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My initial thoughts would be that considering life has occured on earth, we know that it has the capacity to occur at least once given the appropriate conditions. Further, we can't necessarily be confident that conditions here are uniquely suited for it to have happened. This logic would suggest to me that beyond a religious approach to considering the topic and considering the vast number of planets / moons out there, it seems that similar life could exist elsewhere. Absense of evidence could just mean we don't fully understand how it came about yet.

One thing I like to consider as a thought experiment occasionally, is our perception of reality being human-centric. There's a guy called Donald Hoffman who discusses perception of reality as defined by natural selection having led to us only perceiving things in a way which enhances survival and reproduction. Considering this, we would not perceive the true reality. For example, a cup of water would not exist as an independent physical object, but part of an interface with some true reality....a mental construct to allow us to interact with reality in a meaningful way. In this version of reality, a non-human intelligence might exist in a fundamentally different way and any interaction could be truly bizarre as space and time would also be part of our perceptual interface.

Definitely. The topic of a alien life is incredibly interesting, from our understanding of microbial life to a potential human-level intelligence or beyond, regardless of interaction with the earth. Further, I think beyond the surface level sterotypes and tropes associated with people who discuss things like UFO's/UAPs, there's a nuanced community of people exploring a cultural phenomenon spanning millenia in the context of science and philosophy. Personally, I feel that if you're comfortable sitting back and considering how intrinsically bizarre reality is, there's a good few topics that become to sound a little less ridiculous at least for some theoretical discussion. Considering what we don't know, the science that we're so far bound to can stretch quite a long way when you really get into it.

The contemporary UFO / UAP narrative that Holt is involved in is absolutely incredible. It's probably not aliens, but regardless, it's going to make one hell of documentary one day. The most recent consistent narrative, began with a push for transparency on the topic within Government, Military organisations around 2017, and where it's at now is absolutely wild. It involves extremely high level professionals across government, military, government, nasa, academia and news media discussing the topic across a spectrum that covers physical craft to the true nature of reality and consciousness. If it isn't some form of Non-Human Intelligence as they're calling it, the story instead represents decades of what would amount to a cult-like belief infiltrating the highest levels of these institutions, feeding back and forth between individuals within them and the general public in some form of circular reporting. I'd say it had the capacity to be some sort of hustle in some respects, but the people serving to make any money from it are in no need of any. I'm pretty open-minded and enjoy existential topics for lack of a better word, so aliens, some bizarre form of intelligence, or a behavioural phenomenon. It's an amazing story.

I did see a few posts noting that CNN had posted news articles about the crash before it happened. Apparently a deep-state orchestrated plane crash is easier to believe, than a news organisation editing historic articles for Search Engine Optimisation.

Not suggesting any other particular explanation, but it's interesting that the FBI, DHS, FAA and DOD previously advised that they were unable to identify any operators or points of origin for drone flights. Miscommunication possibly, then, or now, but it certainly doesn't help give confidence to those that were asking questions. Must've been a few considering they're addressing it. Made me laugh that Trump was stirring it up pre-inauguration, saying that the military knew who were operating the drones and didn't want to comment due to strange circumstances. Now he's in office, the Press Secretary has a contradictory answer. Par for the course I guess.

Couldn't access the link, but had a look at the wider context of the research. Completed with regards to policies looking to replace 100% of cars with electric alternatives by 2035, it recommends altering goals to include hybrids as a stepping stone whilst material demands are met. It discusses how many copper mines would be required opened to meet current goals, although I'd imagine that material science and energy efficiency will have an impact on future resource requirements too.

The US seems pretty marketable as a concept to the disenfranchised at the moment. Compared to a relatively understood entities of European politics, a limited understanding of the US along with the Musk / Trump cult of personality could be ideologically appealing to many who are considering their lot in life. The wave of popularity is tempting to ride for politicians looking to grow their personal or party popularity. Seems you can gather a decent crowd with a lot of talk and little else at the moment, and Musk is willing to use his significant influence to platform you as a politician if your ideology aligns with his goals.

Could only find a couple of Dr Powell's available. They were in fringe journals as you might expect, but the work described didn't seem extremely thorough and the format didn't conform to what you'd expect from a research paper. I was hoping the videos they'd mentioned would allow for analysing the methodology, but they're behind a paywall and reportedly limited. Personally, I feel if you're going to be making these claims, especially whilst working with vulnerable people, you should be as transparent as possible. They're holding the footage back for a documentary I'd imagine. If they are fooling themselves, it'll be pretty short-lived should they be forthcoming with their work. Unlike some paranormal topics, it seems fairly simple to complete good faith experiments with the participants, which limit other sense related variables.

