Bored? How about some UFO's!

WilliamM2

tonyb wrote: »

Anything is possible if you open your mind to it.

Nonsense.

Only in the last 100 years have we tried to build things we dreamed of. The next hundred should be pretty frickin' exciting.

Not sure what you mean here, man has been building things for 10 of thousands of years.

warren

When they do come, there won't be any doubt about it. That's all I meant.

WilliamM2 wrote: »

Nonsense.



Not sure what you mean here, man has been building things for 10 of thousands of years.

WilliamM2

warren wrote: »

When they do come, there won't be any doubt about it. That's all I meant.

Might want to re-read that post. I didn't ask what you meant.

mrbigbluelight

"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the prospect is staggering!
"- Arthur C.Clarke, contemplating the existence of Alien Life

tonyb

WilliamM2 wrote: »

Nonsense.



Not sure what you mean here, man has been building things for 10 of thousands of years.

What did he build ? Castles ? Look at the time frame. Thousands of years with barely any technology to speak of,then all of a sudden we go from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than 100 years ? What happened to make this all possible ? How about modern medicine, look at the advances in the last 100 years. You could say the invention of the microscope had alot to do with it. When did our minds change from just trying to get by day to day, to inventing things we dreamed of ? One could argue the ancient Egyptians dreamed of building the pyramids and did so, a feat thought impossible even by todays standards. They dreamed it,and found a way to make it happen even with the limited technology of the time, but then zip after that. Just a few thousand years before that,man was still just a simple hunter and gatherer. Maybe it can be contributed to the brains evolution to grasp new ideas and try to make it reality, I dunno, but it sure seems that every so often, evolution takes a giant leap forward, or should I say technology takes a giant leap forward. You can look at history and see what inventions changed the way man lived. Fire, the wheel, a catapult, crafts such as stone masonry, the hammer and chisel, the bow and arrow, just to name a few. Man has been inventing through out history, but never at a clip we see today. Took thousands of years to get to the horse and buggy as a mode of transportation, but only decades to try our hand at space travel. The human brain fascinates me with it's seemingly endless bounds. Thats why I say if one can dream it, sooner or later it can happen.

cnh

tonyb wrote: »

Then at that point, don't we become the aliens ?

Yep, we're on our way to becoming the aliens...maybe?

As a species, humans have a very big ego. We think of ourselves as supreme, the top dog, rulers of the planet. What happens one day when we find out that may not be so ?

tonyb wrote: »

What did he build ? Castles ? Look at the time frame. Thousands of years with barely any technology to speak of,then all of a sudden we go from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than 100 years ? What happened to make this all possible ? How about modern medicine, look at the advances in the last 100 years. You could say the invention of the microscope had alot to do with it. When did our minds change from just trying to get by day to day, to inventing things we dreamed of ? ......The human brain fascinates me with it's seemingly endless bounds. Thats why I say if one can dream it, sooner or later it can happen.

As a species, humans have a very big ego.

And perhaps no 'ego' is larger than Modern Man's! lol

But essentially, minus the pop Anthropology, we're mostly in agreement. Evolutionary statements about human capacity and cultural evolution that are related to the rise of civilization are fraught with a lot of ethnocentric biases that are often not based in actual data concerning humans and their abilities--which haven't changed much for quite some time. Biologically, nothing distinguishes us from our Hunter/gatherer cousins.

I agree that the human brain is an interesting thing. But getting at its past is very difficult as most of the fossil evidence we have is 'gross'. We don't have images, pictures of the grey matter (and the 'subtle' changes in its organizational structure over time) but simply the impressions that that matter left on the inside of the skull. That makes this area of science a difficult field to hypothesize in.

But that doesn't mean that my colleagues in the field of Physical Anthropology don't have a lot of fun conjecturing! We just don't believe 'everything' the propose.

cnh

gudnoyez

I think the goverment on occasion spikes our water supply with UFO blotter hits to get the good people to report sightings so they have an excuse to waste tax payers dollars on UFO research, since every thing is retro nowdays the UFO blotter hits are making a come back, ah the 70's good times, thats when I expierenced most of my sightings.

