On average, there are more fecal bacteria on your phone screen than on a public toilet seat.
Also, when you flush the toilet after taking a shit, fecal material will get sprayed on literally every surface in the bathroom.
Yes, your toothbrush, too.
So does that mean people who don't close the lid before flushing prefer the taste of shit in their mouth?
*anecdote
Earwigs can fly....
Here's one more:
Dark Forest Theory as a solution to the Fermi Paradox.
This theory was around long before Lee Cuixin and done much better. Saberhagen's Berserker series is a much better example, and has the added bonus of believable character development in his books.
Hell, Battlestar Galactica was the same thing done 5 years before TBP came out, and way more interestingly.
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.
e: Nice call on BSG as well! Though, that considered only human and Cylon life.
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.
We're going to have to disagree on those books. I found the first one amateurish and hand-wavy SF with terrible character development, and the second one was just a ridiculous deus-ex-machina plot point that invalidated all the rest of the previous and possible future plot pivot points, with continued terrible character development. I wouldn't know about the third, by this point I was done giving him any more of my money.
I'm surprised about Brin's article there, because all his work has been pretty upbeat about galactic species generally getting along, though with its rough points.
Personally, I chalk up the great silence to very short species lifespans after achieving spaceflight. Maybe they all go post-singularity and become undetectable, or run out of resources and go primitive again. Or just die off/suicide, which seems like where we're headed. If we have a century of relatively powerful transmissions, what's the chance of anyone being close enough in that short period of time to detect us?
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.
1Q84: never ran across it, but from the wikipedia article:
novel's excessive repetition, clichéd writing, clumsy styling and unyielding plot.
Which is pretty much where I was with TBP, so I can't imagine I'll rush out to read this.
Regarding translation: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/s3zm9t/the_threebody_problem_is_not_good/izxm5l2/
I've read other chinese authors translated by the likes of Ken Liu and I see nothing like that, enjoy them well enough, before and after reading TBP. So the usual "your closed western mind can't conceive of the Chinese style" argument kinda pisses me off when I get it back in discussions of these books. But I'm used to that reaction, so I don't take it personally anymore.
Yah, I was thinking of the attenuation issue there, and not to mention that eventually the powerful transmissions go away in order to use low-power, high-bandwidth satellite bouncing instead of blaring away at 1kW to communicate. I imagine we're already much quieter than we were 20 years ago.
live smallpox cultures still exist in american and russian labs.
most people born after 1980 are not vaccinated against smallpox and do not possess the natural immunity boost that would come from environmental exposure to the disease.
in the 1500s the introduction of smallpox into the similarly unprotected peoples of the americas caused an apocalyptic population collapse.
True, but we do have the vaccine and the means to mass-produce and administer. That's why I'm not worried about smallpox.
Thanks to Ed Jenner
Here's a fun one
You know how you go to the public pool and you smell the chlorine keeping the water clean? That's not chlorine you're smelling.
Chlorine is a great sanitizer but when dissolved in water it has almost no smell. However, chlorine binds to organic substances like dead skin cells and especially strongly to urea (aka pee), forming chloramine. Chloramine has significantly less sanitizing capability than chlorine, but it has a very strong chloriney smell.
You can get rid of chloramine by 'shocking' the pool- adding an oxidizer or increasing the chlorine level very high to what's called breakpoint chlorination. Shock powder is expensive though so it's not always used as often as it should be.
So when you go to the public pool and you get that strong chlorine smell, all that means is either the pool water is dirty and hasn't been shocked in a while, or someone peed in the pool recently.
Enjoy your swim!
If you pay attention at the beach you will totally notice people wading in to take a piss and then wading back out of the water. I know the ocean is big and all but there’s something… uncivilized about it.
This is the reason why I don't want to go to pools anymore.
You didn't mention the important part - sweat does that too. So it might not be pee, just sweaty people getting washed off. Which is better, to be fair.
nah no way because my town heavily chlorinates the tap water and that shit reeks like a swimming pool... or is someone pissing in the tap???
Chloramines are disinfectants used to treat drinking water. Chloramines are most commonly formed when ammonia is added to chlorine to treat drinking water.
The chlorine does its job, and whatever shit it kills becomes chloramine. Chlorine does have a smaller smell of its own so maybe they just put a shit ton of it in also.
Your Tap water being dirty is Not an Option? When they chlorine it, there's certainly a need to get it Clean from e.g. the Pipes or other contaminants
A man's penis is generally cleaner than his hands, because his dick is kept behind two sets of fabric and isn't used to touch nearly everything.
I always wash my hands before I pee, don't want to get my penis dirty...
I've heard this but I've also never heard of hand smegma, so...
I literally dry heave when Asian porn is like, "mmm delicious smegma!"
🤢🤮
Wtf is smegma and why have you heard of dick smegma?
You must have circumcised nails then
If you managed to hold your hand closed 24/7, you'd get it too. Same thing happens when you get a cast off.
The article below this is
Donald Trump says that if wins the White House, he'll fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” of taking office.
Imagine a criminal openly admitting he’ll use his power to evade justice, and somehow half the country is still voting for him
It’s the “people are still voting for him” part that terrifies me. Because we can defeat Trump, but you can’t do a whole lot with a rotten electorate.
Neuroscience shows that rulers will always become evil.
Getting more power actually changes your brain, suppressing your ability to use empathy. The very powerful will always struggle to remember that others are human and don't want to be hurt.
Humane behavior and hierarchy are mutually exclusive. Heirarchical organization encourages humans to hurt each other.
I think part of it is that when good people gain power they realize that they have also taken on responsibility. And when you are shouldering a lot of responsibility, and the people around you are not, it’s easy to see them as childish or selfish, or not thinking things through thoroughly (because let’s face it: they’re not).
Plus as a responsible party you have to be responsible for everyone and this can mean limiting your beholden-ness to any one party. That can look like distancing or lack of empathy for that person. “Oh now that you have power you’re too big for me, huh?” Pretty much yes, actually.
If you’ve ever been in charge of something you know what I’m saying. And when I see people blindly bitching about people in power I know they’ve never been responsible for anything bigger than a shopping cart.
It's not a question of "look[ing] like distancing or lack of empathy", or just "bitching about people in power".
Scientific studies that look at your brain itself - not your behavior - show that as people get more power the brain's empathy centers become suppressed and you are chemically less capable of being a good person.
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