Intoscience

I don't see anyone attacking transgender people, so not sure where you get that impression. I see folk arguing the "possibility" that transgender women athletes may hold a natural advantage over cis-gender women athletes. I think this is a fair argument to have, at least until it is proven one way or another whether it holds true. MigL pointed this out quite clearly when he stated the development of young males during puberty and how their bodies develop specifically for increased strength and endurance. Which stems back 100's of thousands of years in evolution, likely due to the males going out to do the hunting etc, while the females nurtured and protected the young. So it was natural that their respective bodies require different attributes for survival. Now we have sports this difference, especially at the elite level, becomes quite obvious and depending on the discipline there can be a large advantage/disadvantage between cis gender sexes. Which is why there is a male and female category and rules within the categories, all in an attempt to give everyone a fair and equal opportunity to compete. There will always be cheaters and there will always be dominate competitors, this is a given. The argument is not whether transgender people are cheating. Cheating implies a clear intention to gain an advantage over others by breaking the rules of competition. The argument is whether a transgender woman has a significant "natural" evolutionary advantage over cis-gender women that could result in unfair competition. This doesn't mean that transgender people should be discriminated against, on the contrary. It means that "if" its a problem (I'm not advocating it is since I'm not a performance biology expert)then it should be addressed so that no one is left at an unfair disadvantage or discriminated against for an advantage. Some are arguing there is most likely an advantage over cis gender females, others are arguing there isn't anything conclusive to prove this to be the case. This is a fair discussion and argument, its not an attack on the sexes and identities of people. Oh, then you have the odd one who argues it all doesn't matter and it should just be a free for all. Well then we may as well just scrap competition altogether. Which would be a step backwards in my opinion! Competition (especially sporting competition) is a great way to control natural aggression, its good for mental wellbeing, as well as for physical well being. It teaches discipline and structure and gives people a goal to strive towards and a purpose, all positive things for humanity.

There are plenty of speculative reasons why an alien may not wish to be seen by or communicate with us, your comment (my bold) is as good as any. If aliens are advanced enough to easily travel interstellar distances, it's a safe bet that they are so much more advanced that communication with us might be as futile as us with insects. For me, the reason we have not been visited maybe not just one but a number of things. 1. Space is vast and there are countless galaxies and star systems, why would we be noticed (yet)? 2. Space is vast and the distances between star systems is so great it presents massive obstacles for biological life (as we know it) to travel even a fraction of these distances. 3. Space is vast so the time it would take to travel between star systems, at sub light speeds, goes beyond any practical sensibility for biological life forms (as we know it). 4. Space is vast so the energy requirements to travel between star systems maybe total inefficient and costly. 5. Spacetime is vast so the odds of any advanced life forms co existing within a relative close proximity at similar times is going to be extremely low. 6. Advanced life (based on Earth) could be very rare. Humans have only been around for a tiny fraction of the time life has been around on planet Earth, and there were a number of random events that were crucial for humans to evolve in the first place. Life existing may not naturally evolve technological capabilities. 7. Though almost 14 billion years old, relative to the estimated life span that the universe should achieve, it's very much in it's early infancy. Humans may well be the one of, if indeed not the first, technological life form to exist in the Milky way galaxy or the universe. 8. Biological life is fragile and susceptible to extreme environmental changes and conditions. There may be a filter that is difficult to go beyond. 9. The universe maybe swarming with advanced alien technology, they just either have not detected us or have no interest to engage (not my favourite reason to be honest) 10. We are alone.

I've got an old vacuum cleaner I'm thinking of selling, its just knocking around collecting dust. Did you hear about the first restaurant to open on the moon? - It has great food but no atmosphere. There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator. What did one ocean say to the other ocean? - Nothing it just waved. What do dentists call their X-rays? - Tooth pics

These sort of matches are just a promotional spectacle and shouldn't be taken serious. John McEnroe who got slated for making a comment about Serena Williams at the time when she was ladies world No1. His comment was something along the lines of "If Serena competed on the men's circuit she would not rank any higher than 700th" I'm not sure of the exact details, but though controversial, this figure was just plucked out of his head and shouldn't be taken as "you cannot be serious" (sorry couldn't help myself). But it was generally accepted to some degree, and even by Serena herself, she went on to play an exhibition match against a male player ranked 203rd at the time and lost the match. This does not take away the fact that Serena Williams is one of the greatest tennis players of all time, and is an elite athlete who should be recognised equally as much as her male counter parts.

