Exactly. Any such new information would be integrated so fast... well, really fast. Blink of an eye. "Of course there is life in the stars, just as prophesied by our spiritual leader in verse blah-blah-blah." The only people who would be labelled heretics would be any earthling who would suggest that the aliens could possibly be atheists.
Not only is it retarded, but it goes from zero to retarded so fast. By the second exchange he's like already pulling the real estate mogul bigshot card. And the wacky tonal swings from asking for pity to near-death threats - man, the guy is unhinged.
And it will swing back around to hilarious again in 3... 2... 1...
Yes, that is correct. It was either one, or the other, - space exploration or socialism - and we have made our choice. Thanks a bunch, Obama! Now our children will be engulfed in plasma...
Not swallowed. Final t -> glottal stop
"Just let me finish the final touches of this sweet devil biker chick with no top for my gnarly van first...
I agree in principle with everything you said, but there's a couple points, which I don't think refute your argument, but they might mitigate the 'optimism,' as it were. First, I think the Wright brothers thing - I think they would have probably not thought you were nuts. The moon turned out to be really difficult to do, it was really a marvel we made it with so few casualties and with such crude technology and small budget. Seriously. I bet that the Wright brothers would have thought it was more likely than it was, based on contemporaneous accounts at the time (the optimistic ones! the pessimistic ones can of course be ignored).
I also think your assumption of a million years of human progress is a bit optimistic. Or I guess I would if you said uninterrupted human progress. But even for a total million years of human progress, I personally think we'd need at least 10 times that amount of abject horrifying dark ages-level human misery. Like, cats and dogs, living together-style biblical stuff. But that's all just an opinion not backed up by facts or anything. I really hope your version is closer to reality than mine.
Had mod points yesterday, not today. That was an accurate depiction of the problem. I'm glad you're still managing to hang in there, and I wish there were more of you, but burn-out is so common with the good ones. I want to say stick in there, but I wouldn't wish that on any rational being - so good for you, but keep hydrated and enjoy your vacation time.
Dawkins' memes are more like the information carried in waves - they're emergent properties of physical constructs, suites of nerve impulses conveyed to other organisms through purely pedestrian physical processes - nothing like the hocus pocus the op is getting at. Same with politics and the formal metaphysics of professors. I only take issue with all the ridiculous "soul" stuff, up to and including soul patches.
They're putting a lot of faith in the common sense of the average person. Much better to do one of those crazy Japanese zoo-escape things.
This would also help prevent any confusion if there's a simultaneous zombie/prisoner escapee uprising. But only down to a certain height - we wouldn't want any innocent Oompa Loompas caught in the crossfire.
But why do ghosts wear clothes?!
Also, metaphysical == not real. Your entire second paragraph makes my soul hurt.
All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin
