NZFF

Pretty big subject line I agree ...but with reason, allow me if you will.....
I promise not to refer to lizard people or space ships hiding in the rings of Saturn
BUT ...have you ever felt like you were a flea?( an irritation on something larger) look deep inside yourself and dont be afraid to share with the group , well, even if you haven't...Mother nature sure has ...and is.

Look at whats going on in the world at the moment ... Pandemic, Huge fires, Typhoons that break records, rain and floods like never before.......Fleas to be rid of ..... on something much bigger. We are an irritation , and " it " wants rid of us by any means ... burning, drowning, sickness whatever.
I had this conversation with my partner tonight.... no real response ... but shes tired, so, I'll take that as an "I agree " ...thanks darling
The Dinosaurs(the last apparent irritation) didnt have the tech knowledge we have to resist, and were easy to get rid of ... but we seem to really have our hooks in....for now.

What will she come up with next .....

Flipside argument: the Baby Boomers (well represented here) had it so good in the second half of the 20th Century, they thought This is Normal!
Human history is littered with pandemics floods fires and whatnot.
They didn't have our resources and died like flies.
Whole civilisations vanished.

Sure, we have been so successful that the earth's Human Petri Dish is full.
But we know it; it is entirely within our grasp to resolve Mother Earth's issues with us.
We do need to start soonish ...

Unfortunately the outlook is grim.
As long as economic success is determined by growth, as opposed to sustainability, then we are stuffed. To grow we need to consume more, and to consume more we need more consumers (population growth) to fuel it.
This economic growth is not linear but compounding. For example a 3% growth in GDP is on the previous year's figure and so on.
This economic "pyramid game" is unsustainable pure and simple. Finite resources will disappear and at accelerated pace.
We need to learn to live with zero or negative growth so as to get back to more manageable levels. Population growth needs to stop or reverse. But where is that? We only have to look at the shambles that is our global efforts on climate change measures.

I'm sure SUBs would agree that our time here as organic teraforming robotic caretakers is coming to an end and our alien creators will return to exterminate and occupy. Maybe the first of their kind are here already. They are easily recogniseable as they have a weird orange skin tone, small hands and a dreadful comb over mane. Their grasp of our language and values are childlike to us.

Eggzactamento... what a guy!
"I always thought life started going downhill after 100... "

Charl wrote:Eggzactamento... what a guy!
"I always thought life started going downhill after 100... "

James Lovelock! What a wonderful chap! With his enthusiasm, we cant go wrong!

...but I still reckon there are far to many Homo Sapiens wandering our Lump of Rock...
....(say I, with five children, and zillions of Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren!).... ...!

The Bugs are at it, and they will get us, in the end!

My dear Mum and Dad (1900 - 1989) survived the Spanish Flu in 1918....
I have survived from 1934 up to 2019...
..2020+ is a New World altogether now.
Each and every day's survival, is now a toss of the Dice, with the present Corona Virus!

Paul...got to keep going!...Bugs or no Bugs...lots more folks to annoy yet!.... ... ...!

Fozzer wrote:...but I still reckon there are far to many Homo Sapiens wandering our Lump of Rock...

Paul, if they were all 'sapiens' there wouldn't be a problem.

ATB, Mike

emfrat wrote:

Fozzer wrote:...but I still reckon there are far to many Homo Sapiens wandering our Lump of Rock...

Paul, if they were all 'sapiens' there wouldn't be a problem.

ATB, Mike

Quote:
(Homo sapiens) are highly intelligent primates.....>>>
End quote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

What can go wrong?.... ....!

...following the trials and tribulations of dear; "Uncle Donald", in the daily news...(and YouTube!)... ... ...!

Paul.... ... ...!

Wow , great replies, thank you all. I do enjoy some non sim talk for a change.
The 101 year old gentleman really impressed me ....just amazing.
I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this, but Im having real trouble with the net at the moment. I did actually (almost) reply last night, but as I pushed submit , I noticed I wasnt connected ...anyway, thank you again for some intelligent conversation.

It's always a pleasure, Marty.

Well, let's venture further down the rabbit hole shall we gents. Have you ever, just in passing, ever considered .... Schrödinger's cat, a thought experiment.
"In simple terms, Schrödinger stated that if you place a cat and something that could kill the cat (a radioactive atom) in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box so that until the box was opened, the cat was (in a sense) both "dead and alive".
This refers to the Copenhagen interpretation(google it) .... It says that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at once. ..... so, to bring it down to point where it can be discussed...I ask this...If you can't see it, is it really there ...the old "if a tree falls" conundrum, and, I suppose the operative word in my question must be 'really' .... what is real?

I love Quantum theory because it's right and wrong all at the same time because we just don't know ....anyway, I could go on, but I won't.
Brain food ...eat up.

The point being, that observation fixed the cat in whatever state it was at the time.

I once read a novel where a scientist became obsessed with the 'double-slit' experiment, and researched what constituted 'observance' in quantum superposition, i.e. what it would take to collapse the quantum state. Needless to say it led him down Marty's rabbit hole, and I seem to recall that he didn't really get back out. As far as our very unfairly-treated cat is concerned, I have my own views on observance, which doesn't require consciousness, but could better be called 'measurement'. The gross action caused by the either/or quantum action (the radioactive particle decaying) seems to me to be enough of a measurement, and even the cat would think 'oh bugger' when he smells the gas. So he'd know. Or not, and survive.

I think we are missing something major in our understanding of quantum stuff, but that'll come one day. Until then, look after your cat.

I once actually wrote a story which involved a quantum superposition accident -- which resulted in a spaceship filled with kiwi explorers being both fired through a worm hole to another solar system, and going nowhere. When the non-moving folk finally got things fixed, they ended up on a planet where their other selves had settled a year earlier. I never finished this, because the story really only worked with well-written characters as they learnt to deal with their doppelgangers, and I just don't write great complex people. Especially women, as I always base my female characters on old girlfriends, and I just didn't have enough of them to fill even a short story.

Oh yes .... now we're talking. I will digest both replies(Rob, yours will need much chewing) and get back to you.
Quite refreshing .....thank you.

It gets worse... there are some who posit that the result depends entirely on the state of the observer.
That implies that there are an infinite number of states continually spawning, and "measurement" simply freezes one of the possibilities of You the Observer.
So the answer to the tree in the forest is: No.

Charl ...I dont think "worse" is the right word. You have injected yet another layer into this line of thinking ...I also concur with your "no" after some deliberation...but, I still have niggles, but nothing that would sway me (at the moment)
Ahhhh Quantum....