Astroboffins say our Solar System could have – wait, stop, what... the US govt found UFOs? Our Solar System may have been born from bubbles of material hurled from a colossal Wolf-Rayet-type star, according to a theory published Friday. Scientists studying the origin of our system generally believe – no, wait, sorry. Stop. You know 2017 has been a bonkers year when the New York Times reveals a classified $22m US …
The fact that there are other people on this planet, some of whom are allegedly of a different "race", does not somehow send me into hysterical fits of panic. The fact that there are more entire species of living organisms on this planet than there are individual humans in Switzerland, also does not send me into an apoplectic tizzy.
So why the fuck should it be such a big deal that there are organisms living somewhere other than on this rock?
Of course there are. Why wouldn't there be?
Apparently there are people living in China too, which is very far away from me. Should this fact bother me somehow? Should it bother me if they lived even further away, such as 10,000 miles above the surface of the Earth? How about 20,000 miles? How about 1,000,000?
Seriously, what difference does it make? It's just distance, and the variance between species is just biology. Why the paranoid hysteria? Why the obsession?
"They" are out there, somewhere, in fact everywhere, where "they" comprises everything from slugs to Germans to some currently undocumented, perhaps humanoid species of life on other planets.
Deal with it!
"Alien food tastes a lot like pork, apparently. And the aliens are keen to experience the new ingredients available on Earth."
Well the name of their cookbook translates to " How to serve man", xenophiles are quite encouraged by their willingness to help.
With regard to paranoid hysteria, I speculate that it's the socially-conditioned response that is optimal for people in power to stay in power - it's not the fact that it's a different species that frightens those in power, but the fact that the extraterrestrial species might see the pathologically insane way they stay in power. And might have a way to stop it.
So, continuing with this paranoid notion, pitting humans vs. extraterrestrials means that even if the extraterrestrial species WANTED to help humans, they couldn't do it safely. Fear is a powerful motivator, and people's motivations can be subject to the various tones broadcast by media. Then again, this is speculation presupposing that the extraterrestrials even cared to interact with us.
On the far end of the paranoid spectrum, and I mean WAY far end, if you have something that looks "alien-ish", like the B-52 Bomber during the Civil War era? It means that you can create a reason to pour TRILLIONS of dollars, like the entire funds of the entire Earth, into a program to defend against things like it.
Again, all speculation. But, follow the money?
"The fact that there are other people on this planet, some of whom are allegedly of a different "race", does not somehow send me into hysterical fits of panic."
But that we apparently have time travellers that still reside in the Middle Ages is more commonly a concern!
BBC America has been playing a constant marathon of Dr. Who and it is my pleasure to recognize that in many parts of this article, the author did a pretty good impersonation of The Doctor's thought patterns, at least once or twice, or maybe 3 times... it doesn't matter.
And how many of those UFO pics were of a small blue box that said "Police" on it...
/me queues up theme song
"BBC America has been playing a constant marathon of Dr. Who"
Enjoy it while you can. It's been ruined for me by BBC political correctness since the last series (i.e. filling it with as many minority types as possible and then rubbing your face in it - e.g. how many times in one series can a character tell you they don't date a specific sex?! ), and to cap it off now it's become Nurse Who.
>>You really are scared of women aren't you?
This is like the BBC producing Romeo and Juliet as Juliet and Juliet. It's just ridiculous political correctness for the sake of it. Agree 100% with the OP. There is no shortage of novels with female leads for the BBC to make into a series.
Yeah but "Nurse Who"? Really? 2/10. Can Do Better.
Do you not realise that both professions of Doctor and Nurse have practitioners of both sexes, and have had since before the Classic series of your (alleged) favourite TV programme ended? My mum was a senior staff nurse in the 1970s and frequently referred to the many male nurses she worked with jokingly as "brother".
"filling it with as many minority types as possible and then rubbing your face in it - e.g. how many times in one series can a character tell you they don't date a specific sex?!"
