Feb 25 2008
|
|
Beyond UFOs
This new book, Beyond UFOs by Jeffrey Bennett, was brought to my attention today. I haven’t seen the book yet; but for those that may want to get hold of a copy, here’s the write-up on it at Amazon:
“In cogent and entertaining language, astrophysicist and popular writer Bennett (On the Cosmic Horizon) explains that the determining factor in whether we can locate intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is whether such a civilization—and our own—can continue long enough to develop the highly sophisticated technology needed for interstellar travel. If humans are going to meet that challenge, Bennett argues, we must solve global warming, debilitating disease, terrorism, poverty, and war. We must use our compassion to teach all people to respect all others, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or gender. This political message is couched in fascinating and completely accessible science. Bennett does a wonderful job of explaining the conditions necessary for simple life, how we might discern its existence and where we should be looking. He then does the same thing for intelligent life. While he is fair to those who believe life is incredibly rare, he makes a compelling case that life is likely to be abundant. He also predicts that we will gather incontrovertible proof of intelligent life in the universe within the next 20 to 30 years.”
This entry was posted
on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 9:29 am and is filed under Alien Encounters, Beliefs, Books, Breaking News, Close Encounters, Evidence, Reviews, The Redfern Files, UFOlogy. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.
del.icio.us Digg Reddit BlinkList Google Ma.gnolia StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Help
- Related News Stories:
- UFOs & Water »
- Nick Pope on UFOs »
- WakeUp USA Radio and UFOs »
- Pravda on UFOs… »
- Triangular UFOs »
- Bigfoot & UFOs »
- Aliens: “We’re Bigger Than Jesus Now” »
- UFOs and Quantum Mechanics »
- Art, Life & UFOs »
- UFOs: Why No Open Contact? »
|
February 25th, 2008 at 10:30 am
The blurb is a bit confusing. It doesn’t sound like a very original theme. PErhaps he is arguing that for a civilization to be detectable via SETI that is necessarily then a Fermi paradox civilization - expanding out into galaxy slowly but inexorably, and we have in fact caught a glimpse or two of them by now? And apparently, they are all Quakers.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
We just emerged from the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1450 to 1850AD. Of the approximate 1.26°F rise in temperature since then, *ALL* of it has been blamed on fossil fuel burning and none of it on natural causes, despite the fact that temperatures should naturally rise, as they always do after an Ice Age ends — even a little one! Prior to the Little Ice Age, there was a period of warmth called the Medieval Warming Period from 800 to 1350AD. Temperatures were so cozy that certain areas in Greenland were inhabited by the Vikings, who raised goats and grew crops — areas which are still too cold to be re-inhabited today. Northern France, England, and Germany could harvest grapes for wine in areas which are still no longer commercially viable today. The reason for all of this is the same reason that the Alps experienced a 70 to 300 meter lowering of the tree line during the Little Ice Age to present day levels — because temperatures are still not as high as they were during the Medieval Warming Period.
If you look at the temperature records for the last 400,000 years, you will see that at the large and small scales of time, temperatures are never static but they fluctuate wildly about an average value. It is only over period of thousands of years before any overall upward or downward trend becomes discernible. So we are supposed to be all concerned about a natural temperature rise that is occurring after a little ice age has just ended? We have a long ways to go before we even come close to temperatures that occurred during the Medieval Warming Period, and that wasn’t the end of the world, yet we are supposed to panic like it was the end of the world today? Are we are supposed to gullibly accept the word of the global warming alarmists, who would have us believe that the average global temperature should always remain static at 1960 or 1850 levels forever, despite the fact that throughout the history of the Earth, temperatures have never been static but have fluctuated wildly from one extreme to the other, especially over the last 400,000 years? When this current inter-glaciation ends, as it naturally should do, are they going to blame humans for that too, and demand that we solve that too? “[The current anthropomorphic global warming nonsense is based on] ‘inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now’” (Dr. Richard Lindzen).
The point is, we aren’t that bright of a species if we believe that global warming is a “problem” and that this “problem” needs “solving”. A species that tries to fix things that aren’t broken or a species that invents problems to be solved is a species that obviously isn’t intelligent enough to solve real life problems like they would encounter when working together to attempt to reach for the stars. The root problem society has is the one of not knowing ourselves. Until every single one of us accept responsibility for all of society’s ills and attempt solve our own personal problems for causing them, our public problems will continue to reflect our individual inner chaos.
Why is it that none of the people who want us to search for intelligent life can give us an intelligent reason why we would want to search for intelligent life in the first place? What would we do after we found it? What would they do after we found them? What makes us believe that a more intelligent species would broadcast their presence and not work in stealth? We could be unwelcomed competition to a species as intelligent as our own, we could be the unwitting savior of species less intelligent than our own, or we could be contemptible to species more intelligent than our own. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be anyone’s savior and take the chance of helping a potential Adolf Hitler go into space, so why would they take the same chance with us?
Like I’ve said before, a species intelligent enough to traverse light years of space would be a species that learned to not destroy itself and it’s environment; a species that would not want to spread to another part of the galaxy like a plague — things we humans would do if we could travel through space, so when are we going to learn that everyone else in the universe doesn’t necessarily think like we do? I doubt if ET would be stupid enough to act like a bull in a china closet.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
As I said once before: “I’m not a misanthrope but I am a doomsayer.” Which of course doesn’t make for much of a bourgeois commodity fetish! haha. “Do-Ohm!” that’s the only way to speak with aliens.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
“the determining factor in whether we can locate intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is whether such a civilization—and our own—can continue long enough to develop the highly sophisticated technology needed for interstellar travel.”
Or he could just try some DMT.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Blah, blah, blah. Cant recycled from the 1970’s.
It didn’t make any sense then, either.
Since the one thing we can reasonably surmise about aliens is that they’re, well, alien, human behavior isn’t necessarily a good guide to what alien behavior will be like.
Still, isn’t human history our best (and only) available guide to what civilizations actually do?
As to the notions that everyone must be enlightened (which I’m guessing means “agrees totally with Jeffrey Bennett in every particular”), and acting in perfect harmony, for a civilization to launch daring and dangerous explorations, I offer one word: Cortez.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I’ve put the book into my wish list. Maybe the blurb just sucks.
I think it is an interesting question whether any sentient species might have to face a set of challenges that would be essentially the same regardless of how they reached that point: WMDs, environmental damage, renegade robots, boy bands, etc. I don’t know the answer.
Some speculate that every technological species eventually develops virtual reality that is so good, no ones wants to live in the physical universe anymore. I don’t think this is very likely to be stable long term, and eventually the dangerous, retro physical world reality develop a punkish coolness, but…
February 26th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Victor-I’ll see your Cortez, and raise you a Zheng He. Voyages of discovery do not automaticly turn into explotation.
As for the rest of it, well, on the one
hand, we have thousands of discrete cultures on this planet, many long extinct, with practices ranging from
universal health care to human sacrifice. What exptrapolations you care to make from that to cultures on
another world, well, I think its more the stuff of fiction ( though fiction is often damn good food for thought )
than anything on which to base a set of assumptions. I like the idea of folks trying to get along a little better, myself. Might even send the Sage a Christmas card this year….