I listened to that. I'm not the most materially grounded person in the world, but the below is a decent read considering the lack of evidence provided on the back of the podcast. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-pseudoscience/telepathy-tapes-prove-we-all-want-believe I tried to pull up some of Dr Powell's old work too, which wasn't amazing.

I'm sure they can find a way...I believe in them. Doesn't cost £6k to use an MRI machine either, but they got there in the end.

Been some great previews regarding the upcoming Indiana Jones game, and Avowed a little further down the line. Sounds like Indiana Jones has some creative gameplay. I think people were expecting a first person Uncharted, which it apparently isn't. Many of the Devs apparently worked on the Chronicles of Riddick game back on the original Xbox, which may point somewhat to its gammeplay direction. I never played Wolfenstein which they also released, and this game apparently doesn't have you shooting all that much.

For anyone interested, the below channel has been livestreaming fighter jets monitoring the drones around Lakenheath for the last couple days. https://www.youtube.com/@libertywinguk The below is a different channel, but also a short video of the same activity.

I'm sure I'm probably stating the obvious, but the 'starter packs' seem to be a cool way to follow a bunch of related accounts en masse. There are also feeds that people are making. If you're like me, and don't enjoy content mashed all together, the below lets you turn 'starter packs' into 'lists' amongst other things. Means you can jump in to what information you're looking to take on. https://nws-bot.us/bskyStarterPack.php

I'd imagine they let them fly, in order to see if they return to the pilot. I was considering my earlier post is probably an over-complication. It's probably just people standing nearby and flying them in to cause disruption. I imagine Russia have all the satellite data they need. Everything else they do here is to cause disruption. Manipulating people via the internet, manipulating people via funding of political movements/organisations. Causing disruption via bomb threats and sailing ships around internet cables. Wouldn't be surprised if we can add drone flying to the list.

With regards to military base incursions, the obvious candidate would be Russia with consideration of the current geopoliticial situation. A non-state organisation, either malicious or otherwise seems unlikely, given the coordinated nature of the activity across the US and UK. Always some chance that ill-conceived civilian activity is coincidentally timed, or organised online by hobbyist groups I guess. With regards to reconnaisance, it'd be interesting to know what sort of data they would be gathering. In this respect, you'd assume the desire would be to minimise the number of drones used, whilst maintaining the capacity for gathering the data points required. Would also be interesting to know what sort of drone technology is available to state-actors. If I understood correctly, one of the confusing factors involved in the recently reported USS Omaha case, was the lack of identifiable lauch platform despite intensive monitoring. Also in this respect, although I have no military/intelligence background, you'd think the testing of new platforms would be somewhat restricted to your own territory unless you really needed the data. This with regards to showing your hand etc. I don't have enough knowledge to say though. For what it's worth, I also took a video of the lights from the X/Reddit posts on Wednesday. From what I could tell and having assumed they were conventional drones, I'd guessed at them knocking about between Glenfield/Groby. Would be interesting to get an idea of the exact locations from the posters, to see if we were in the same general area.

I can also empathise somewhat with the way you're feeling. We are social creatures, and whilst considering the experiences and feeling of others can be important, this contextualisation can deeply influence how we perceive our own struggles and emotions. We are so complex and our emotions are very personal. Each of us has our own unique threshold for stress, based on countless factors that make us who we are. In this respect, I think it's important to recognise that nothing should invalidate how we feel. Recognising this, provides us with a place to move forward from constructively. Personally, I also believe what people have mentioned above about stress can be very relevant, especially when considering what you said about constant pressure. One of the personally significant things my therapist illustrated to me early on, was the "Yerkes-Dodson Law" bell curve. You can give it a google, and it relates to the relationship between 'arousal' and 'performance'. As others have mentioned, it basically illustrates that stress can be helpful, until it isn't. It shows a sound reasoning behind finding a constructive way to effectively manage stress in order to increase your capacity to perform, rather than trying to perform your way out of the stress. As others have also mentioned, part of that constructive process is finding the strength to reach out in any capacity like you have done here. Hopefully some of the advice is helpful and you see that you're very worthy of support. The pathway to recovery isn't always easy and there can be set-backs, but we constantly have the capacity for self-growth and there is a absolutely a place where we can enjoy the everyday experiences that are part of that. There was a point where I believed that was quite an unreasonable statement for me to make, but it was well worth taking the journey back to believing and enjoying it. Always feel worthy of reaching out for support. All the best.

