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From: Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Bicyclist decapitated
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2024 20:40:16 -0700
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On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 14:29:37 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

>On 4/28/2024 1:42 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 15:49:45 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> My comment was in reply to your, "They will probably try to
>>> sell us things that are eventually found to be a scam." We
>>> have a lot of those here!
>> 
>> Yep.  Whenever I go somewhere on vacation, that's what the locals do
>> to the tourists.
>> 
>>> Food is the least likely 'catastrophic' problem. World grain
>>> production rises every year on less land with less labor.
>>> Human innovation rocks.
>>>
>>> Regarding overpopulation, the Cassandras haven't been so
>>> great on that either. All advanced countries suffer
>>> declining birth rates, many including USA below replacement.
>>> Regarding extreme solutions to 'impending doom', look at the
>>> results of Mao's One Child policy which has turned out very
>>> badly.
>> 
>> Rather write a long rant on the topic, I think you'll find this video
>> more digestible.
>> "The World Population Crisis NO ONE Sees Coming"
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk5KoWUwz6Q>  (21:52)
>> The part on the changing demographics is rather interesting.  Note
>> that the author of the video made no attempt to predict the future or
>> even propose a short term trend.  When there were benefits to having
>> many children, birth rate and fertility increase.  When the benefits
>> are less valuable or useful, as is currently the situation, birth rate
>> and fertility decrease.  What happens when the aliens arrive is
>> unknown.  If they are hostile, increasing the birth rate is what
>> traditionally is used to build a large army to fight the aliens.  If
>> they are friendly and help solve our problems, people might think that
>> it's a wonderful world and a great time to have kids.  Or, they might
>> decide to have a good time and not want to deal with difficulties of
>> raising kids.  Toss a coin on that one.
>> 
>> Chairman Mao's one child policy was a resounding success, but not in
>> the manner initially intended.  What it actually did was produce a
>> radical change in China's economic policies and opened China to trade,
>> commerce and a restricted form of private enterprise.  It didn't
>> change China's political system in the slightest.  The result was a
>> spectacular increase in the standard of living.  The birth rate is now
>> decreasing because the population have found better things to do than
>> raise large families.  It took a while longer than Mao would have
>> predicted, but I think if he were alive today, he would be proud of
>> what he indirectly accomplished.

>Thanks to you I was thinking of extraterrestrials on a long 
>drive here early today.

Guilty as charged and thank you for the credit.  

>IMHO it's more likely than not that there is other life 
>beyond Earth. But, given the immense distances, highly 
>unlikely that any two civilizations capable of leaving their 
>own planet would ever encounter one another.

True.  However, there are plenty of other things in our environment
and in the cosmos that have very low probabilities.  For example, the
numerical values of the physical constants control so many things that
are responsible for making our universe and ourselves that suggest
intelligent design rather than random chance is what sets their
values:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_constant>
Change any of these even slightly and our universe will fall apart.

>Add in the time constraint and it's virtually impossible. By 
>time constraint, I'm thinking of civilization durability 
>over galactic time periods. If one posits a couple of very 
>successful life forms which each develop over say 50,000 
>years in different parts of this or another galaxy or 
>galaxies, it's unlikely they would be contemporaries. This 
>is again on top of the geography problem, so multiplying 
>probabilities you start to approach zero here.

Good thinking.  I didn't realize that a notable scientist lived in the
area.  Frank Drake, of SETI and the Drake Equation fame, was somehow
convinced to give a talk to our radio club.  He was burned out from
giving essentially the same talk to so many clueless audiences that he
just hated talking to our club.  Despite this, he gave an excellent
talk on the likelihood of communicating with other civilizations in
the Milky Way.  I wish I had made a video:
<https://www.seti.org/drake-equation-index>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_constant>
<https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=drake+equation>
I'm not going to try an explain how it works, but what you mention is
a part of the puzzle.  At this time, the first 4 terms of the equation
have been established or estimated within reasonable limits.  However,
the remaining 4 terms are currently just guesses.

>And a further thought- One of my pet peeves is the comment 
>in NASA press releases about exoplanets which 'could support 
>life'. pfffft, how parochial and narrow minded.  There's no 
>reason to limit a 'life form' to compatibility with human 
>respiration of our atmosphere, our operating temperature 
>range or more importantly our chemistry. It's not 
>unreasonable to posit an utterly different basis for life 
>outside of carbon chemistry.

I beg to partially differ.  If we assume that all the known elements
are present in roughly the same distributions throughout the universe,
there's a good chance that self-replicating life processes will be
built using the same elements as on planet Earth.  "Carbon atoms are
unique because they can bond together to form very long, durable
chains that can have branches or rings of various sizes and often
contain thousands of carbon atoms."
<https://www.nature.com/articles/139290a0.pdf>
The emergence of life is possible with comparatively inferior elements
but the main building block will mostly likely be a stable atom that
will build the strongest and move versatile bonds to other atoms.

>All random thoughts above are fact-free, non disprovable and 
>one man's opinion.

Today's science is no long built on truths, facts and certainty.  It's
built on probability.  There have been many major discoveries that
were built on guesses, hunches, low probabilities, thought
experiments, casual observation, wishful thinking, etc.  It's no
longer possible to judge something as being right or wrong.  There is
a huge gray area between right and wrong that is currently the source
material for what we call science.  Throw relativity into the puzzle
and everything becomes a probability.  There's no need to apologize.

-- 
Jeff Liebermann                 jeffl@cruzio.com
PO Box 272      http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann      AE6KS    831-336-2558