unapologetic

@jakelafort – well, it’s only Russians who are doing all the raping and murdering. But I didn’t mean to imply that all Russians are like that. If I did, that was my mistake.

@davis – true, he needs to look after the coalitions that keep him in power.

Davis wrote:
The war doesn’t make Putin feel good. It helps maintain his interests.

What interests is he maintaining, while he holds his own country’s head down the toilet?  Only his emotional / demagogue interests.  In fact he operates a lot like Trump.

Unseen wrote:
It’s widely accepted that all Putin wanted was for Ukraine not to become a member of NATO and to declare itself a neutral nation. This may still be the position that will bring an end to the war. IF the U.S. really wants the war to end that is. Unfortunately, there’s no reason for the military-industrial complex to want the war to…

[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
I didn’t think you did the us/them, good v. evil game.

It’s a case of “evil vs. everyone else”.  Putin is flat-out evil.  They have camps in Ukraine where they torture, rape and murder women and girls.

Also, when did the war start, and who started it?  Mr P.

Unseen wrote:
Wars mean defense spending. It’s big business in the U.S.

Seriously?  That’s a pretty frightening and cynical world view.  Putin is at war because it makes him and his country feel great.  Apart from that, the war is threatening the world economy and food supply.  Yay!

jakelafort wrote:
I suspect the west has been fighting a war by proxy.

Why would the West want a war with Russia?  That’s Putin’s propaganda.  Since when did we threaten them, and why would we?

Russia has an age-old history of attacking its neighbours.  The Russian bear is paranoid, aggressive and domineering.

Unseen wrote:
I’m not clear on why you’re bringing up communication.

That is probably the only way that alien living beings can reach us – virtually, rather than in person.

Unseen wrote:
Hitting a small object at half the speed of light would likely be fatal to the crew and detecting such an object far enough in advance to avoid it would be hampered, ironically, by speed the craft would be traveling. And the distances involved greatly increase the chance of such a collision.

Yes, it sounds like it’s impossible, for…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
Let’s say you were going at 0.1 times the speed of light, c. I’d hate to hit something, even if it was very small. Look what an asteroid barely moving (relatively speaking) and less than 10 miles across did to our dino-friends.

Good point.  Statistically, the crew would almost certainly be obliterated during their journey.

_Robert_ wrote:
That is to say they might not share the same prototype that all Earth life originated from.

Maybe they could go into suspended animation, like tardigrades.

I think YouTube tells anyone what they want to hear.

Unseen wrote:
Finally, does it imply other areas for exploration?

This last one seems to be somewhat optional, but all of the great discoveries that have advanced science and expanded our reservoir of knowledge have done this.

I believe it was Stephen Hawking who said that a good theory can generate other good theories.  I think that all facts…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I will give more credence to a qualified virologist than a news anchor on the subject of virus transmission or to The Lancet over a TikTok post.

That’s true, but we still have to test these things out for ourselves, as far as we are able.  The true test of an idea is if it matches up with reality.  How this might a…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Dr. Redfield is fully qualified to have his view, is he not?

Anyone’s qualified to have a view.

Unseen wrote:
And yet, Dr. Redfield, who was Fauci before Fauci was Fauci at the CDC, thinks it’s most likely a lab leak. He said it 2 years ago:

But something isn’t necessarily correct because so-and-so person says it.  Correct ideas are correct as far as they account for both available and new evidence and can generate new ideas.

In this ca…[Read more]