mistermack

Do you have a reference for that ?

That whole post comes across as you being rather full of yourself. But the bit that I've quoted, especially so. You might prefer wokeness. But what WE NEED is up to the individual.

That's the important question. What I'm saying is that we are pre-inclined to guess that evolution will naturally produce an increase in their intelligence, but there is no reason to assume that. Our own increase in intelligence was driven by an unknown factor, and is freakish in nature. About nine million years ago, we had a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We diverged, and evolved many differences, but the Chimpanzees etc of today show very little difference from the last common ancestor. If they haven't changed much in nine million years, why would they change significantly in the next million? Intelligence in the form of a big brain has costs as well as benefits. It's naturally less robust, and uses a lot of energy, and causes a lot of deaths in childbirth, and needs an extended period of vulnerable childhood to develop. There are many good reasons why there should be an intelligence ceiling. Most evolutionary scientists acknowledge that our own case is extremely freakish, and the evolutionary benefit that caused our brain expansion has still not been discovered. In fact, up to fairly recently, our species struggled to exist, and were easily outnumbered by the hordes of less intelligent species. Study of our dna indicates that the population numbers of our ancestors dropped dangerously close to extinction levels, whereas monkeys etc were easily outcompeting us. If we HAD gone extinct, at one of those bottleneck points, our example of one civilisation would have been zero, and the argument that intelligence has a natural ceiling would look like common sense. Other hominid cousins with enlarged brains all went extinct, only our line actually made it, so the cost/benefit equation didn't work out for them.

As far as the Fermi Paraxox goes, there's a factor that's not immediately obvious. Here as humans on Earth, we have a sample of one, and evolution has produced a being capable of science and industry. So it's tempting to assume that that will happen elsewhere. But the fact is, we humans are an incredible evolutionary freak. Take away the homo genus, and what's left? The highest form of intelligence is Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Orangutans. It looks likely that there is a natural ceiling for intelligence that we have freakishly blasted through, and as yet, nobody knows why that happened. Chimpanzees and Gorillas and Orangs have pretty much the same mental capabilities as our common ancestor had ten million years ago. They certainly seem to have hit a natural ceiling in the intelligence stakes. Whales and Dolphins are brainy, but nowhere near capable of any tech. So it might well be the same on other planets that have produced life. There might be millions or billions of Earth-like planets, but they might all produce nothing more intelligent than a Chimp. In any case, if the intelligent life came from water-living animals, I think it's very unlikely that they would be able to make stuff, in the way that we can. How could you progress to industry, without oxygen in the air, and fossil fuels in the ground? Earth might be a one-in-a-billion freak, in being suitable for developing technology, and humans might be a one-in-a-billion freak in the intelligence stakes. We just don't know, having just a sample of one to go by.

What your scenario doesn't take into account, is the almost certainty that in less than 200 years, we will have some kinds of colonies in space. Probably numerous giant space stations, and industrial colonies on the Moon etc. So if aliens want to destroy us that way, their time is running out fast. And vice versa, if we wanted to strike at far-off aliens using your method, it would only work if they had not yet mastered living off-planet. Thats not very likely, if their progress was as rapid as ours. We've gone from being Earth bound to landing machines on Mars in just over 100 years, which is nothing in real time. The aliens could easily be a million years ahead of us, in mastering space living, so wasting their planet would probably be a complete waste of time. We would just be creating an enemy for no gain. And of course, that enemy could have friends, who are even more advanced than they are. You could be making yourself a target, for a NATO like alliance.

What colour car ?

You've completely missed the point. We aren't talking about events. We are talking about reports. Nobody is ridiculing events, they are ridiculing claims, firstly because they are fantastical, and secondly becouse they come with either no evidence, or useless evidence. Nobody said it wasn't. I pointed to the similar 'ground effect' 100m down the road, which isn't accompanied by a saucer. That, and the fact that it just looks like dead weeds to me, indicates that the 'ground effect' is probably dead weeds surrounding a barrel. That's what it looks like to me.