Absolutely agree. Even in the Christmas episode the Doctor's companion finds it necessary to twice make it clear she is a lesbian. I don't remember any character EVER finding it necessary to point out they were not gay. It's completely lefty BBC politics in play. And quite offensive to many as it's broadcast when children might be watching.
" I don't remember any character EVER finding it necessary to point out they were not gay."
Well certainly not in Doctor Who, where prior to the new series the subject of romantic or sexual relationships was strictly off-limits, but scenes where a heterosexual character has to continually fight off persistent advances from a stereotypical gay character who won't take no for an answer were 10 a penny on US and UK TV even as late as the 1980s (particularly in comedy shows). Characters like Bill Potts are simply redressing the balance.
"Well certainly not in Doctor Who, where prior to the new series the subject of romantic or sexual relationships was strictly off-limits,"
So the OP is correct - this was basically never before mentioned in Doctor Who.
"characters like Bill Potter are simply redressing the balance"
No because as your own statement makes clear, there was never a balance to redress in Doctor Who. This seems to clearly be a case of pushing an offensive gay leftwing agenda where it doesn't belong.
This seems to clearly be a case of pushing an offensive gay leftwing agenda where it doesn't belong.
I'm both gay and pretty much a lefty at that (left of centre with right-wing traits sure, but mostly lefty).
I am quite happy to say such stuff as what has been discussed here does not belong in Dr Who. They started this stuff with Eccleston(sp), continued it to some degree under Tennant, I don't recall much of it under Smith of Capaldi but by the time we got through half of the Capaldi stuff that was it for me+Dr Who. There's the old series around, and I'd rather watch an episode made up from poor quality still pictures where the audio is more hum than speech, where it's been through several VCR's and the early text to describe what was going on has largely lost its definition (and is thus unreadable) than watch the modern versions. I quite liked most of the writing during Tennant's tenure, didn't mind Eccleston or Smith, but the first season with Capaldi was just too much (it's not really him as an actor, though how he portrayed the Dr may've had a bearing - but actors can only do so much with that level of crap writing!).
I think it was the one with the monster hatching from the moon and laying another egg that instantly became a new moon that finally stopped us watching.
"I take it the down votes are from the same type of twits that say the lame "happy holidays"?"
You mean the established church?
"Merry Christmas" as a greeting is relatively newfangled and is typically associated with Christmas cards and other commercialism of what was previously a purely religious holiday.
Not to mention that the root of the word 'holiday' is (fairly obviously) 'holy day', and that for most people Christmas time is a holiday season (in either meaning of the word).
Anyway, given that the bloody Christmas music and shop displays seems to start in flipping September these days, can you blame people for wanting as little to do with it as possible?
PS, I won't even start on the pagan origins of Yule, or indeed people celebrating Christ's birth in the winter, despite the information in the bible pointing to a warmer time of year.
"You mean the established church?"
No, the established church goes along with Merry Christmas since the 19th century as per your own link.
""Merry Christmas" as a greeting is relatively new-fangled"
Since < 1843 isn't relatively new-fangled to most of us. Do you own a Delorian?!
"can you blame people for wanting as little to do with it as possible?"
When it's the reason for having Christmas holidays on most of the planet, I think trying to ignore that fact is pretty pedantic and pointless. I don't believe in a Sky Fairy, but it's still Christmas.
This post has been deleted by its author
Its disappointing how fast pushing towards 2020 we still know absolutely nothing except conjecture. Where is the 'Wikileaks' for leftover captured pieces of Roswell? Why is every video blurry and lacking detail (despite all the mass sightings and high quality cams we carry around in our pockets).
Perhaps Occams razor is right as always. Harry Reid just wanted to funnel money to a friend with an expensive hobby. If not, where's the secret alien material hiding in Vegas, that supposedly we can't defend ourselves from?
Whenever I see Giorgio Tsoukalos' stupid head on the History Channel, plugging ancient astronaut theories, I'm sure we're lost now more than ever.
