... (read more)However, recent astronomy tells us that there are trillions of other planets circling Sunlike stars in the immensity of the Universe, millions of them friendly to life. So why has no one from elsewhere in the Cosmos contacted us?
Surely some people-like animals have evolved elsewhere. Surely we are not, in this crowded reality of countless other similar planets, the only thinking beings to have turned up. Most unlikely! So why isn't life out there contacting us? Why aren't
I was totally shocked when I read that, thinking that there'd been some discovery that anti-gravity had been discovered, and matter is in fact made up of (net positively charged) gravitational dipoles.
Hey, go easy on him. For a brief moment of insanity I considered the probability of anti-gravity being discovered greater than a LW poster thinking the law of gravity was s=4.9t^2
I'm not sure, but I think skis were designed for moving across mountainous terrain. I find the whole idea of "cross country snowboard" somewhat absurd, but have seen alpine troops chasing each other down on skis in WW2 documentaries.
Tosca sounds like it has some strange theology. Surely most people who believe in Hell also believe in Absolution?
Ruin? Or make better?
According to Peter Watt's blog toxoplasmosis doesn't actually reduce fear in rats, but instead causes the odor of cat urine to activate sexual arousal pathways as well as fear pathways. The overall effect causes them to approach the smell of cat urine.
I still see martial arts and athletics existing, extrapolation from our present situation. Ignoring artificial handicaps and rules, these could well end up being status symbols (depending on the economic system) with people who have the resources to be able to juggle planets being seethingly envious of those rich bastards who can afford bodies and cerebrums strong enough to juggle stars.
Civilizations based on the irrational revelations of prophets have proven themselves to be more successful and appealing over a longer period of time than any rationalist society to date.
Depends what you mean by "based on" (and to a lesser extent "prophet" if you want to argue about North Korea, China and the old USSR). People seem to prefer, for example, America over Iran as a place to live.
As we speak, the vast majority of humans being born are not adopting, and never will adopt, a rational belief system in place of religion. Rationalists are quite literally a dying breed.
Hang on, that's a bit of a non-sequiter. Just because rationalists won't become... (read more)
I'd think they do. Surely in principle someone could see the image of whatever you're looking at reflected off the retina from the inside of your eye. It's only not visible in the sense that nobody's inside your eyeball and the image is probably very dim.
Algorithms that are hard to reverse is pretty simple to understand. Every Schoolboy Knows that division is "harder" than multiplication, and I'm still not entirely sure how to find roots in my head.