I think ridicule and dismissal is fair enough, given the quality of what's been offered so far. You can ridicule and dismiss reports, and still be open to new ones with better evidence, if they ever happen. One important aspect of science is repeatability. No matter how vehemently a witness swears he's telling the truth, it's not science, if impartial people can't repeat and record and measure the experience. It's just stories. And unlikely stories will always get ridiculed, I think that's fair enough. In this era of mobile phones, with everyone carrying a fantastic quality camera about with them all the time, you would think that there would be some decent shots and videos of real aliens about by now. But that sort of quality evidence is sadly lacking. If I saw some aliens, and only got blurred fuzzy worthless stills of them, I'd expect my story to be dismissed and ridiculed. Aside from that, I noticed on your photo, posted above, that your so-called 'ground effect' is repeated in the distance, about 100 m down the road, with no space ship hovering above it. It seem that if you want something enough, you will see what you want to see.

I found the old copies of the McMinnville saucer and it triggered my memory of what I found wrong with them. (Apart from the fuzzy quality) I can't post them full size on here, they are 6 and 8 mb. But I've shrunk them to fit. What I noticed is that the two are superficially similar, but if you look closely, you can see that they are taken from very different locations. Look at the post and bush, next to the building on the left. You can see a big difference in the gap, and therefore the angle, and therefore the location of the camera. But if you look at the location of the saucer, relative to the overhead wire, it's just the same in both cases. The lower wire has a slight but definite kink, slightly to the left of where the saucer appears to be hanging. The saucer appears to be hanging in exactly the same place, relative to that kink, in both images. But it should not, because the camera had moved around putting quite some distance and direction between the two snaps. As the wires are close, and the saucer is supposed to be far away, the position relative to the kink should be very different. Of course, you might argue that the saucer has moved in the intervening time, to a position that gives exactly the same apparent position in relation to the wire. But that's stretching coincidence much too far for me. In fact, a moving saucer would surely have produced a very different picture, given the obvious time period that would have elapsed between the two exposures. Appearing to hang in exactly the same spot, relative to the wire, indicates what was really happening. It was hanging from the same spot.

Fuzzy is fuzzy. You seem to be abandoning any kind of balance in your enthusiasm for UFOs. How can you say those images are anything but fuzzy? They could be almost anything. It's evidence like that that puts the U in UFO.

I don't know what planet you are operating from. I have clipped the relevant bits from those photos you posted. See below : ( I actually have higher definition versions somewhere, from when I looked at this a few years ago. They were just as vague )

My assertion was that some people who investigated claimed evidence of a string or wire. But look what the "alien" fans are postulating, off the claims of a couple of suspect country hicks, and a few fuzzy photos. Not only have aliens visited McMinnville (and then left without saying hello !) but they also have found a way to counteract gravity, but were too selfish to share it with us humans. Since proof of anything is not available, it seems to be a case of common sense vs gullibility. What kind of weird world would it be, if aliens travelled billions and squillions of kilometers to reach earth, just to float around McMinnville for a few minutes, and then clear off without saying hello? And in what realm of physics is there even the possibility of solid objects of that kind being able to float around unaffected by gravity? You seem to think that the burden of proof rests equally on sceptics, as it does on fantastical claimants. That flies in the face of common sense. We know that people make up stories. It's part of human nature, and the motives are as varied as the people making them. And some people are extremely convincing liars. So I'm happy to file this with crop circles and alien abductions. Rubbish, unless proved otherwise. I was once keen on a girl from McMinnville. About fifty years ago. So I got a bit of the story while it was still fairly fresh. Wish I'd made notes.

I recognise those pictures. They're from the McMinnville episode. They are "considered real", by gullible people who want UFOs to be something out of this world. The claim "considered real" is meaningless in this context. The event has been debunked by interested people who were open minded enough to spend time on it. They found evidence of a wire in the pics, and solid evidence that the original story contained falsehoods. Why on earth would you write "considered real" as if it meant something? The object is considered real. A real wing mirror cover off an old pickup truck.

High fructose corn syrup is way ahead of any other food I've heard of. Not just because of it's direct harm, but for the way it prompts you to want more. If you were to avoid just one common food, it has to be HFCS.