The problem with paranormal phenomena is that proponents and skeptics are not playing on a level field.
One side says that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which proponents have yet to supply. But proponents say they have many cases that haven't yet been dis-proven by skeptics, and that even a single case that withstands disproof is in effect proof of the case. Naturally the cases now run into the thousands.
So skeptics are put in the position of having to dis-prove all claims, which is impossible in the real world, and this is put forward as 'evidence' that there is Something Real Going On.
Thus we are forever doomed to endure half-baked claims about UFO's, bigfeet, ghosts, chemtrails, 20,000 year-old pyramids, faked moon landings, and computer OS'es that don't suck. And once in a very great while, one of those claims will turn out to actually be true! Don't hold your breath tho...
It's not so far fetched if you think about how many people, probably including readers on this very site, who believe in god because of so many circumstantial, hear-say and personal revelations. Yet not one solid scrap of evidence to show that a god exists.
If i remember correctly the UK had a program like this running for decades. Ostensibly not for UFO research but to keep an eye out for German/Russian/whoever the latest boogeyman for the government was aircraft doing research flights over the UK.
The number of reported sightings of unidentified phenomenon dropped off a cliff after the advent and proliferation of camera phones, as now people would film what they saw and, after sobering up the next morning, realise it was a plane, a bird, or just a really cool looking cloud. Nothing to report here...
That's always been the thing with conspiracy theorists despite the proliferation of camera phones and the advent of Youtube, which lets face it is more likely to be the first port of call for any actual footage rather than the local government or plod. Nothing has appeared that shows Alien existence. I think we can take that as writ that at least since camera phones have been around, we most certainly havent had any "visitors".
"Nothing has appeared that shows Alien existence."
The only filmed "evidence" of Nessie or Bigfoot are from the era of pretty poor and clumsy hand held film cameras, when almost no one had access to them. Now we have billions of people carrying HD camera with them at all times and multiple "expeditions" every year looking to find Nessie and Bigfoot, and yet we have no new video evidence. I think that lack of evidence pushes the odds well down towards the big fat zero end of the scale. UFOs could appear almost anywhere, but Nessie and Bigfoot have much smaller and more specific stomping grounds, Nessie especially and as you say, nothing new or compelling in the way of video or photographic evidence.
"I disagree on principle. Reality is inexplicable."
I disagree on principle. The concept of a god implies a conscious, omnipotent ultimate reality, which is even more inexplicable.
This is the theologian version of "turtles all the way down"; the concept of a god leads to an infinite regress.
This post has been deleted by its author
Replying to myself, I just want to point out that demonstrating that the idea that a god is needed to explain the complexity of reality (aka the Divine Watchmaker argument) is self-contradictory as it leads to infinite regress is part of the 1st year syllabus in theology degrees.
One of the fundamentalists Christians here (sometimes putting the MENTAL in fundamental, I know...).
Just wondering if you'd mind explaining why you believe it "leads to infinite regress"?
God created all. God exists outside of time and matter, is without begining or end. That seems pretty simple and doesn't go back any further. One of the many issues with the Big Bang - everything had to come from absolutely NOTHING, no matter no energy nothing - unless (as another poster mentioned) something from another universe did something to create/spawn our universe.
(I've got to remember to read up on The Big Rip as well - sounds interesting...)
BTW, I've met people with theology degrees. Seems they should spend some time reading the Bible rather than studying people's views on other people's writings on the words of someone who was the 3rd cousin twice removed from someone who once met someone whose uncle thought he once heard the word "Bible". Seems that those with said degrees are at least that far removed from having actually read the Bible! Some certainly have had great trouble understanding basic concepts!
I guess you haven't heard of the Torah, which the bible is only a small part of...
The Torah?
You mean the writings of Moses, the first 5 books of the Tanach? The same Tanach that bears an uncanny resemblance to what Christians call the "Old Testament"?
What in my post makes you think that I've not heard of it?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