Mr. Sharpe

gudnoyez wrote: »

I think the goverment on occasion spikes our water supply with UFO blotter hits to get the good people to report sightings so they have an excuse to waste tax payers dollars on UFO research, since every thing is retro nowdays the UFO blotter hits are making a come back, ah the 70's good times, thats when I expierenced most of my sightings.

thumb up

falconcry72

I restrained myself from replying to this thread numerous times. I deleted half-way written responses. I bit my tongue, and I looked the other way. Well, silent I can be no more! I'll try to keep this brief:

1) Let's get a simple definition straight:

- UFO: Unidentified Flying Object
- The acronym U.F.O. does not necessarily pertain to alien spacecraft. Birds can be UFO's; balloons can be UFO's; human-made flying machines of all types can be UFO's, so, yes, UFO's exist, and that is fact, not speculation.

2) It is somewhat comforting to me to know that people exist who possess such a narcissistic arrogance in their own intelligence that they can confidently believe that they have any type of a grasp on the impossibly known, incomprehensible ideas presented here. I wish I had that type of brazen assurance of my own perception; it seems like it would make for a very contented feeling.

I am aware that I don't know ****, and so, I revel in my own ignorance instead of denying it. I gain satisfaction in the fact that I will never be satisfied, which, to me, presents a much more interesting perspective on life than does believing that you have a fundamentally solid grasp on the over-workings of our universe.

A universe that I can understand bores me.

Don't get me wrong, I love to speculate about the myriad of possibilities out there; it can be exciting, euphoric, and terrifying; however, IMO, believing that your personal assessment of the distances, speeds, masses, forces, and lifeforms that comprise the universe is accurate borderlines on insanity.

stubby

Well written, Falcon. It is rather comical, and a bit sad, when some people make statements like, "We are so far away from other solar systems that there is no way other life forms could visit the Earth on a whim."

As if we are the end all, be all technology bearers in the universe. Rather narrow minded. Frankly, I would hate to think we were the best thing goin' throughout the infinity of the cosmos.

stubby

bobman1235

stubby wrote: »

Well written, Falcon. It is rather comical, and a bit sad, when some people make statements like, "We are so far away from other solar systems that there is no way other life forms could visit the Earth on a whim."

As if we are the end all, be all technology bearers in the universe. Rather narrow minded. Frankly, I would hate to think we were the best thing goin' throughout the infinity of the cosmos.

We only understand the world and universe through our own experiences and knowledge. Leaving open a possibility of something beyond human understanding is perfectly valid, and I applaud you for it. However, putting other people down for coming to a perfectly reasonable and logical conclusion based on human knowledge of physics negates any kind of high-minded upper hand you may think you have.

stubby

bobman1235 wrote: »

We only understand the world and universe through our own experiences and knowledge. Leaving open a possibility of something beyond human understanding is perfectly valid, and I applaud you for it. However, putting other people down for coming to a perfectly reasonable and logical conclusion based on human knowledge of physics negates any kind of high-minded upper hand you may think you have.

My apologies if I offended anyone, and believe me, I have no delusions of having an "upper hand" on understanding the goings on of the big picture.

Put it this way, up until 1492, with the understanding and human knowledge of physics and experiences, the world was flat. It was considered perfectly reasonable and logical. Only a few crazies thought otherwise.

bobman1235

stubby wrote: »

My apologies if I offended anyone, and believe me, I have no delusions of having an "upper hand" on understanding the goings on of the big picture.

Put it this way, up until 1492, with the understanding and human knowledge of physics and experiences, the world was flat. It was considered perfectly reasonable and logical. Only a few crazies thought otherwise.

I didn't mean that I was offended.... I give people s**t for EVERYTHING, haha.