@ the OP Would you consider consciousness to be limited to mankind then?

The first and foremost is to try and establish the alien's intention and agenda (assuming we are not wiped out first). If they have made the effort to visit our planet then they clearly have intent or interest. Unless they happen to be driving past and the alien kid in the back seat says - "look mummy that's one of those planets which I always wanted to visit" Mum reply's "I've told you before, its just one of those planets full of dumb apes wrecking the environment, nothing interesting to see there". Kid "But mummy I really wanna see". Mum "oh go on then, just this once, but be careful not to scare them, they can be very aggressive and we wouldn't want to hurt them". Lets hope that their intent, no matter what they actually want, is not to harm us.

We live in a throw away society and this is normal for the younger generations who know no different. Changing attitudes of the end user is just one part of a more complex problem. Companies, corporations and governments will not make any changes if its going to cost them money, unless they can disguise the cost of the change and offset it elsewhere (usually the end user). I remember, and I'm sure most will, back when everything that was possible to re-use / utilise would have been - Jam jars for screws, nails, buttons etc... Torn clothes, socks and underwear sewed up and continued to be used, then reused for rags once unfit to wear... All just to name a few. My parents still live this way and produce very little waste. My children throw out everything unwanted, the very thought of wearing a sewn up item of clothing makes them cringe with embarrassment, they produce 4 x times as much waste as my parents, yet advocate changes must be made towards climate change...

Or the aliens may observe us and decide we are no use to the galactic federation and should be eradicated before our technological capability becomes potentially threatening to the galactic federation of planets. 😜

That's easy if the result is fair 🙂

That's why we have rules, limits and categories, to level the playing field as fairly as possible. Rules are then amended over time (hopefully) to improve the fairness further and or accommodate more categories etc... There's not always a "perfect" fair solution, just one that the majority accepts as the best it can be. Someone somewhere is always at an advantage/disadvantage, the trick is to determine if the advantage/disadvantage is deemed fair or not. If the vast majority are fairly treated then this is surely the best system?

Absolutely, I agree with you on this. I don't have an issue with any person competing so long as "fair" play is maintained for everyone

Who lives forever...anyway...? (Queen - who wants to live forever). We can't talk in terms of forever, only moments. The problem being that each moment can't be undone! So lets make sure each moment are the best they can possibly be, else there is no point to it all anyway. The universe doesn't care, that doesn't mean we shouldn't either.

I suspect they would, this is not uncommon throughout history. It just gets a little less convincing when an advanced alien turns up on the door step of the "being" that was made in the image of the creator of the universe. Assuming, obviously that the alien resembles nothing like a human. 😜

The winning team will mostly be biased in their own favour, this is natural. Though in some sports, like golf for instance, where competitors are expected to self regulate, you do often get the true "sporting" persons who admit there rule breach and take the consequences accordingly.

The OP has already assumed this isn't a problem since it was stated in the question "if we were visited" As to what would the effects be, we can speculate in many ways. The intention of the alien/s just to begin with will have a profound effect. First off, It would at least answer a big question we all want the answer to - are we alone? Secondly, as to regards religion, it may undermine many of the beliefs held by many of the religions across the world. Either way it would certainly put a new perspective on things!

Yeah, you see this sort of thing often. Especially when they use decorative metal switches with no cpc present.

