Ideology vetos reality, news at 11.

Yeah.

They completely ignore panserpmia.

They just quote Isaac Asimov's writing from almost half a century ago (Europa). Ignores Enceladus, Titan, Venus, Mars; all of which have *BIOSIGNATURES* of a probability curve not too dissimilar to Europa.

They are likely a dilettante. Those folks do not do "prior art" research because they believe in the Auteur Myth.

  "An auteur is a filmmaker whose personal style and thematic focus are so distinctive that they are considered the 'author' of their films, a concept known as the auteur myth."

Real science isn't that. Real science is a rational discipline. The null hypothesis -- know what that means. Prior art -- know what that means. Mental biases -- know those, too; you'll see what you want to see, hear what you want to hear. Science is the discipline of mind that ensures you're not just spewing random nonsense. You verify what you think; that's the discipline.

As Isaac Newton said ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), "nani gigantum humeris insidentes."

Ignore them.

Everything seems obvious once it is explained.

Why do 12-14 steps of algebra, when calculus works in 2?

Obvious. People should know calculus.

Yet they don't.

Define Green's Theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... -- is obvious.

Everything is obvious *IN HINDSIGHT*.

A lot of people behave pretty ghastly when it comes to money.

That was my first thought too. (Assuming the article is correct - all kinds of stuff gets published that doesn't hold up in the longer run.)

Remember that time is also big. Suppose that there have been 1000 interstellar civilizations in our galaxy during the past 5 billion years, and that each one lasted a million years before collapsing. How many would be active right now?

Frankly, I don't consider it a paradox at all. We've explored approximately 0% of our galaxy and found nothing. That doesn't tell us much.

Doesn't he know he's supposed to play the fiddle while he destroys his country?

I'm skeptical about that second part.

As for trolls, I wonder if some anti-vax propaganda is being pushed by hostile foreign powers as a way of hurting us.

It's just a story about Meta and AI.

Oh, nevermind.

For extremists of all flavors, violence is always preferable to the voting booth.

Surely they're not going to cut off the data centers just so ordinary people can have electricity?

Well, yes. But the politicians say the scientists are wrong.

Who are you going to believe? Geeky nerd types, or the people who actually run the real world?

Yeah, it's going to be hard to establish a plausible positive ROI for interstellar travel. I think even public funding for probes will be problematic, since it will take years just to get flyby photos. Probably the first flyby will be funded by some rich guy.

If the Feds want to protect children from sex, why don't thy start by telling the DoJ to prosecute the Epstein bros instead of protecting them?

Born yesterday, I presume?

We should pass around a hat for all those rich people who didn't richer as fast as they expected to.