eightpix

@eightpix@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the minimum number of words needed to communicate⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d add to this list:

  That’s too expensive! Cash price? Stop here! Speak slowly, please.

  And any words you might need to relate a dietary restriction: no meat, no dairy, no shellfish, no gluten.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has the USA turned into an oligarchy?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Read Chomsky’s Understanding Power (2002) and Manufacturing Consent (1988). It’s been an oligarchy since at least the 1980s. It’s Reagan’s fault. Jimmy Carter — rest in power —was the last, best hope for the kind of America that humanity wanted.

  Read the Fred J. Cook’s The Warfare State (1962).

  President Dwight D. Eisenhower was right about the Military-Industrial complex. It used to just be weapons, technology, energy, and heavy industries. The associated industries have metastasized to include entertainment, finance, housing, and education.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'll share a troubling fact with you if you share one with me⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No accusation intended. Related my experience and seeking yours. Thanks for sharing what you have read about it.

  Then, help me out if you feel inclined. Point me in the direction of some solid sci-fi, written in another language, with good translation to English. I’m always looking for the next read. I could Google it. But, instead, I’m looking for a recommendation from a strong critical eye. As guidance, I’m a pretty big fan of space epics, political intrigue, and/or social

  Also, thanks for the language on attenuation. I’ve done a bit more reading on it, and I’ve seen the math. What I’ve learned is that most regulated radio transmissions in the Western hemisphere are capped at 50 kW. There are several transmitters that are in the 150 kW range, and, back in the 30s, there was that one titanic tower in Florida that kicked out 500 000 kW.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'll share a troubling fact with you if you share one with me⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess we are going to have to disagree. The writing style and, as I perceived it, motivations within the text were clearly not of the Western tradition. It’s true, in lending the benefit of doubt, I may have enjoyed it more precisely because I disregarded standard writing mores, tropes, and conventions because it was a translated work.

  I’m curious: Did you also try Murakami’s 1Q84? I found that I had to suspend expectations there in much the same manner.

  I think I’d agree with you wrt. short species lifespans after developing telecommunications, space flight, and highly concentrated energy sources. The leap in capacity for attendant social distortion — and extortion — has brought us to the brink of global destruction many times since Signal Hill in 1901. The Kardashev Scale comes to mind here. The leap from about Type 0.73, ostensibly where we are now, to Type 1.0 is fraught.

  As for the communications we have sent, the early ones were low-power and, over a distance of 100 ly, would significantly degrade against background EM radiation. At a range of 50 ly, where our first, more powerful and higher fidelity digital transmissions have reached, there are relatively few star systems — about 1300 (source). This source uses data from 1991, so there may be more, but not many, that are magnitude 6.5 or brighter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'll share a troubling fact with you if you share one with me⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d read that David Brin reviewed something similar in '83, but I didn’t chase it down to Saberhagen.

  In following the links provided in the Wiki article, for the Berserker Hypothesis, there is the following:

  The Berserker hypothesis is distinct from the dark forest hypothesis in that under the latter, many alien civilizations could still exist provided they keep silent. The dark forest hypothesis can be viewed as a special case of the Berserker hypothesis, if the ‘deadly Berserker probes’ are (e.g. due to resource scarcity) only sent to star systems that show signs of intelligent life.

  So, silence is survival in the Dark Forest. The Berserker Hypothesis seeks and destroys.

  And, for my part, Cixin Liu’s second book was a really solid read. The first book, Three Body Problem, suffered all of the hallmarks of the pains taken to establish a story and a world. The last book, Death’s End, while mostly good, also suffered in needing to bring the grand story to a close.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'll share a troubling fact with you if you share one with me⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s one more:

  Dark Forest Theory as a solution to the Fermi Paradox.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'll share a troubling fact with you if you share one with me⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m glad someone put the prions in here. As a biology student, there was only one thing more terrifying than retroviruses — prions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'll share a troubling fact with you if you share one with me⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Heres two:

  The ratio between cells of your body that belong to you vs. cells on or in your body that are microorganisms is about 1:1 — slightly favouring the bacteria.

  If the Sun were destroyed, we would not know about it until more than 8 minutes after it happened.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨College students used Meta’s smart glasses to dox people in real time⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Humanity may be forced into radical openness.

  This is, as far as I can tell, tangentially related to this form of dialectical behavioural therapy (RO-DBT).