I'm UK based like your good self. My wife is from Bath originally, I'm from Stoke on Trent. I'm only familiar with English regs, BS7671, so no, I didn't realise this was the case in the US. It can be a rewarding job but also boring at times, to be honest. The most rewarding part was when doing an inspection a dangerous fault was identified, before somebody got injured or worse. I've seen some terribly shocking (excuse the pun) installs over the years. One I can recall was at a horse stables, where the owner had nailed some exposed conductors (stripped back T&E) to a stable door and connected it to a 230v plug top, plugged into an old outdoor socket with no rcd protection. This was his attempt to stop the horse from chewing the door by shocking it! Unbelievably stupid, people can be sometimes, let alone cruel in this case! Another one was a call out job I attended where a single mother and her new born baby had "no electric". It was an old Wyle rewireable fuse board with no other protection, on a TT earth system. The cables were VIR and though obviously old, looked ok going into the CCU the socket and lighting circuit fuses had blown. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, the house had no carpets and on the landing area I could see through the floorboard cracks some cables that looked trapped over some pipes. As I lifted a board that was partially nailed there was a smell of gas and a quite hiss. The lead gas pipe run the length of the landing, and some idiot had nailed through it! even more alarming was that the old VIR cables that had perished exposing the bare conductors were routed in many place over the lead gas pipe! Scary situation to say the least! To be honest I've just recently taken a new job which is more project management than anything. So my inspection and testing days will now be limited to favours for friends etc rather than my job. Thanks

Yes, I'm well aware of all this, I'm an electrical inspector and tester by trade. I was assuming from his post that he wanted a layman's explanation on how a fire could result from a short circuit. So was focusing on how conductors might heat up due to current flow which is what causes the fires. The examples I'd given were (though not technically short circuits per say) aimed at this rather than going into great technical detail.

As studiot said ^^^ There are applications where a controlled "short circuit" to create heat or light is useful. For example electric fires, light bulbs, oven grills... These items tend to use high melting point and low resistance materials so that enough current flows to heat the elements without them melting, tungsten filament light bulbs are an example of this. This is why, as mathematic says, circuit breakers are designed into electrical systems to prevent unintended over current which could result in cables heating up beyond their design threshold. In most modern domestic premises you will generally find 2 types of circuit breaker (fuse), or a combination of both. There are MCB's which stands for - miniature circuit breaker, these are the "over current" protection devices. You will also find RCD's which stands for - residual current device, these are shock protection devices. Both devices are designed with rated operating times to cut off the current flow in the event of a fault, Other types of fuses that are actually designed to "over heat" and melt to cut off current flow are common in things like plug tops, old electrical systems, large industrial applications... It's very important, and on point to your OP, that fuses and circuit breakers are carefully selected so that the correct current rating is used!! For example it would not be a good idea to use a 32 amp rated fuse on a circuit that was designed to operate at 6 amps. A fault in this scenario could possibly result in cable conductors over heating to such a degree that they are hot enough to set on fire any combustible material near to them, before the circuit breaker or fuse operated.

Right, ok that helps. Thanks

But if there is no space-time curvature then there is no gravity. In GR gravity is a condition/behaviour/state (dependent on your definition) that arises from the curvature of space-time. So in my mind gravity is emergent from space-time curvature. Space-time curvature occurs when either energy or mass is present and the amount of curvature is dependent on the density/concentration of the mass or energy relative to the space it occupies. I'm not arguing, I'm asking if my basic understanding of gravity in the model of GR is correct?

Well, I guess in the context of this topic, then space and maybe time are emergent (come into existence) under certain quantum conditions, that originate from something even more fundamental. These are not my ideas, I'm trying to gain an understanding of how these physicists are suggest this. My understanding is that its based on reduction at the quantum level, and what might lay beyond our current observation capabilities. I guess we could argue similar, where in GR gravity is an emergent condition that arises due to space-time curvature?

This seems to be the major problem, the very fact that we cannot observe such extremely small distances. Much like we cannot observe what is inside a black hole, where at the centre such an extremely small region may exist.

Ok thanks, So what is the main objective of science? Is it to gain an understanding of the behaviour of how things operate? Rather than the fundamental "reality" that may under pin this? It's a very interesting subject!