I just think this is one of those cases where... it's funny that someone can mock someone else for saying "well, I don't think something can break everything we know about physics." Know what I mean? It's rare that someone who is being rational can be ridiculed by someone (you) being, essentially, irrational. I don't mean that as an insult, but really, you're not just saying "there might be aliens that can somehow break all the laws of physics," you're saying "it's stupid to NOT think that everything weknow about the universe is absolutely wrong."

It's strange to me.

leadfoot1

tonyb wrote: »

What did he build ? Castles ? Look at the time frame. Thousands of years with barely any technology to speak of,then all of a sudden we go from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than 100 years ? What happened to make this all possible ?
Took thousands of years to get to the horse and buggy as a mode of transportation, but only decades to try our hand at space travel.

Roswell happened

stubby

bobman1235 wrote: »

I didn't mean that I was offended.... I give people s**t for EVERYTHING, haha.

I just think this is one of those cases where... it's funny that someone can mock someone else for saying "well, I don't think something can break everything we know about physics." Know what I mean? It's rare that someone who is being rational can be ridiculed by someone (you) being, essentially, irrational. I don't mean that as an insult, but really, you're not just saying "there might be aliens that can somehow break all the laws of physics," you're saying "it's stupid to NOT think that everything weknow about the universe is absolutely wrong."

It's strange to me.

Well, I am a strange guy!

I am not trying to say that everything we know about the universe is "absolutely wrong". Its just when people make ABSOLUTE statements like "it can't be done" is irritating. The Earth is the center of the universe, the world is flat, **** will never serve openly in the military, etc............ We have been tragically wrong about many things in our short history. As others have stated, we can be a bit arrogant with what we think we know.

sucks2beme

What I do know is people are are a strange bunch. How many still think the government
dropped the world trade center themselves? Roswell is where they tested new Air Force
tech. Nothing more. There is no bigfoot. There isn't one or more plesiosaurs swimming
around in Loch Ness. UFO's are just what the letters mean. Someone tells you they
got an anal probe, most likely they were down at one of those clubs downtown. And had
way too much too drink as well. I'm reminded of my sister in law was was trying tell me that
bar codes were the mark of the beast. No one really knew were they came from originally.
(this is the same woman that broke half of my albums in two many years ago). Yeah, right.
Yes the universe is too big for there NOT to be life other places. There could be a visit
or two along the way. But most likely not. After all the case studies, just about all the
sightings were fake, explainable, or a classified aircraft that they would rather not have
to talk about. Some are still a mystery. But the extreme cases reported are the work
of wack jobs.

BeefJerky

tonyb wrote: »

Thousands of years with barely any technology to speak of,then all of a sudden we go from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than 100 years ? What happened to make this all possible ? How about modern medicine, look at the advances in the last 100 years.

One word: electricity. It was the discovery of this and how to utilize it that made all the things you mentioned possible. Without electricity we wouldn't have the rockets to take us into outer space, especially not manned flights. Without electricity we wouldn't have radio, television or any of the instant media we do now. We also wouldn't have telephones or GPS.

As for modern medicine, electricity made many of those advances possible as well. We wouldn't be able to track down and analyze DNA and DNA abnormalities without the use of modern computers, which require...wait for it...electricity! We also wouldn't have modern sterilization techniques without it, since many things can be damaged by simple heat sterilization. Also, without an understanding of electricity we wouldn't have the knowledge of the human nervous system or even the heart as we do now. And we've only touched the surface in terms of understanding the brain. We've advanced a lot in the last 100 years, however, we still know very little about the human body.

Also, I suppose I should mention that we wouldn't have this audio hobby if it wasn't for electricity - at least not in its current incarnation. If it weren't for electricity, we'd still be listening to wind-up gramophones.

