Comments by "Stephen Villano" (@spvillano) on "Joe Scott"
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One wee problem with the turnings theory is, what was WWI, which oddly gets skipped over?
The entire mess reminds me of the Foundation series of books. Laughably, written under pressure, as his publisher wanted some new books written and Asimov, in desperation for ideas looked at his bookshelf and saw "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire", giving him an idea for a series story line. Complete with a whole new (and actually incessantly attempted in the real world) field of psychohistory.
Where a real largely pseudoscience field does now exist, with a predictive value of between crap and poop.
Largely due to the failing here, cherrypicking wars as a crisis point, much as do religious fundamentalists "wars and rumors of wars", which sets me to open laughter. "Name some period, any period in history when there weren't wars and rumors of wars?"
So, let's look at the most probable outcome of intentionally tanking civilization. Richie Rich hides out in his gilded bunker, sipping champagne and munching caviar. Eventually, enough time passes and supplies run low, they exist, anticipating people will follow them - because of hand wave reasons.
Waiting for them, a brand spanking new National Razor.
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Got caught outside in a couple of microbursts, literally went from 60 MPH to 0 in seconds, with the chassis pushed against the rubber stops. Felt like the hand of an angry god pushing the vehicle down. One was a station wagon, the other a full size Ford service van. The latter requiring my unthreading a tree from the grille and driveshaft.
Basically, it's a cloud falling on you, bringing the air with it.
Had a tornado chase me out of Huntsville, AL back in the early '80's, one trying to form over my head at Ft Indiantown Gap (strong winds blowing through the gap in the three mountains disrupted it, after it drifted north past the three mountains, it touched down and wiped out a farm) and some touching down in our parish, one touching down after we left a town in Texas.
Frankly, I think our ancestors fouled up when they stepped off of the battlestar... ;)
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Two factors come into play in any hypothetical space aliens receiving a signal, assuming that they're even listening.
The inverse square law and the fact that space is damnably noisy.
Together, at our current technological level, we'd have trouble even hearing a signal from our closest stellar neighbor, given the volume of noise out there.
As for the SETI signal, remember that beam isn't a pencil beam, it will spread over distance, even as it attenuates.
I figure that an alien would know to listen at their frequency, be looking in the right place and actually detecting that signal about as equal to my being able to pet a unicorn within the next five minutes.
As in, you're trying to hear a whisper from 10 feet away in the middle of a rock concert and you're sitting close to the speakers.
Edit: And those rock concert speakers has a name - Sol. It's shouting, we can't really even manage a whisper.
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@marksainsbury2422 got caught that way myself. Doesn't make it invalid, cherrypicking data is a favorite pasttime for pseudoscience types.
Rather like religious fundies that run around screaming about end times, because of "wars and rumors of war", to which I laugh and ask for them to name any time when there weren't wars and rumors of war.
As for accelerationists, they think that they could accelerate a downfall of civilization, ride the tough times out in their gilded bunkers, happily sipping champagne and nibbling caviar, then emerge and start running things and everyone will happily follow them.
More likely, those who starved, watched family and friends die and shivered through long, cold winters will be waiting for them with a brand shining new National Razor.
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I've always saw IR illuminators well. Not as in using them as a flashlight, but the source I can see well at a distance. I suspect it's just part of the range of normal red wavelengths that many can see, as they're not exceptionally far from our usual wavelengths discussed in usual conversation.
But, UV, long wave UV is quite bright to my eyes, a deeper shade of violet, fluorescent marking, such as counterfeit detection on US currency is also blindingly bright under a long wave illuminator. UVB, I see in a pinkish-purplish tone. Neither being well focused at all, one actually appearing quite foggy, suggesting something a biologist I discussed it with suspected, fluorescence of proteins downconverting the UV into ranges that I can detect.
No clue what UV-C looks like, you explore it, I'll stay at home. That's damned near x-ray wavelength and quite unhealthy for humans.
Oh, seeing in x-ray and gamma would be even more interesting during powerful thunderstorms. Regular strength thunderstorms are fair x-ray sources, strong storms are good enough gamma sources as to be detectable easily from orbit.
I did get to see my femur in gamma, when I had a thyroid scan using I-131. Before dosing, they needed to determine my natural background level. I'm slightly hotter than those junior to me by decades, but given I was born a week after Tsar Bomba and the idiotic amount of atmospheric bursts, plus underground bursts that leaked fallout to the surface in the US, not surprising.
Oddly, I don't turn green or get larger when angry. But, there were a few Privates that were certain that if angered, I'd likely beat them with the 20 ton APC they had to clean after using it... ;)
Naw, they'd just have found themselves with all kinds of things to do that they'd loathe while everyone else was chilling with ice cold beers.
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There was one leader who did enact such a "disposal of dead wood", rounding up the insane, disabled and mentally challenged people and gassing them in carbon monoxide trucks. He then advanced to large camps, to eliminate all he thought to be undesirable for his vision of society.
Yeah, WWII. I actually knew some of the survivors.
Today, we do have some events that are reflective of history. A populist party, nativist in general nature, isolationist as well, hijacked a major political party and obstructed until it failed, earning the name Know Nothing Party, as nobody knew nothing about who was obstructing or why. The Whig party collapsed and a new Republican party was formed. Their Presidential candidate was some guy named Lincoln. The know nothings eventually went away, to fade into obscurity. The current day version are already showing signs of implosion.
After all, when one races to the bottom, once there one has nowhere to continue racing to.
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I've saw flying saucers. Followed by flying cups and plate, got the hell away from that domestic dispute quicker than if Marvin the Martian landed. Did my own share of earth shattering kabooms, thank you, I want to preserve what remains of my hearing.
Still, "cleared dude" gave himself away with "13,000 MPH", there are known objrcts that move at that speed and higher. Satellites and especially, newly reentering objects. Why, many become a veritable "squadron" of incinerating junk. One, a shuttle coming apart with pilot and crew.
Obviously, I didn't need to fire my heat seeking moisture missile. My wife remains thankful.
Now, UFO's? Saw plenty, U means unidentified, eventually, most get identified, then there are spy birds coming back down.
Orbit doesn't mean out of the atmosphere, just that the atmosphere looks like Mars and lower pressure, it's still pressure to decay an orbit.
Some others, well, "they weren't there", as they were some program object or once, an SR-71 that made an emergency landing, but in that case, neither of us existed...
But, I will say, a disconcerting number of fighter pilots chase after what was later ascertained to be satellites in orbit. Pretty much always, that 13,000 MPH or higher or "high G shift". which is still zero G in orbit. I suspect an artifact in their imagers.
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