It's fucking ABSURD.

[Kai]

Let me break it down for you.

In the course of a nearly completely hostile universe of colliding gravity wells, high energy photon emissions, exploding fusion reactors 700 million miles wide and ever increasing entropy, 9 billion years passes and an 8000 mile wide iron rich magma font cools after taking a 26 sextillion killogram dump of a satellite, both orbiting a GV2 class fusion plasma ball, one of 10 billion such plasma fusion engines in this particular spiral-shaped gravity well. One of such 100 sextillion fusion balls in the universe. The iron rock spheroid cooled and liquid compounds condensed from iceball bombardments. Long chain molecules randomly linked in the cooling temperature, and due to complete chance some of these binded as templates in a self replicating fluid. Those that didn't replicate disintegrated from a chain of reproductive connectivity.  As more and more of these carbon and hydrogen chains linked, increased self organization and environmental separation lead to increased replication. And 4 billion plasma ball cycles later, some of these hydrocarbon systems have a physiological connectome complex enough to self-consider origins, and to react in intricate ways with environmental stressors, cycles called "suffering" and "joy". The complete set of all hydrocarbon systems that remain after 4 billion years are the few which were not selected out during the elimination cycles of mass extinctions, while other lineages were completely eliminated, often in random arrangements related to tectonic and meterological phenomena. In a second 4 billion years the GV2 plasma fusion spheroid this array is in orbit around will swell from the switch to a helium fuel economy and vaporize all fluid on the surface of the inner planets, effectively combusting and disintegrating all the remaining replicators, if there are any left. Even more distant, the collective electromagnetic energy in the universe will dissipate to the point where fusion reactors will no longer form, and the totality of space will drop to 2 degrees kelvin.

And in the 4 billionth year of the replicators who have self titled themselves sentient, they are producing stories to corroborate a vision of their centrality in the universe, despite sufficient technological augmentation to refute it.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Fucking nuts, innit?

Helps to have someone blow it all back into proportion once in a while. Nice work.

[Kai]

Fucking nuts, innit?

Helps to have someone blow it all back into proportion once in a while. Nice work.

I was going to end it upbeat but when I got done writing the above, I knew any addition would be weaksauce.

[Pæs]

A whole lot of "yes" to all of the above.

[East Coast Hustle]

Oh hell the fuck yeah.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Every time I let my mind wander down that particular road I think "holy shit, I got to experience this, what the fucking chances?"

[Triple Zero]

Every time I let my mind wander down that particular road I think "holy shit, I got to experience this, what the fucking chances?"

Good thing then that if you weren't already [experiencing this], you wouldn't have the mind to wander down that particular road either!

It's like Survivorship bias gone right!!

[The Wizard Joseph]

    Right on!

[Worm Rider]

Yup. But aint we got fun?

[Cuddlefish]

In the course of a nearly completely hostile universe of colliding gravity wells, high energy photon emissions, exploding fusion reactors 700 million miles wide and ever increasing entropy, 9 billion years passes and an 8000 mile wide iron rich magma font cools after taking a 26 sextillion killogram dump of a satellite, both orbiting a GV2 class fusion plasma ball, one of 10 billion such plasma fusion engines in this particular spiral-shaped gravity well. One of such 100 sextillion fusion balls in the universe. The iron rock spheroid cooled and liquid compounds condensed from iceball bombardments. Long chain molecules randomly linked in the cooling temperature, and due to complete chance some of these binded as templates in a self replicating fluid. Those that didn't replicate disintegrated from a chain of reproductive connectivity.  As more and more of these carbon and hydrogen chains linked, increased self organization and environmental separation lead to increased replication. And 4 billion plasma ball cycles later, some of these hydrocarbon systems have a physiological connectome complex enough to self-consider origins, and to react in intricate ways with environmental stressors, cycles called "suffering" and "joy". The complete set of all hydrocarbon systems that remain after 4 billion years are the few which were not selected out during the elimination cycles of mass extinctions, while other lineages were completely eliminated, often in random arrangements related to tectonic and meterological phenomena. In a second 4 billion years the GV2 plasma fusion spheroid this array is in orbit around will swell from the switch to a helium fuel economy and vaporize all fluid on the surface of the inner planets, effectively combusting and disintegrating all the remaining replicators, if there are any left. Even more distant, the collective electromagnetic energy in the universe will dissipate to the point where fusion reactors will no longer form, and the totality of space will drop to 2 degrees kelvin.

I absolutely love you.

[Bu🤠ns]

[Triple Zero]

BTW in case anyone ever gets vertigo from this, just look to the smaller scales. We're on top of just as absurdly huge gigastructures from the quark's point of view. It goes both ways and each has the same enormous swaths of empty space.

Funny how we appear to stand kind of in the middle, though. But that might be a trick of logarithmic scales.

[Elder Iptuous]

BTW in case anyone ever gets vertigo from this, just look to the smaller scales. We're on top of just as absurdly huge gigastructures from the quark's point of view. It goes both ways and each has the same enormous swaths of empty space.

Funny how we appear to stand kind of in the middle, though. But that might be a trick of logarithmic scales.

right.  'middle' implies known endpoints.

also, i find that it's as amusing to think about how huge you are as it is to consider how small you are.  sometimes i walk slowly around the yard imagining my magnitude from the point of the creatures living in my turf, mindlessly upturning their entire environment...
then i look up, slightly anticipating a giant foot to drop down from the sky.