leicsmac

There's something in this. Our perception is always going to be limited by our five senses and the way our brains interpret them. Those limitations are far from universal.

The 3-body problem (TV show though, not movie). Better for them to be inscrutable than malicious because their power level would be far, far higher than ours.

An alien civilisation that has the capacity for interstellar travel would likely be so far ahead of us technologically that not only would they be able to hide from us perfectly if they wanted, but it's also likely their very thoughts and intent would be incomprehensible to us.

The topic is fascinating. Personally, I think the Zoo Hypothesis is as plausible as any other, and while spacefaring life might be a stretch, it's equally plausible that we'll find simple microbial life in our own Solar System. Soon.

Pretty much this. There's a shitload of things I don't know and having conflicting opinion on here is useful because critical thinking and being able to defend a position of thought are essential skills.

Is anyone really surprised?

That was the argument up until a few weeks ago (on a policy based level anyway) - "religious freedom" and all that. Now, it has gone beyond that. The legislation allowing for LGBT marriage is being deliberately, specifically, targeted, first at state and then at federal level. If one doesn't think that, in a supposedly developed country, isn't a far right sentiment, then, again, I would like to know what one would describe as that. And yes, to answer your question, for me any fundamentalist religion of any type that seeks to impose that regressive rubbish on a populace through law in 2025 are all different styles of the same thing. WRT the paragraph about the Covid vaccine, feel free to supply peer reviewed evidence of any of it all (not a YouTube video, please) and I'll have a look. A question: is such censorship (or the other worst excesses of human behaviour) worse than the consequences the natural world can visit upon us and require unity of response? Here's a hint; one treatable, preventable disease, one, has taken more lives in the last few hundred years than all human wars and murders put together. It's right to fear human power and abuse of it. But downplaying natural threats and action needed to address them will lead to both even worse excesses and a higher body count than human sociopaths could dream of. That's something those who consider conspiracies involved by humans often fail to grasp.

... I'm not sure that the stance of any major party on environmental issues and infrastructure is better than the current incumbents tbh, but it just so happens that is a pretty low bar to clear compared to most developed countries outside the US.

Yeah, I can imagine. I'm just wondering what's gone on considering the ATC warnings and that one would think a Black Hawk heli would have all round visibility enough to see the airliner if it's also a military vehicle where that, I assume, is pretty important.

Thanks for the clarification 👍 Either way, as said here, a bloody big airliner coming in to land tends to stand out visually too, so one would think that someone has done something catastrophic here.

Possibly people not making the distinction correctly between climate environmental concerns and pollution/biodiversity environmental concerns, as per above? And your TCAS will also be going nuts, too. So what happened?

Anyone vaguely familiar with the problem and how it might be solved knows that energy generation is the elephant in the room - transport, including air, is a piece but far from the biggest. I can see why people have concern, but my own take is that I don't really have a horse in that particular race because it's rather far down the priority list climate wise. Of course, local environmental pollution and biodiversity regs need to be looked at carefully and adhered to if it goes ahead.

... because those same people elected him. Kindred spirits.

Early reports make it look like the heli definitely violated procedures and the ATC warned them multiple times about the airliner, but I guess we'll find out more in due course.

Any double ton in the subcontinent from someone not used to conditions there is a great knock, yeah. Only question now is how much resistance the SL batters can put up when they take the field.

And I hope someone gets Khawaja some Lucozade Sport soon given the amount of time he's been out there.

You're a great guy, Spacey, but I would advise to wind your neck in just a little bit, mate. Let's keep it civil.

Assuming that's true for a moment (and it's far from the case), the Covid vaccine is hardly the only one being discussed. The specifics are the targeting of Roe v Wade and Obergefell v Hodges, thus denying women the right to bodily autonomy and LGBT people equal rights to marry. This is already underway. Again, if that's not considered towards the extreme end of the political spectrum, I would very much like to know what is.

The Aussie women are as relentless as the blokes.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/28/epa-fires-science-advisers-00201156 Acting EPA Administrator James Payne has ousted all members of two of the agency’s most influential science advisory panels, giving President Donald Trump’s administration the opportunity to reshape them with its own appointees. In an obliquely worded email sent late Tuesday afternoon, Payne said a decision had been made to “reset” the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and Science Advisory Board “to ensure that the agency receives scientific advice consistent with its legal obligations to advance our core mission.” The core mission being making as much money as possible at the expense of every living being save cockroaches and other disaster taxa, present and future, naturally. The Chinese must be pissing themselves laughing that their major rival for scientific progress is tying its shoelaces together like this.

How on earth did a US military helicopter collide with a civilian airliner coming into land in one of the most ATC-intensive areas of the world?

Scepticism is fine. Having it extend as far as contributing to a public health crisis...I'm not sure about that. Yeah, the post above covers this pretty explicitly. Also, the USSR had no reason not to blow the whistle on it when it happened, if it didn't. If the current US administration attitude towards LGBT people, women and some minority groups isn't far right, I wouldn't mind getting a descriptor of what far right is, then. 1940's Germany (as opposed to 1930's Germany)?

For the ones that made it, certainly. Those who didn't sadly don't now have any voices we can interpret to offer an opinion to the contrary. Totally agree with the second and third lines. For the longest time I thought knowledge could only be a blessing, but the more I've accumulated makes me think it is at least equally a curse. Wouldn't have it any other way, though.

But on topic... Nestle Vice Versas. And smallpox.