Alex's Livejournal

Random rant about why we need big telescopes to look at planets

2018-08-10T10:32:48Z

Vast amounts of money should be spent on gigantic space telescopes to get a good look at the planets in nearby solar systems. Here's why:

What's actually *on* those planets is completely unknown. Bold statements have been given to what's in the rest of the universe given our (laughably incomplete) knowledge of the macro-scale; however, the contents of planets in the goldilocks zone remains a total mystery. There is *no* sound reason to think we won't find life (or something similarly weird) on them, they're full of interesting chemistry, and we've never seen one where life like ours hasn't evolved. It's a "no probability calculation possible" situation, we know almost nothing about them, and have no data set to work with.

So far we're one-for-one for goldilocks planets and life, but the sample size, and the anthropic principle make that a poor basis of judgement. The Drake life equations are similarly awful, as they tend to result in life being either certain, or staggeringly unlikely[1], and are based on one sample.

Another reason given for absence, is that if life was there it'd be obvious, but it's not. As a Victorian might muse, if there is life, where are its airships? Surely we'd see the space telegraph wires! Looking up at the lots of odd and inexplicable stuff we're seeing and saying, "Well, we don't know what that is, but it clearly *isn't* an example of something we have no comprehension of what it might look like" seems previous to say the least.

I grant, that there's a fair chance we might find little on them, but even then, we'll probably find lots of curious new facts. The other possibility is fascinating though, just the discovery of other life would be profoundly inspiring, and potentially open a vast new range of ideas. Then there's the even more tantalising possibility of discovering a planet which had/has intelligent life on it, the knowledge from which would be beyond value, and possibly change everything. (It could be grim, we could discover: "Intelligent life kills itself", but even there, there might be valuable lessons, which could keep us alive longer).

[1]If they're *too* unlikely, even the anthropic principle has problems. There being a 1 in 10^12 chance of any life starting *anywhere* in the universe asks very serious questions as to the nature of the universe given the fact that we're here. There doesn't have to be a planet with life on it, they could all be dead, so in this example, there's something fishy about the universe. Maybe there are 10^13 universes, but without evidence of this it isn't a good answer to the apparently extremely unlikely event.

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xenophanean @ 2017-05-31T02:03:00

2017-05-31T01:06:31Z

So tonight I learned one or more of three things:

The aftereffects of lots of exercise is amazing

and / or

When I'm is feeling fear in my environment, replacing it with curiosity is a highly effective strategy.

and / or

I really like drag nights.

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xenophanean @ 2017-05-01T17:06:00

2017-05-01T16:10:28Z

So... Beltane 2017.

What was awesome.

- I loved the acro. It came as a total surprise to me that I'd enjoy it that much, but I found it completely heavenly.
- I liked the group I was in. Although I didn't necessarily gel that strongly. - Everybody was pretty nice, and they were a lot of fun to Beltane with.
- I was pretty useful. I made sure a lot of things were okay, I got them a yard to build their boat in, and generally looked after things.
- The night itself, although there were about 40 minutes of improv audience interaction (don't like this if unplanned), once we got the boat moving everything came alive, the crowd were loving it, and it was a huge buzz.
- Burning the boat at the end. Rather than the slightly dull all sitting at bower, we burned a boat, then the foxes joined us, and the Aerie. It was lovely.
- The After Party. This was a fantastic thing filled with drumming and friends, I completely loved it.
- The feeling of community in general. I may not be so strongly bonded to the group, but I feel much closer to Beltane, than I used to. Really must GO again.
- The views at the After-After. I was a little bit high, and found the party itself it's normal meh, but god, some of the scenery up there!

What was meh, or bad.

- I didn't really connect with the group as well as I'd liked. I made a couple of new friends, and I enjoyed Beltaning with them, but for some reason I didn't really feel I closely gelled. This is a common, but by no means universal thing with Beltane. I'm not that much like quite a lot of the people.
- It was chaotic, everyone was unusually late for everything, didn't actually harm that much.
- The away weekend, started out quite well, and I enjoyed some of it, but I drank and smoked too much on the first night, and it made everything else harder. I was a bit upset that I was left outside when I incapacitated myself with dope. It was cold out there, and kinda dampened trust for me.
- I damaged my leg. This was the worst thing, as it affected bonding, acro everything else, and meant I couldn't to acro with the group for two essential weeks, made the bits of performance less good for me. It was bad.
- The After-After. As is near universally the case, everyone I was very close to at Beltane was either drumming or at home asleep, I was a bit drugged, and so didn't get on with it. Nice views though.

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Too long for FB comment

2017-04-11T10:22:43Z

Was going to post this on FB, but didn't really want an argument about it, also, kinda not relevant to general conversation, but possibly of interest to me for later re current opinions on things.

Re: http://www.celebritytypes.com/feminism-5/result.php?trad=15&lib=65&radic=71&marx=74&cult=74

I noticed that none of the descriptions as were actually terribly close to my stance.

- Liberal (closest?): Although I don't necessarily think it's dreadful if there are slightly more of one gender in a profession than the other, big discrepancies are a sign of a cultural problem. Also, there seems to be a bit of an "it'll go away if we ignore it" attitude pervading this one. Simply giving basically equal legal rights isn't enough if there's a massive culture to impose what are basically laws. Social pressure can be more powerful than legislation in many cases.

- Rad fem (next closest). Bit too much telling people what to do, also I think the oppression is a bit more complex than stated. Everyone in society oppresses by their internalised states, men are less inclined to challenge this by dint of them getting the better deal, and indeed, will sometimes defend the oppression. I also question whether the suggestion that it's just women who need to stop this actually accurately reflects the Rad-Fems views.
Re: Gender roles: it's not strictly about rejecting traditional gender roles, for me, so much as trying to completely remove the enforcement of them culturally or legally. The whole point is you're allowed to choose who you are. Prostitution / Pornography? Extremely complex issues, these are both full of exploitation, and that needs to go, going further and completely eliminating though? To illiberal for me, I'm afraid, at the end of the day both should be based on unfettered choice for all parties.

- Marxist? I suppose I sort of agree that capitalism spreads misogyny, but this is more a result than a cause. I don't actually see capitalism as being inherently "for men", that'd be gender-essentialist. Capitalism will basically leap on any societal unpleasantness if there's profit there. This means that it can be deeply oppressive, but it doesn't really care what race, colour etc. people are, as long as the cultural norms are in place for it to exploit them. In this society it means it follows, and perhaps reinforces sexism for its own gains. Splitting hairs perhaps, but it has an important upshot that I don't believe that stamping on capitalism will remove the root cause of gender inequality, and there are many other models which are equally, or more willing to use exploitation for their own goals, some of which actually *are* inherently misogynistic.

Cultural Feminism - Although I'm willing to accept that there may be gender differences, I also strongly believe that we'd need to achieve near complete equality of opportunity and regard before we could reasonably assess what these are. In the past the differences have been assumed to be very great indeed, lots of assumptions were made, and basically all of them have been shown to be wrong. The vast majority of descriptions of the "differences" I hear these days is swollen with tired and ancient stereotypes and very light on actual evidence. As such, I don't resemble this at all.

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xenophanean @ 2017-01-06T12:52:00

2017-01-06T12:53:56Z

Man, this is old-school! Anyway, have signed up to Dreamwidth, please add me if you want to :)

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xenophanean @ 2017-01-06T12:45:00

2017-01-06T12:45:14Z

Hello

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