post by dEnigma »

itsanaccount wrote: post #30

I wonder how much articles like this are popping up as the hive mind of humanity becomes aware of the phenomenon that exceeds our physics watching us as years of government suppression finally cracks. Watching Lue Elizondo going on the daily show with his clinical understatement being met by the interviewer yelling "you're talking about fucking aliens man!" Its been wild to me to see people start to grapple with the…

Seems like the article is making fun of these claims more than anything.

> The plurality of worlds debates provided wonderful opportunities to make definitive pronouncements without the inconvenience of providing solid evidence: after all, it was impossible to be proved wrong.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#36

Post by tgv »

mehphp wrote: post #24
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? Probes aren't space travel for humans. > A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. As no manned missions to Mars have ever proven this conjecture, it is still entirely speculation on your part. > A manned mission to another solar system is going to be very-very difficult, we'd need generational space ship/habit…

>As no manned missions to Mars have ever proven this conjecture, it is still entirely speculation on your part. But we do have manned missions to other celestial bodies, and we have sent and landed probes on Mars. I'm confused as to how a manned mission to Mars is "entirely speculation". >no precedent to assume it ever becomes possible This isn't a qualifier for what is possible. We knew it was possible to go to the…

Manned, i.e. containing people (men).

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#37

Post by scottyah »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #20
paulluuk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people living in space stations right now? Are you saying rockets are fake or do you mean that we don't have any permanent habitats on other planets? E.g. https://whoisinspace.com/

They are not living in space, they are temporary visitors on an unstable structure that requires constant resupply from Earth, absent of which they will all die and the structure falls back to Earth and is destroyed. Even with indefinite resupply, astronauts have to return to Earth for health reasons, because our bodies did not evolve / were not designed for space. Astronauts get irradiated and lose reproductive fert…

I can't really find where your line for "space travel" is. Humans on earth need resupply from other parts of earth, the bases on Antarctica are about equally as unhospitable towards humans, not to mention cruise ships where some people live aboard for years at a time.

Heck, my own house is an unsustainable habitat that requires constant resupply.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#39

Post by JPLeRouzic »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #26
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? Probes aren't space travel for humans. > A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. As no manned missions to Mars have ever proven this conjecture, it is still entirely speculation on your part. > A manned mission to another solar system is going to be very-very difficult, we'd need generational space ship/habit…

Agree that interstellar travel is impossible with current tech. But based on what I know, I don't see any reason to believe a manned mission to Mars is impossible with current technology. Do you have specific reasons we can't, or examples of technological gaps?

- One year in weightlessness will almost disable someone and give him blindness, rapid bone loss, cachexia, cardiovascular problems, and sometimes immune diseases.

- One year enduring radiation sickness.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#40

Post by throw0101a »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #2

The idea that other worlds would be your deal breaker on Christianity is strange. They were fine with two continents needing over a millennium to first hear about Jesus, but a plurality of worlds would be "irreconcilable." Maybe they couldn't imagine space travel ever being possible?

> The idea that other worlds would be your deal breaker on Christianity is strange.

"Vatican Holds Conference on Extraterrestrial Life":

* https://www.universetoday.com/44713/vatican-holds-conference...

* https://phys.org/news/2009-11-vatican-extra-terrestrial-life...

* https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican-discusses-extraterres...

See also the book Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?, co-authored by the director of the Vatican Observatory (Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ):

* https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/228109/would-you-ba...

Post reply on HN