Chat Showing 1,201-1,250 of 1,501

[Bernard]

Palpable indeed! What number are we on now?

[Bernard]

Greetings to all Aussies and Kiwis on ANZAC Day.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

For some strange reason, we haven't moved beyond 1099 for days!

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈
Congratulations! Welcome to group member number 1100 Sanna.
🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

A group of 15 French volunteers leaves a cave where they had stayed for 40 days, in an experiment probing the limits of human adaptability to isolation.

https://t.co/DFLsOm7ajn https://t.co/UMFUgnKLFI

[Bernard]

Grasshopper wrote: "🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈
Congratulations! Welcome to group member number 1100 Sanna.
🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈"

Hooray! 1100 welcomes to you Sanna, and may the group exist for 1100 years.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

That's like forever! Would we live long to see it?

[Chris]

It’s unlikely we’ll get to 1100 years - certainly any time soon, but in fact there are scientists researching in life extension, and it’s interesting to think about immortality, either natural or digital immortality. I’m following lifespan.io which is a scientific community that has a newsletter about the latest research.

[Bernard]

Humans cannot survive so long. But bots, provided they are made of high grade titanium, can.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Colorado could soon become the second state to legalize human composting in the U.S.

The process, which transforms human remains into soil, would be available as an alternative to burial and cremation.
https://t.co/mtR7L6uaDg

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

"These are the 10 lowest-ranked countries in Europe for press freedom" https://twitter.com/i/events/13891945...

[Bernard]

I finally got my hair cut today. Now I feel like a human being again, no longer like a woolly mammoth.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

A Belgian farmer moved a 200-year-old stone about seven feet. In doing so, he slightly enlarged his own land — as well as the entire country of Belgium. https://t.co/7vzzM8l3ZZ

[Bernard]

Some questions on the politics of intimate life

Are some intimate configurations more conducive to flourishing than others?
Does oppression deform our ability to love well?
Does romantic love help, or hinder, justice?
How can we desire better?
Should the state support intimacy?
Should the state privilege certain relationships? If so, which ones?
Is the vulnerability of intimate life something to be mitigated, or embraced?
To what extent is intimate vulnerability separable from political vulnerability?
What would a just intimate life look like?
Should the state try to ensure a fairer distribution of intimate goods?
Should the politics of intimate life feature in Sex and Relationship Education curricula?
Can we educate (for) intimacy? Would we want to?

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Existential woes?

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

"Don’t get me wrong. I like showers. But it’s one thing off my plate."

Some people say they've been bathing less during the pandemic. And it's a habit they might keep. https://t.co/jpsVP2XUrG

[Bernard]

Grasshopper wrote: "Existential woes?"

For some I suppose. It was in an invite to a seminar. But they are all good questions.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

I did wonder...

[Bernard]

Some of the wording is amusing: "Hello my dear, would you like to form an intimate configuration with me?"

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Sounds like an invitation

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

German priests defy Vatican to bless gay couples

[Bernard]

Grasshopper wrote: "German priests defy Vatican to bless gay couples"

Then they should beware the Inquisition.

[Bernard]

I am back from an abortive trip to buy some jeans. Plenty in the two shops, but not the size/style/colour I want. I will have to go further afield.

But I did learn that pre-ripped jeans are very much in vogue.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

When did they ever go out ?

[Bernard]

Perhaps they did not, but there was no such thing when I was a lad!

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Was that gazillion years ago?

[Bernard]

Almost! Shortly after the Big Bang.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

That's baby years for the Earth!

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

An early look into how President Biden operates reveals a leader with a short fuse who is obsessed with getting the details right, sometimes to a fault, according to interviews with more than two dozen of his associates. https://t.co/vZYPdaW14m

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

NEW from @christinedobby: The stunning divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates has put a spotlight on the former Microsoft CEO’s yen for massive Canadian investments. Here’s the inside story of how he got into them in the first place. https://t.co/SUnGbViAKK

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

"The Pentagon strongly suspects aliens exist - and we've got the evidence" https://twitter.com/i/events/13958577...

[Chris]

The whole thing with aliens is a tricky one to untangle. I personally would like to think that aliens are out there, but then I’m reminded of the Fermi Paradox. We can’t simply assume things like this is alien activity.
If we forget for a moment that in our current search for signs of intelligent life so far we have come up empty, the implications of a UFO arriving here is more than just a close encounter. It means that they are orders of magnitude more advanced than us, they wouldn’t be post-modern or Neo-modern or anything like that.