I nowhere said "I can't believe" about the matter. Maybe you should research the burden of proof a bit. I wrote "nowhere" as an open invitation, because one single example would be enough to disprove it, (which you haven't posted), whereas proving a negative needs either exhaustive research, or proof that the positive is impossible. I've seen no reports of damage done by other falling missiles up to now, that's the extent of my claim, and it would be super easy to put me right on that, if actual reports were out there. But there's a reason that it's unlikely, and that is that the missiles are designed to self-destruct, if they don't hit their target. That's why this one accidentally exploding on impact in Poland is not impossible, but it's pretty far-fetched, especially when Zelensky was flatly denying that Ukraine had fired it in the first place. The evidence of intent is there for all to see. It's not incontrovertible, but it stinks.

You have obviously missed the fact that Zelensky has been claiming that Putin did it right from the start. Maybe HE should go with hobbits or orcs, using your 'logic'. And that's in spite of the fact that the NATO chiefs knew within hours that it was fired from Ukraine. " U.S. president Joe Biden, speaking from the G20 summit in Bali, said that it was "unlikely" that the missile was fired from Russia.[27]" US presidents are not in the habit of excusing russian behaviour. " President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for the incident in his nightly video address that day, saying that "Russian missiles hit Poland" and describing it as an infringement upon "collective security" and as a "significant escalation".[40] Around the same time, foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba labeled the suggestion of the missile being fired by Ukrainian air defense as a "conspiracy theory" promoted by Russia.[41][42] The next day, Ukraine's presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak had tweeted that European countries should "close the sky" over Ukraine after the blast.[43] Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, claimed that Ukraine had evidence of a "Russian trace" in the explosion, without giving any details.[44] Zelenskyy also said that he had "no doubt that it was not our missile" and that Ukraine should be given access to the site of the explosion.[45]" If Zelensky ordered the missile strike, the motive is obvious from the above wikipedia quotes. He wanted to prompt NATO to close the skies over Ukraine. A huge escalation of NATO's involvement. Signs that the Poles were less than happy with Zelensky are there to be seen. " Also on 17 November, Polish officials stated that Ukrainian investigators were likely to be granted access to the site of the explosion.[29] On 21 November, it was reported that Ukraine will not be granted access to the investigation by the Polish prosecutor's office.[30]" The official NATO line is that a Russian-made Ukrainian air defence missile missed it's target, flew aimlessly to Poland, and exploded on impact. But lots of Ukrainian missiles have missed their targets. Where are the reports of them exploding on impact and killing people? Nowhere. Only the one that hit Poland has done reported damage. Mighty strange. Ironically, this incident has probably made the world a little safer, because NATO will now look very carefully at any further scam by Zelensky to drag them deeper into a shooting war.

When news came out of this rocket hitting Poland, I immediately thought it was heavily odds-on the Zelensky had fired it, in a crude attempt to get Russia blamed, and drag NATO into a shooting match. Everything that's emerged since has fallen in line with that scenario. Zelensky probably calculated that he could aim it at the countryside, away from habitation, and everybody would go along with the deception and not look too hard at the details. What went wrong was that Polish People died, so the Poles were angry and not at all inclined to go along with it. So it was properly investigated and the source was established as Ukrainian. What's telling is that not one media source (that I've seen) has even raised the possibility that it was a deliberate act by Ukrain. Just show that our media are into propeganda, not news. But NATO probably knows, and are keeping their mouths shut.

If I was in power, I would give a government subsidy for each unit of reclaimed Lithium, so that it would be worth building up the industry and technology. The industry always follows the money. There's no point in waiting till it actually starts to pay. There might be a hell of a lot of good material gone down the drain by then.

I believe I did support my claim, with references to human evolution. It's a wide field. If you don't think human evolution was of a fiercely territorial nature, then you don't even have the basics and citations would mean nothing to you. However, here are a few : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/004724847690035X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661321001522 https://www.vox.com/2014/4/28/5661186/evolution-war-cause I think you have to be pretty blind NOT to detect any aggressive racist or territorial tendency in human nature, but if you can't work it out for yourself, then the evidence is abundant. Google is great for finding stuff out. I can recommend it.