To sum it up, electricity is the reason for this sudden jump in technology that you question. You can thank early pioneers like William Gilbert and Ben Franklin for inspiring others to put more effort into understanding electricity. You can also thank Nicola Tesla for much of what we know about electricity nowadays.

cstmar01

I could use for a UFO to beem me up right now and drop me off on a beach somewhere!

that and I think the printer down the row is haunted. stupid thing keeps shutting off and on...creepppyyy

falconcry72

BeefJerky wrote: »

One word: electricity. ... To sum it up, electricity is the reason for this sudden jump in technology that you question. You can thank early pioneers like William Gilbert and Ben Franklin for inspiring others to put more effort into understanding electricity. You can also thank Nicola Tesla for much of what we know about electricity nowadays.

I disagree.

While electricity is obviously a necessary component in all modern technologies, electricity cannot build a Shuttle, nor can it produce bulk quantities of micro processors or internal-combustion engines.

The answer tonyb looks for is twofold:

1) the exponentially increasing global population (and thus workforce)

2) the industrial revolution


Alright, jerky, I'll make it trifold:


3) electricity*
















* = yea, electricity is a necessary component to modern technologies, but so is steel, or metal in general, or rock, or water, or air, or magnetism etc.

None of this would be possible without Oxygen!

BeefJerky

falconcry72 wrote: »

I disagree.

While electricity is obviously a necessary component in all modern technologies, electricity cannot build a Shuttle, nor can it produce bulk quantities of micro processors or internal-combustion engines.

The answer tonyb looks for is twofold:

1) the exponentially increasing global population (and thus workforce)

2) the industrial revolution


Alright, jerky, I'll make it trifold:


3) electricity*

Without electricity we wouldn't be able to build a shuttle or produce (or even utilize) microprocessors, or run a gasoline engine. Electricity is what allowed these things to be created. We could have as large a workforce as we do now and the industrial revolution, but if wasn't for electricity we still wouldn't have had the advances in the last hundred years that we did; it just wouldn't be possible. I agree that they played a part in it, but as more of a secondary role. Even without 1 and 2, I believe we still would have had many of the inventions we do now, probably just not as widely available. For example, computers may still have only been used by large corporations due to the higher cost of production. However, I still believe they would have been invented thanks to electricity.

So, I absolutely stand by what I said about electricity being the key to those advances.

* = yea, electricity is a necessary component to modern technologies, but so is steel, or metal in general, or rock, or water, or air, or magnetism etc.

None of this would be possible without Oxygen!

Sure, and all of those things sparked great advances in a short amount of time. Without oxygen we never would have had fire (or life).

falconcry72

BeefJerky wrote: »

So, I absolutely stand by what I said about electricity being the key to those advances.

Yea, so, like, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Let me try again:

Of course electricity is key in those advances; so is air, so is nitrogen, so is oxygen, so is gravity, so is light, and so is every other pre-existing force and material that has always been a part of the universe. Electricity was not invented by man; it was merely harnessed, and it wasn't harnessed in the ways you mentioned above until there were enough people to make it happen.

Electricity has existed since the dawn if time. The dinosaurs did not not make microchips because of a lack of electricity; they did not make microchips because of the lack of an abundance of competent workers.

BeefJerky

falconcry72 wrote: »

Yea, so, like, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Let me try again:

Of course electricity is key in those advances; so is air, so is nitrogen, so is oxygen, so is gravity, so is light, and so is every other pre-existing force and material that has always been a part of the universe. Electricity was not invented by man; it was merely harnessed, and it wasn't harnessed in the ways you mentioned above until there were enough people to make it happen.

Electricity has existed since the dawn if time. The dinosaurs did not not make microchips because of a lack of electricity; they did not make microchips because of the lack of an abundance of competent workers.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying either. I never claimed that we invented electricity, I only claimed that we learned how to use it. I'm not sure why you brought that up since we are both clearly in agreement on that.

