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Moontanman

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Everything posted by Moontanman

  1. Anyone else watched Project Blue Book? I am watching it on Peacock but I think it originally aired on the History Channel. Not a bad show, it does seem to be loosely based on actual UFO sightings, very loosely, they take a lot of poetic licence and make up details and change names but I do recognise the sightings from the late 50s to early 60s so far. Sadly they have left out some details that were IMHO important and made up stuff to make a "better" story but really didn't need the embellishments. Let me know if you watched it and want to discuss.
  2. My first wife was a readhead, she couldn't tan, her skin turned red and her freckles turned green, I told her she looked like a christmas tree.
  3. I never suggested the tool is evil, I was just using the word in a different context. Religious rituals have no basis in rational thought.
  4. It was both wrong and irrational. Lying to a child is always wrong, telling a child that something irrational is true is doubly wrong. The irrational part is the people believing it, the wrong part is the few lying to the many for power. Hmm, I think we are using the word ritual in different ways, I am using it in the sense of something used to control others through repetition and repetition of non truthful things. IMHO words do not have meanings but usages, that is why when you look up a word in the dictionary they have many and even contradictory definitions but your mileage may vary. No, you are putting words in my mouth, the past has wisdom as does the present and so will the future, none of them have the last word on knowledge but science becomes ever more accurate, faith and belief are not, were not, and will not be accurate methods of obtaining knowledge.
  5. Religion IMHO was just an attempt to explain our reality in terms of what we observed, our instinctive biases, and a generous dollop of mind altering drugs. There was no doubt some logic in it as far as the observations go but they were flawed and no method of testing them existed. I am willing to discuss whether or not this involved rationality but IMHO any rationality was immediately overshadowed by the need for ritual and control by an individual or an elite group. Belief and faith played and still play a paramount part in religion and these are not rational means of obtaining knowledge.
  6. I read about this 40+ years ago, although it was named boron proton fission then.
  7. None the less none of them are based in or on rationality. You are forgetting the ones that have lasted for longer than 2000 years or do I sense a bit of favoritism? I thought religions all claimed to be true as opposed to social structures which can be total bullshit and still withstand the test of time. I mean the Illuminati is still around.
  8. I've been in that inner circle of hell! Religion is far from rational, religion's foundations have nothing to do with rationality.
  9. OMG! There is a nuclear reactor inside the Earth! We're all gonna die!
  10. Exactly, I'd like to point out that the life Isaac Asimov suggested would require a narrow "goldilocks" zone much like Earth and no planet in our Solar System meets this requirement, although Jupiter's Moon Io might have these conditions underground below it's frozen sulfur rich surface.
  11. Lots of possibilities but how many are really likely? Ammonia in place of water suffers from the fact that water and ammonia dissolve in each other forming a hybrid liquid, hard to separate them in any planetary biosphere. On earth bacteria consume any ammonia dissolved in water and oxygen reacts with it. Isaac Asimov suggested that life might be based on silicon oxygen chains with methane radicals attached to the silicon atoms. Possibly sulfuric acid as a working fluid and metabolizing gaseous sulfur as a breathing gas. Of course the temps would be quite high, lower than Venus but quite a bit higher than Earth. I agree, "life" suggests it is self replicating but completely artificial life forms, like "Data" from Star Trek might be a compromise assuming that such a thing is possible.
  12. I didn't know about the cheating, Will is acting out his horns instead of wearing them well.
  13. Putin is a loose cannon, I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
  14. Maybe, maybe not, we'll have to see how this plays out, it's still disturbing to see Will in that situation with the look of a man who is not all there. Popularity of the academy awards has fallen off so much in recent years I am sure they would desperately like more publicity.
  15. Actually silicon life would require low temps and has been suggested as a possibility for titan using liquid hydrocarbons for a working fluid, for high temps it would require silicones and possibly sulfuric acid as a working fluid. The mechanical life possibility is one I feel is most likely for long term survival of a civilization but AI is not necessarily needed. Perhaps we could down load our own minds into machines at some point.
  16. I know where he got it, the sun doesn't often shine there. I agree with you to a point, there is some evidence of odd chemistry of Titan that is consuming hydrogen reacting it with acetylene and producing methane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Titan This is IMHO evidence, just not proof. Finding such life on Titan would revolutionize our thought on how life starts and indicate that life arises much more often than we currently think. Finding life, water life, anywhere would beg the question of where is originated. Planets sneeze on each other often and such events like the Chicxulub impact could splash relatively large rocks into the solar system for them to be picked up by other planets and moons in the solar system. A unique second genesis of life in our solar system would be a scientific boon of major proportions.
  17. I still think it was faked, publicity, any publicity, is good publicity.
  18. I think something is wrong with WS, I've watched the clip several times, his facial expressions do not match his emotions, not even close. The slap itself was weird, If someone had insulted my wife to the extent I thought physical punishment was mandated a slap would not have cut it. The whole thing was far too deliberate and strange, if it wasn't play acting them WS is one strange dude.

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