Big Bang Measured

JonJacob wrote: Since when is life so fucking great that we need it to go on forever? Are we really that selfish? Life has a limit for a reason, there's only so much you can do. Blink your eyes and let the kids have at her. Hopefully they'll do the same.

I think we're not that far away from being able to regenerate brain cells - which is why people die of old age, the cells stop regenerating - and developing a human brain interface, i.e. a way to manifest thoughts into actions. State-of-the-art prosthesis can already replicate simple motoric functions. Quite frankly, I would volunteer for that, given that my mind/creativity is the dearest thing to me anyway. Then put me in a space craft and send me to a new earth 40,000 years away.

ThirstyMan wrote: Just ignore the bollocks

... but that's the best part of your posts most days.

Look, living in the West affords you an incredible variety of life styles. You can consume like a monster for sure but there are other ways to live. I had no car liscence until four months ago, I planted trees for a living until I was 30 and lived with no computer, no bed, no TV.. nothing. It's totally possible.

Then I fell in love, got married and consumption got the best of me (not the disease), I'm still moderate by Western standards but you know.. I consume too much, no doubt.

Thing is I think that the term environmentalist is one I would never self apply, in fact, I really don't like the therm at all. I think it's a wise plan for people to learn to curb their consumption and manipulate the environment around them as best as possible. But we have to learn to live with evil as well. I know that the metals in my mandolin strings might come from a company that also sells metals to people who make missiles or sell guns to terrorists.. that's the world I live in. The world is so interconnected now it's practically impossible to do otherwise.

None of this means that we need to feel guilty all fucking day, none of it means we can't still enjoy some consumption.

If there weren't so many fucking people on the planet maybe we could burn Styrofoam for heat and drive tanks to work... that's why I don't want to fill more of the planet up with people. So we can all worry a little less about how much we use.

.. also I like hunting and too many people makes that very difficult to do, unless I change targets.

JonJacob wrote: I know that the metals in my mandolin strings might come from a company that also sells metals to people who make missiles

*Boom*
*HOOAH*

You're welcome.

SuperflyTNT wrote:
Mike: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost 3.2-4 trillion dollars.
3,200,000,000,000.

How could I forget Afghanistan?! :-P

JonJacob wrote: Increasing life expectancy is the biggest environmental disaster around. People keep living longer and longer...

This isn't actually as true as you might think. Life expectancy from birth has increased a lot, but that's mainly due to two factors:

1. tremendous reduction in the rate of infant mortality because of stuff like antibiotics
2. we used to have World Wars every 40 years or so, but that pattern hasn't repeated lately

If you look at the life expectancy of people that actually survive childhood things have changed, but not nearly as much as life expectancy from birth. Between 1940 and 1990, the average life expectancy of males surviving to age 65 in the USA has risen from 77.7 to 80.3. Not as big a difference as you'd suppose. And much of the difference can probably be attributed to reduced rates of tobacco use.

Lower rates of infant mortality correlate with lower fertility rates. If you are reasonably assured that your kids will survive to adulthood, you have fewer of them. This means that increasing from-birth life expectancy tends to prevent explosive population growth.

Also, recent statistics from the USA show that the trend toward greater life expectancy has reversed for some. In particular, the lives of less-educated whites are getting shorter again.

There is an ongoing environmental disaster, but increasing life expectancy is not the proximal cause.

www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expec...pagewanted=all&_r=1&

I don't know if anybody noticed, but the European Space Agency's Planck Mission has measured the microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang and confirmed the universe's age and inflationary model. The telescope was launched in 2009 and spent 15 months mapping the Big Bang's afterglow.

The oldest light in our universe, detected by the Planck mission, was used to generate this map of the universe. The colours represent different temperatures and densities of the cosmic microwave background radiation, representing the seeds of stars and galaxies

Story here .

Bullwinkle wrote: I don't know if anybody noticed, but the European Space Agency's Planck Mission has measured the microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang and confirmed the universe's age and inflationary model. The telescope was launched in 2009 and spent 15 months mapping the Big Bang's afterglow.

No thread-jacking, please.

Man, I wonder how many gajillions of dollars they got to study that.

The real question is how pissed the universe was when we put a digital caliper on it's rectum. That had to sting.

SuperflyTNT wrote: The real question is how pissed the universe was when we put a digital caliper on it's rectum. That had to sting.

Although it may disappoint you, not rectums were involved in the measurement of the universe.

80 million is no small amount to be off by... even with almost 14 billion being the total.

See, this is why I don't trust science. Two or three studies (that's several gajillion dollars) from now they'll discover that it's actually only 10,000 years old and it sits on a giant turtle. "What's under the turtle" you may ask... but it's just turtles, all the way down.

JonJacob wrote: See, this is why I don't trust science. Two or three studies (that's several gajillion dollars) from now they'll discover that it's actually only 10,000 years old and it sits on a giant turtle. "What's under the turtle" you may ask... but it's just turtles, all the way down.

You're kidding, right? Because if you're not, that would really cause me to question your mental capabilities.

I can't believe you even have to ask if I really believe we are all balanced on piles of turtles... never mind the 10,000 years thing which should be obvious as well.

They are both different references but they both should be recognizable to most people. The turtle thing only being slightly more obscure.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

I don't mean the turtles thing or the 10,000 years thing.

I was wondering whether you really meant the first half of your comment: "See, this is why I don't trust science. Two or three studies (that's several gajillion dollars) from now they'll discover that it's actually"

Given your usual opinions on the subject of science, I am lead to believe you really do mean it seriously.

Schweig! wrote:

SuperflyTNT wrote: The real question is how pissed the universe was when we put a digital caliper on it's rectum. That had to sting.

Although it may disappoint you, not rectums were involved in the measurement of the universe.

My bad, I misread. Thought it said Big Bung.