So, let's go down your list and discuss the items. First, the harnessing of electricity to power things came abound after the first Industrial Revolution. The second Industrial Revolution was only really able to happen because of electricity. Based on that information, I don't see how the first Industrial revolution played a part in the rapid technological growth of the last 100 years. I can see how the second Industrial Revolution may have; however, since the harnessing of electricity is what made it happen, I still see electricity as the key factor.

Second, you mention rapid population growth as being a factor. There certainly was a rapid population growth in the US and abroad, but it wasn't timed in a way to affect technology in the way you claim. We in the US use the term baby boomer to describe those who were born from 1946 through around 1964. I'm sure the rest of the world would use a different term, and the years also vary slightly depending on the particular area. At any rate, that population growth wouldn't have any real affect on the size of the workforce until at least 1964 and continuing until around 1980. By your theories, we should not have had any real technological innovations until at least 1964, but that is clearly false. Many of the technology items we know today were already around and have simply been improved. For example, we already had space travel, cars, computers, transistors, integrated circuits, telephones, satellites, and television (in color even!). In fact, I'd say that World War II had a much greater impact on technology than population growth.

Now, here is what Tonyb specifically asked:

Thousands of years with barely any technology to speak of,then all of a sudden we go from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than 100 years ? What happened to make this all possible ?

He did not necessarily ask for all the factors involved in it, he simply asked what caused the large technological advances in less than 100 years (from around 1911-today). I've clearly eliminated rapid population growth as any sort of major influence. I've also made it clear that the first Industrial Revolution wasn't a major factor in terms of technological growth in the last 100 years. Once again it comes back to electricity as being the major (and most recent) factor that would have affected the last 100 years. However, I will give a nod to the second Industrial Revolution, even though it was only brought about because of electricity.

jm1

Instead of having an opinion, I will give this as a start. There is a lot more "official" information in the public domain. Disclosure happened around 2009 after they lost a court case trying to continue withholding the documents. They just don't advertise this to the general public. Other countries have also officially release information.

Key ToTheExtraterrestrial Messages

mhardy6647

George Grand wrote: »

Maybe they're just checking from time to time to see if we've grown grown fat enough for their needs.

They'll be hurting when they get to my "built for speed" ****.

To Serve Man

ZOMG - it's a cookbook!

falconcry72

BeefJerky wrote: »

We in the US use the term baby boomer to describe those who were born from 1946 through around 1964. I'm sure the rest of the world would use a different term, and the years also vary slightly depending on the particular area. At any rate, that population growth wouldn't have any real affect on the size of the workforce until at least 1964 and continuing until around 1980. By your theories, we should not have had any real technological innovations until at least 1964, but that is clearly false. Many of the technology items we know today were already around and have simply been improved. For example, we already had space travel, cars, computers, transistors, integrated circuits, telephones, satellites, and television (in color even!).

Dude, I never said anything about "baby boomers". haha. That's not the exponential growth that I was referring to, and it's laughable that you would think that it was.

This is the exponential growth I was referring to, that without, no amount of understanding of electricity could create any of the technologies in question:

Note that it started to rise unlike ever before around 1000AD, with a little blip due to the Bubonic Plague. I'm talking about larger scale ideas here. It is not a coincidence that the advancement of modern technologies mirrors global population growth. It takes systems of hundreds of millions of workers to create the parts necessary for modern devices.

Note that the growth becomes exponential around the mid 1700's. The "baby boomer" generation is inconsequential to what I'm talking about.

As for the Industrial Revolution, it was not the objects created during the IR and after that led to the ability to produce modern technologies; it was the processes that were established, namely, large-scale mass-production in an assembly-line manufacturing style.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens have been around for roughly 200,000 years. Our brains have evolved very little during that time, and especilly during the last 50,000 years. What has changed, drastically, is the global population, giving rise to a work force that, without which, no modern technologies or devices would be able to be created.


There's a little bit of a "chicken or the egg" thing going on here, because both an exponentially grown global population and electricity were necessary for modern advancements, but, again, electricity has always existed; a global population in the billions and efficient, mass-production manufacturing techniques are what's new.


