The Elephant in the Living Room, part 2

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Everyone know about Schrodinger's cat.  You stuff the cat in a box with a device that is exactly 50% likely to be lethal in a specified amount of time, and when that time is up, the cat is both alive and dead until you look (or neither alive nor dead until you look, it's the same fucking thing).  What I am here to propose is Schrodinger's Primate.  What this is, is the same thing as the cat (box, 50% lethal doodad, etc), except that you don't give a shit about the specified length of time.  Nor do you care about which way things turned out.  You just fuck off and have a beer or two, and try to forget the annoying thumping noises and pleas for mercy coming out of the box.

Because, let's face it, You don't like that primate and I don't like that primate and he can stay in an undetermined state until enough time intervals go by that his odds of survival aren't worth computing.  The challenge here is obvious.  You need a big enough box for 7.5 billion primates.

But wait!  We DO have such a box!

Five of the Solomon Islands were reported yesterday to now be underwater, due to rising ocean levels, in turn due to climate change...While the same monkeys deny that any of it is happening, because they are special and God wouldn't do that to them.  Having read the old testament, I am reasonably sure they are talking about a different God...Because the God they THINK they are worshiping has never been shy about killing off primates. 

I have actually had a teabagger tell me that this is Oceana's problem, that the water rising over there doesn't necessarily mean anything over here is wrong, and that Those People should just move.  I shit you not.  Basic physics isn't a thing for the sort of people who still deny the elephant in the living room, and because of this they will all die.  And whether or not anyone else survives, billions of dead po'buckers will give me at least a sense of satisfaction, and a little time to do the I Told You So mocking jig at them before I, too, croak.

Or Kill Me.

[LMNO]

This seems to imply that Fermi's Paradox has been resolved, in that Earth is merely a weird physics experiment being carried out by aliens.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This seems to imply that Fermi's Paradox has been resolved, in that Earth is merely a weird physics experiment being carried out by aliens.

Or that all the aliens did the exact same stupid shit.  Which is a distinct possibility.

[Eater of Clowns]

Hey sick box we got here guys let's piss and shit and fuck all over it until it sucks.

[LMNO]

This seems to imply that Fermi's Paradox has been resolved, in that Earth is merely a weird physics experiment being carried out by aliens.

Or that all the aliens did the exact same stupid shit.  Which is a distinct possibility.

I swear, you have an innate talent to immediately identify the worst of all possible universes.


LMNO
-was hoping humans would be the only ones licking the windows on the short bus.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I swear, you have an innate talent to immediately identify the worst of all possible universes.

If I have seen farther, it is because I have peered over the shoulders of midgets.

[Cramulus]

It turns out that the entire surface of the earth can fit within one of those Somebody Else's Problem fields from the Hitchhiker's Guide.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I've just realised that my general attitude toward humanity kida fits with the cat in the box, if we survive as a species I'll be glad we finally, collectively wised up and managed to crawl out the stinking hole of stupidity that is our gravity well. On the other hand, if we successfully extinct ourselves, I'll be thankful for the oceans of stupid screaming monkey faces I get to laugh in while we burn.

Compassion? Nope - given that up as a played out old joke that wan't really that funny to begin with. Now I'm all about popcorn and human suffering.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've just realised that my general attitude toward humanity kida fits with the cat in the box, if we survive as a species I'll be glad we finally, collectively wised up and managed to crawl out the stinking hole of stupidity that is our gravity well. On the other hand, if we successfully extinct ourselves, I'll be thankful for the oceans of stupid screaming monkey faces I get to laugh in while we burn.

Compassion? Nope - given that up as a played out old joke that wan't really that funny to begin with. Now I'm all about popcorn and human suffering.

Yeah, that's kind of where I am.  I am not actively interested in human suffering, but I am tired of herding cats.  Also, I have discovered that I like even fewer types of people than I thought.

[Pergamos]

All us good liberals like to think it is just the crazy tea baggers, but it is not.  They at least have the questionable virtue of complete ignorance, they think global warming is not happening, or if it is that there is nothing that can be done, since it is by the hand of god.  We know it is happening, but what are we doing about it?  Every time we drive a car we are contributing, every time we consume a product that has been shipped halfway across the world, every time we turn on the gas to heat our homes. 

A simple example, Tucson is a nice liberal town, most people who live here know what global warming is and have a decent idea how it is caused, and it is a place where solar is an incredibly easy thing to do.  It is sunny ALL the time, and yet no more than ten percent of the houses have solar panels on the roof.  Teabaggers are pretending the elephant isn't there, meanwhile we are shouting about it, and insisting it is their elephant, which it may be, but they damn sure aren't going to clean up the poop.

[hooplala]

This seems to imply that Fermi's Paradox has been resolved, in that Earth is merely a weird physics experiment being carried out by aliens.

Or that all the aliens did the exact same stupid shit.  Which is a distinct possibility.

I swear, you have an innate talent to immediately identify the worst of all possible universes.


LMNO
-was hoping humans would be the only ones licking the windows on the short bus.

I find the notion sort of heartwarming.

[Doktor Howl]

This seems to imply that Fermi's Paradox has been resolved, in that Earth is merely a weird physics experiment being carried out by aliens.

The simplest solution to Fermi's paradox is "the great filter."

Optimists say that the great filter is the sheer number of requirements for intelligent life as we understand it...Which is stupid, given the sheer number of solar systems that contain planets, only counting the ones we know about.

Realists assume something out there is squashing intelligent races as soon as they're detectable.