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Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

quantamagazine.org

101–110 of 253 posts

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#101
post #93
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A purpose of a religious text is to control people. They do that through well-known ways. It says “blah-blah, but look at this fallacy you aren’t aware of, so believe in god”, at different zoom levels. Every one of these is trivially deconstructible cause their main target was uneducated masses which had no scrutiny. Those who had it were religiously “educated” and accounted for. Religions that didn’t do that didn’t…

It seems to me that your stand is analogous to anarchists' about law and government. Sure, there's a tyrannical aspect that can get out of hand, but it's far from the whole story.

I don’t think this is a good analogy, since laws and government don’t tell you how the world works, it’s either observable without explanation or left unexplained. In religion there’s no whole story, it all made up. It may contain some real life parts, but it could do so without religious parts. Real life stories doesn’t make it more credible in sentences containing “god”. In fact, the quote of this subthread is wrong, false, debunked. There’s no need to look at it in context, cause whatever role it plays in it can’t make it look good. Looking at falsehoods “in context” and referring to “deeper knowledge and proper understanding” is a beloved theme of religious manipulation.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#102
post #26
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone in science works hard. Only a few get lucky. People get scooped every day. Source: spent years looking hard for hibernation promotion factor in P. aeruginosa ribosomes via cryo-EM. Got a PhD and worked a whole lot of 16 hour days. Never got lucky.

If this story were at all true, then you know very well that not everyone in science works hard. In my graduate cohort, those who did the sets first year, set themselves into research, and worked hard graduated. Those who did not left with a masters, although many found success in other fields. It was quite clearly delineated.

Are you saying that people with a masters degree don't work hard?

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#103

> Instead of complaining about what we’re missing when we’re asleep, maybe we can experience it as a process that connects us to all life on Earth, including microbes sleeping deep in the Arctic permafrost. I'm quite happy to know that "microbes sleeping deep in the Arctic permafrost" are asleep. I'd rather not have to think what might happen when they wake up.

imo microbes/viruses carefully evolved after countless encounters of antibiotics and other stuff that we have now may have the same or greater danger level

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#104
post #101
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that your stand is analogous to anarchists' about law and government. Sure, there's a tyrannical aspect that can get out of hand, but it's far from the whole story.

I don’t think this is a good analogy, since laws and government don’t tell you how the world works, it’s either observable without explanation or left unexplained. In religion there’s no whole story, it all made up. It may contain some real life parts, but it could do so without religious parts. Real life stories doesn’t make it more credible in sentences containing “god”. In fact, the quote of this subthread is wron…

I think the disconnect is that you seem to consider religious texts as a dry statements of fact. That doesn't make any sense, they're clearly not that.

Would you say the same about great works of fiction, or old fairy tales that for some reason keep grabbing our attention and we repeat them for generations? That they're just falsehoods because duh, frogs obviously can't talk? Or can they have some deeper meaning? Stating facts is not the only way to describe the world.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#105
post #99
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

> With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest generation alive. Only if you think that wealth is what makes people happy, but we just need to take a look at all the unhappy wealthy people all around us to see that that is not the case. Poverty can make people unhappy of course, especially the stress that comes from uncertainty. But prosperity alone is not sufficient for happiness. Generations of so…

I'd wager a lot of it comes down to the difference between material wealth vs. a wealth of time. That's the one thing money can't buy.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#106
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A systematic study of birds would find that many do indeed starve to death.

Is the goal of humanity to replicate infinitely and love as long as possible regardless of anything else ? Because that's what cancers do and it never end well for the host

To a point, yes. That's the goal of practically any living thing, including cancer.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A systematic study of birds would find that many do indeed starve to death.

I do enjoy scientific debunkment of religious quotes. After the Notre Dam fire someone on Twitter was claiming a miracle because the golden (statues I think?) had survived. Someone then pointed out that the melting point of gold is several hundred degrees above the temperature of a wood fire.

> melting point of gold is several hundred degrees above the temperature of a wood fire

A grand miracle indeed

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#108
post #99
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

> With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest generation alive. Only if you think that wealth is what makes people happy, but we just need to take a look at all the unhappy wealthy people all around us to see that that is not the case. Poverty can make people unhappy of course, especially the stress that comes from uncertainty. But prosperity alone is not sufficient for happiness. Generations of so…

Where did you get the "amount of technology" = "wealth" from parent's comment?

With the current amount of technology we could put a roof over people's head, provide clean water and safe foods and medicines. This has nothing to do with owning a Lamborghini or eating a Michelin star restaurant, which would indeed count as superfluous wealth that doesn't actually improve happiness.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to freeze yourself, you just have children, that is how life goes on.

Just ask any parent who had worthless kids how well that works out in practice. Sure, you might get lucky and have good kids, but lots of parents don't, and it's not always their fault.

Their kids might be really nice?

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#110
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quote The Bible often but I think we can have some space for a quote here: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:26

I'm curious, what does that quote really mean? I can attempt to draw a few conclusions, but I'm not quite sure of either and they can also almost be the opposite of each other.

It has been taken in a variety of ways. See the "Analysis" section on the Wikipedia page [1] for it for a few examples.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:26

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