Cheers,

Ben

BeefJerky

Thank you for clarifying. When you are vague about your specific meaning when it comes to population growth, I have to assume. And you know what assuming does.

As far as exponential growth goes, it's always been that way for the human population. And, for the foreseeable future it will continue like that. However, theories say that limited resources will limit this at some point and slow growth, or even lower the population. All that being said, I will agree that the population started to greatly increase in the mid-18th century, and it continues today. However, the baby-boomer generation was a larger-than-expected growth for the time, and is statistically significant in terms of population growth. It also did have a large impact on the size of the workforce, and it is now having quite a negative impact on society as they are getting older. There is a reason I brought it up.

I think the biggest question in my mind, which you haven't really answered is this: why is the larger population necessary to create these technologies? You keep saying that is is necessary, but fail to go into details as to why. I really don't see a direct correlation there. I'm sure that there is something behind your views on this, so please explain.

falconcry72

BeefJerky wrote: »

As far as exponential growth goes, it's always been that way for the human population.

Not true. Look at this graph again. Humans have existed for a couple million years. Modern humans (Homo Sapien Sapiens) have existed for 200,000 years. Global population growth did not become exponential until about 500 years ago. That is extremely recent.

why is the larger population necessary to create these technologies?

This question could be answered with volumes of books, so I'll try to hit a couple key points briefly:

The interconnected web of manufacturing plants necessary to create even a single micro chip is staggering. They are created by machines, who's parts are created by other machines, who's parts are created by other machines etc. There is an entire facility dedicated to creating every part of every machine that is used to create other machines that are used to create other machines that are used to create the tiniest components, say, a screw.

Now think about an airplane. Every single nut, bolt, and other tiny component has a dedicated manufacturing facility somewhere. We're talking about companies sourcing from companies who source from companies who source from other companies and so on.


The need for a giant population to create modern technologies that are inexpensive enough to be widespread is two-fold:

1) labor
2) money

I am not going to go any further here, but no modern technologies would be possible without the (2) factors I mentioned before:

- assembly line style mass production

- a giant population of workers and consumers

sucks2beme

???
The mordern age of learning started after the plague wiped out much of Europe.
This opened up a lot of land and resources, and meant more food for those left.
Most of the big early advances were from the idle rich,
who were able to spend years working their hobbies. after a while the knowledge
pool grew enough that they could build up on the work of others. The cycle sped up
to where it is now. We started doing organized research.
Population increases didn't enable technology, technology enabled population increase.
No, we didn't pick the remains of little green men for this. The research that led us
down modern paths is pretty well documented. Some older cultures knew a lot more
than we give them credit for, but war and other factors often wiped it out.
The answers to what they knew was lost with time.

falconcry72

sucks2beme wrote: »

Population increases didn't enable technology, technology enabled population increase.

It is very true that technology, as a general term, enabled the population increase, but the specific technologies in question here (computers and the Shuttle) came about after the population had grown into the several billion, and it was this mass workforce/consumerism that supplied the labor and money necessary for those more recent technologies.

cnh

Many scholars have debated these issues and 'most' can not agree with each other. Population Pressure has been a variable in theories of the development of civilization at 'least' since the time of Plato. Even Vulgar Materialists in my field posit at least four intertwining and interdependent variables for cultural change and innovation: Population Pressure, Economic, Technological and Environmental/Ecological (degradation, circumscription and so on). And frankly, for the most part, we find 'materialist' explanations to be less than satisfying. I wish it were as easy as showing a few 'curves' over a number of centuries because that would make teaching about these things easier. But alas...the jury is out.

But it is fun to speculate nonetheless. Then there is always the problem that this population has created both wealth and prosperity and also great famine, disease and suffering. Depends on what side of the 1st/3rd world divide you live in?

But how did we get so far afield of UFOs here?

cnh