No, I'm not going to research the bleedin obvious for you. If you disagree that humans have a racist tendency, say why. I've said why I think they do have and where I think it comes from. I've pointed to some racist instances, I could go on all day. If you think it just appears from nowhere, you need to justify that, in the same way that I have. I pointed to our evolutionary history, you've just parroted yourself.

Do you then think that humans have no inherent racist tendency? I'd like to see your citation for that.

Nobody is arguing that. But the OP is expressing amazement that a black person should behave about religion in the same way that racists do about race. That's what I responded to, as I made clear in my post. What complete rot. I'm responding to the fact that racism has been a constant feature of mankind's behaviour, for millenia. Or did I dream that the USA was built up on the backs of black slaves, who could be bought and sold at will? Or that it's less than a lifetime ago that there were seperate entrances for the races in the USA, and seperate drinking fountains? Or that white US cops are still more prone to kill a black than a white? In spite that is, of huge efforts by educationalists and media to preach equality. If there was no preaching of equality and tolerance in schools and the media, I think it's perfectly obvious that racism would be rife. You can't ignore the past. As I said, I believe that we have racist genes, and tolerance genes, and millions of others. The racist ones helped our ancestors survive. They lived in extended family groups who had to be aggressively territorial to survive, just as chimpanzees do today.

In answer to the OP, I don't find it at all surprising. Black people can be racist too. In fact, it's racist to argue that they can't. Everyone of any colour is born with racist tendencies. It takes a lot of indoctrination to get people to abandon it. We have a constant drip drip throughout our lives, of those in charge telling us how bad it is to judge people on superficial differences, like skin colour or sexuality. I personally think that's a good thing to do, not all indoctrination is bad. And I would argue that we should add religion to the long list. It is in a lot of instances. But of course, many religions are hemmed in by their own doctrine. If it was written thousands of years ago that unbelievers will roast in hell, then you are obliged to believe that, because " It's written ". So the OP's friend can pass the buck, and put the blame for his semi racism on the scriptures. Of course, that opens the door for people to find a few words in scriptures to justify killing unbelievers. Genetically, we are programmed to do that, because we evolved from a territorial ape ancestor who fought and killed it's neighbours for millions of years, to survive. Those who didn't have that instinct probably got killed and eaten, so we don't have their genes today.

Wish you were, Mr. Dim.😁

A lot of European countries seem to be considering freezing energy prices below market prices, and to use government money to pay for the difference. The UK has already announced a two year freeze plan. (possibly costing taxpayers £150 billion) I'm not sure it's a good option. I'm not against intervention and support for domestic bill payers, but I have my doubts if this is the best way, or the right scale. The obvious problem with it is the cost, which is absolutely huge. Someone will have to pay it, and that someone is tax payers. No matter how you smoothe it out, the tax payer will pay. If you do nothing, the users pay for what they use. Which is the general rule for most things. If I go for a drink, I pay for it. If I put fuel in my car, I pay for it. In fact, I pay tax on top. So this is the reverse. If I use electricity or gas, instead of me paying the price, the tax payer pays a chunk of it. The main problem with that, is that if you freeze the price, you reduce the incentive to economise. If the price of diesel shot up, I might decide to drive less, and use the bus more. Or use pedal power. The money saved would make economising more attractive and worthwhile. That's how inflation is normally kept in check. If sellers raise prices, buyers look for economies and cheaper alternatives. The balance of supply/demand controls inflation. You are losing that, if you subsidise the price. I would favour direct money grants to bill payers rather than price freezes. That way, there is still a big incentive to use less, and more chance of market prices coming down. Of course, there is a downside to that as well. Some people will just blow the grant money on something else and still find that they can't pay their fuel bills. But there might be ways around that, like a delay in paying the grant, and using it on fuel bills, if people are in arrears. Anyway, I'm not decided myself, I just wondered what others would think.