Hi.

I comment pretty rarely but read very often.

EDIT: read mistercow's comment and I feel pretty much the same way.

One more possibility: our cuteness detector is simply our threat detector for animate objects with a minus sign. Bunnies are especially cute because we're especially confident that they can't hurt us. People who feel threatened by the responsibility that babies represent don't find them cute.

It seems unlikely that people would be revived in those scenarios, especially in 1 and 2. As for 3, biological evolution takes a long long time, and even then it's likely the future humans would provide a decent environment for us if they revive us. Unlike apes, we and future humans will both be capable to communicate and engage in abstract thought, so I don't think that analogy works.

Agreed we're in the successful group, easily. Sucks that NK exists as it is, but they are isolated and have no way to expand or threaten the world system. The fact that we can have websites like this, and people actually can sit in the basement and work on the math means we are doing well, up to this point at least.

My guess is more of the failed earths were long ago. Like humans continue to wander around in small tribes for millions of years and never get beyond stone-age technology. We are eventually wiped out by a meteor or some such.

I know some people who are like the woman you describe, my own folks might be like that to some extent. I became atheist pretty early on. So I'm not sure that adults who believe in belief are likely to be passing that along to their kids, if they even try. In my case, I put on a show for a while, but when I stopped it was no big deal.

If these people are able to agree with a scientific worldview and not be obstructionist on things like stem cell, but simply want to add "and I believe there is a god" to the end of it, fine. Seems like a natural step towards the end of belief in god entirely.

I wonder about the value of any advice from a person or company once they hit their super success. Does someone like Buffett have influence to the point where he just forces his moves be good or great? Not that he would be unaware of that, but still.

Or Microsoft, they could release a piece of software which for them can make profits and define industry standards, but for another firm might be considered a disaster.

It does seem like the best advice from these types will at some point boil down to 'be me' or 'be us'. In that case its probably cheaper to learn the basics which can be taught elsewhere.