I’ve linked three videos that explain why A) scientists don’t think it’s aliens, B) what the Fermi Paradox is and what it means, and C) the kind of technology, as far as modern humans understand, is necessary for interstellar travel.

https://youtu.be/3sq658Okvao

https://youtu.be/sNhhvQGsMEc

https://youtu.be/rhFK5_Nx9xY

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

That would leave us with the Biblical explanation of the singularity of human existence. Difficult to believe that Darwin's theory did not work on the rest of the universe!

[Bernard]

Ah! The Universal Theory of Evolution?

[Chris]

That’s the wrong message to take away here. It’s true to think that aliens visiting us would need to be significantly more technologically advanced than we are, but it is not reasonable to also say that we are alone. The last video demonstrates a few things about our own presence, even at a range of 200 light years the radio transmissions are corrupted beyond recognition. Also, most astronomical phenomena seem to have natural explanations, but not all of then.

Honestly, the most reasonable thing to take away is that it is far too unlikely that alien don’t exist; at least 1,000,000 Earth-like planets are out there, and if life can emerge here, life can emerge anywhere. But since a lot of our experience is lonely, it is fair to think that in fact aliens are probably at the same technological level as we are right now. Possibly spacefaring, but not far beyond their hone planet, never mind their home system. I personally think aliens are there, just not as obviously as we think they are.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Thanks for livening up this folder Chris. Precisely the point! Again we seem to err on assumptions. Why would all of us be at the same level of evolution? Why not some more advanced?

[Chris]

No worries. I want to participate more, most of the other news is stuff I don’t know that much about. History, maths and space stuff, that I can talk about. 😂

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Glad to have you here. We are open to suggestions and can add more folders on request.

[Chris]

That’s fine, I hope you don’t mind my saying but I’ve found it a little confusing trying to understand what threads and folders are at this stage. To me folders look like mostly news threads. So if I can suggest anything, I’d like to try a place for just some random conversation. Nothing specific, but a place for people to talk about anything at all, within the rules of the group of course, but giving the freedom to discuss anything interesting at the moment.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

This chat space essentially does the very same thing Chris!

[Chris]

Ah, now that’s interesting. I have perceived it as a news thread. Since this is a random chat, do you mind if I divert to a more niche subject for a moment?

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Sure. Let's see where it goes.

[Chris]

Okay, so I’m currently looking into mathematical fiction; stories that are inspired by or based off of mathematical functions and concepts. Specifically, I’m looking into any kind of lore that uses novel counting systems. The prevailing evidence seems to point to the idea that I might be the first author to incorporate mathematics into the worldbuilding of the fictional universe, but I don’t want to claim that because, just like doing maths, most of the stuff I can discover myself has already been done.

But yeah, if anyone know me about any mathematical fiction I’d like to know about it, both to look for this sort of thing, and to find new and interesting stories. If you’re unfamiliar with this kind of story; Flatland: a Romance in Many Dimensions is a classic case. It is a parody of Victorian life through the lens of a society of shapes living in an entirely two dimensional universe. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is largely regarded as a surrealist fiction satirizing the modern mathematics at his time.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

I believe algorithms exist to write entire books if you merely feed in critical data. Bots rule the future! :)

[Bernard]

Grasshopper wrote: "I believe algorithms exist to write entire books if you merely feed in critical data. Bots rule the future! :)"

I look forward to books such as "The Fortran Saga", written by algorithm DJV473/F.

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Already in the market!

[Bernard]

Cockney news

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d-YrFHQ...

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

John Cena called 'pathetic' for apologizing to China over Taiwan remark https://t.co/fGpbcR63Ei https://t.co/ZkvLsQt2OE

[Grasshopper, Administrator]

Argentinian TV channel declares the death of the Bard in 2021.
https://t.co/QARPnrnqaB
Una conductora de Canal 26 anunció la muerte del escritor William Shakespeare, quien falleció en 1616
Confundió al primer hombre vacunado contra el coronavirus con el autor e Romeo y Julieta. Un pequeñito error de apenas cuatro siglos y monedas

[Bernard]

Grasshopper wrote: "Argentinian TV channel declares the death of the Bard in 2021.
https://t.co/QARPnrnqaB
Una conductora de Canal 26 anunció la muerte del escritor William Shakespeare, quien falleció en 1616
Confund..."

Eh what???