There's some pretty awesome content on YouTube these days. Always enjoy @sea_space for Astronomy based stuff.

I don't have any answers, but do find it interesting that better parenting is considered a protection against being manipulated by problematic influencers. The influencing doesn't stop with children and whilst experience is useful for critical thinking, I can imagine there's a decent portion of parents who share similar opinions and values with their kids to an extent. Agree with the below. Problematic influencers understand manipulation enough to make it work well for them. Many of them are onscreen characters, quite different from how they'd act in their more intimate social circles. I imagine we understand psychology enough to present ideas to combat such behaviour, but the action required is probably incompatible with our present society. It's like people trying to communicate Climate Change science. It appears pretty well understood and urgent, but action in this respect is at odds with how many people want to go about their lives.

I think this probably sums up the format tbh. These TV debates have been pretty consistently shite since inception and labour didn't really need to do anything other than not lose. Doesn't matter what Starmer could be capable of. Walk in with a half decent plan and walk out. Polls showed 51/49 in Rishi's favour and that'll do just fine for Labour. Its been clear since the election was called that he wasn't going to face anything substantial from the Conservatives during this thing.

Had a amazing time watching this on Friday evening. Everything about it was absolutely brilliant. Fantastic acting, set and puppetry. The show ran for about 3 hours including the intermission and at no point did I find myself considering the time. Think I sat there with my mouth open in various stages of amazement and laughter for the most part. So much fun!

I was watching this earlier and as is mentioned during the video, it seems fairly relevant with regards to the concepts increasing mentions throughout popular culture. Really enjoy this guys channel and as ever, he manages to put these ideas across in way which feels manageable to the layman. Seems to touch slightly on the concept you replied to me with in the news thread also @Sampson Not too long either, so doable within a lunchtime. Might give you a bit of an existential crisis for the afternoon though!

This conversation gets so incredibly interesting and broad. Where we assume libertarian free will, it could be considered that whilst the emotional responses of victims are of course reasonable, it is the role of academics in society to look beyond the emotion and investigate the best way to deal with criminal behaviour in a way which is constructive to society as a whole. In this respect, it could be considered that specific emotional responses are constructive where for example, it might reinforce societal norms and values. However, it could also be that these sorts of responses have been constructive in the past, but we may now have the capacity as a society to find even more constructive responses on which to progress. Where the above is true, we could also imagine that where emotional responses are unavoidable and continue to serve a purpose for victims processing trauma, we have the organisation as a society to find even more effective ways for the victims of crime to be supported through that response and beyond in ways that weren't previously possible. All of the above again, would somewhat be determined by the pursuit of creating the most comfortable environment for as many people as possible. Maybe this pursuit is underpinned by underlying ideologies and cultural values that may be subject to change across time? If we're assuming a lack of free will and subscribe to determinism, we're all just on a conscious meat avatar ride through a world created through biological and unconscious psychological phenomena. In this respect, we might feel a conflict between how we treat criminals when we understand that they are product of this phenomena. Beyond this though, the potential disconnect between academic perspectives and the actions of wider society and government would all be products of this deterministic reality. Some of us might feel that the way criminals are treated is barbaric and others might feel the polar opposite with a spectrum of thoughts and feelings inbetween. Whilst feeling a purposeful capacity for change, in reality, I guess we'd all be essentially observers. In a thousand years, society could look unrecognisable and there could still be people on the same ride through time and space, with a similar spectrum of feelings. I note that the points raised above are not necessarily representative of my thoughts, but just conjecture (based on my knowledge at least) and a basic conversational outline. We kind of have to base ourselves in some sort of objective measured reality as humans, but its fun to look down the rabbit hole occasionally and the philosophy, theory and science of it goes much further in the hands of those who know what they're talking about with this topic.

Can't imagine this will actually release in 2025. Historic releases suggest it'll be either Spring or Autumn 2026. Look forward to exploring another Rockstar game though. I'd hope for a less grindy online experience, but I can't imagine it'll differ too much from GTA V considering the monetary success they've had in that respect. Single Player is almost guaranteed to be a great experience.

Never really watched any anime until the last couple years, but really enjoy some the feature length stuff I've seen knocking about on Netflix. Have since seen live-action TV and Movies optioned from other source material, where I think that I'd be more interested if they'd decided to animate them. The Wheel of Time was one, which funnily enough was preceded by some animated teasers which looked pretty awesome. Heading down to London next weekend to watch the Spirited Away theatre production. Really looking forward to it.