Ancient Aliens

[YellowSubmarine]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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I don't think humans are 100% extinction-proof, however, I do think we could survive a lot of things that most other species could not. Besides, there are billions of us. Even if you whittle that down to a few thousand, that is a survivable number of people to prevent extinction.

For most extinction scenarios, we've become nearly invincible for the moment being. But one has actually increased substantially with the ease and abundance of travel – a global pandemic. A devastating one is more likely than ever, and it can cripple our civilization to a point where we are vulnerable. It can become difficult to sustain it as it is now, and we can revert by necessity to a more simple way of life where survival is less likely.

Now, you can be optimistic that the memory of the great past, including the surviving physical records and artefacts to support it, will inspire the fallen civilization to rebuild and restore everything, even if it takes many generation to do so. So it should take much much much less time than what it took us to get where we are now (which was not that much to begin with). But you never know...

[cooleddie74]

There was a scientific study done late in the Cold War during the 1980's that postulated that if somebody could construct a thermonuclear device so powerful that its explosive yield would reach or even exceed 50,000 megatons that its detonation on dry land would cause enough of a catastrophic blast effect and global fallout that it would kill every single human being on the face of the planet except those who were in survival bunkers and shelters deep underground and who didn't emerge for at least two to three years after the explosion.

The key point of that being, naturally, that somebody would survive a nuclear war. At the height of the Cold War the cumulative explosive power of all the world's nuclear arsenals was somewhere around 16,000 megatons, less than a third of the power of the theoretical "Mankind Killer" and with the exception of the most dire anti-nuclear activists of the time it was assumed that there would still be a substantial human population on the planet even after the wake of a Cold War nuclear conflagration (albeit one thrown back to the time of the steam engine if not the Dark Ages).

The chances of every single human being perishing short of a major asteroid, meteorite or comet nucleus collision on the scale of or even worse than the Yucatan impact of 65 million years ago are pretty slim. Not impossible, but they're not great.

[Warped9]

BillJ wrote:

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From another board I frequent:

Are we sure this guy ain't related to Londo Mollari? Man, we've made contact with the Centauri!

[publiusr]

You might be on to something.

[Josan]

I found myself wondering the other day who the bigger loon was, The Hair or David Hatcher Childress.

I came to the conclusion it's Childress. I think Tsoukalos is simply in it for the money, he's marketing himself and his show and having a laugh all the way to the bank. I'd be surprised if he honestly beliefs a fraction of what he says. Childress on the other hand, I get the impression he genuinely believes everything he says.

[Lonemagpie]

Warped9 wrote:

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Are we sure this guy ain't related to Londo Mollari? Man, we've made contact with the Centauri!

As post #492 of the thread says:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?...&postcount=492

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I don't really want humanity to go extinct next weekend, but the fact that we eventually will is not particularly troubling.

I mean, given that every single one of us as individuals becomes extinct, what's the big deal?

[DarthTom]

The Castellan wrote:

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And to the ones who believe in the ancient alien theory as I myself do, don't be discouraged by the skeptics and naysayers. Like what Mr. Van Daniken himself said, "there's always going to be skeptic and critics" so to hell with what they say, and stick to your beliefs. Hell, when Copernicus and Galileo talked about the earth going around the sun, the authorities went after their asses. No real differences today....when a topic like this is brought up, there's always going to be venom towards it, but stick to your beliefs, and don't cower from it because the mainstream might get upset at you or ridicule you. Remember, we're in a world, unfortunately, that's so authority driven that they won't believe anything, unless a figure high in authority says it, even though we get lied to and deceived by said authorities....which makes no sense to me......I mean if your best friend sleeps with your girlfriend or boyfriend, you're not gonna still trust the fellow, right? Stand up for your beliefs, cause who's gonna if you don't, yes?

Like you, I find the show interesting. I don't necessarily believe all of their hair brained theories and they defiantly lose me when they start talking about how the Pyramids were ancient Nicholas Tesla like power plants.

However, I think they ask some great questions especially related to how very ancient people were able to move stones in some cases weighing over 100 tons up a mountain without even pulley technology available to them.

For those very critical of the show I really don't find this type of conjecture demonstrably different then the faith that Christians have that Jesus made water into wine and even he brought Lazarus back from death.

Nor is it any different that both Christians and Jews believe that Moses heard "god," speaking from a burning bush and/or he inscribed commandments to be followed onto stone.

Both stories are told both in churches and on television as 100% fact and not to be questioned.

[RAMA]

"Extinct" is a limited term, probably won't have much meaning in the future.

RAMA

[Herkimer Jitty]

You don't say?

[YellowSubmarine]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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I don't really want humanity to go extinct next weekend, but the fact that we eventually will is not particularly troubling.

I mean, given that every single one of us as individuals becomes extinct, what's the big deal?

That the human species will go extinct is no big deal. That the human civilization will go extinct is a bit troubling. Although if we explore all that we could in the universe, there wouldn't be much point to us continuing anyway... One day we might even start repeating ourselves.

Besides, our past is there to be whether we're still there in the future. It is very unlikely that our perception of time matters outside of our universe, thus for an outside observer it is the same whether we stop existing after a certain point in time or a certain point in space – it is therefore our obligation to occupy as much of time and space as possible, but not care much about eternity.

[Balrog]

The Castellan wrote:

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And to the ones who believe in the ancient alien theory as I myself do, don't be discouraged by the skeptics and naysayers. Like what Mr. Van Daniken himself said, "there's always going to be skeptic and critics" so to hell with what they say, and stick to your beliefs. Hell, when Copernicus and Galileo talked about the earth going around the sun, the authorities went after their asses. No real differences today....when a topic like this is brought up, there's always going to be venom towards it, but stick to your beliefs, and don't cower from it because the mainstream might get upset at you or ridicule you. Remember, we're in a world, unfortunately, that's so authority driven that they won't believe anything, unless a figure high in authority says it, even though we get lied to and deceived by said authorities....which makes no sense to me......I mean if your best friend sleeps with your girlfriend or boyfriend, you're not gonna still trust the fellow, right? Stand up for your beliefs, cause who's gonna if you don't, yes?

[cooleddie74]

I was abducted last night at around four in the morning. The commander of Probe Ship 49 instructed me to tell you guys that all your silly Earth theories are dead wrong.

[ITL]

cooleddie74 wrote:

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I was abducted last night at around four in the morning. The commander of Probe Ship 49 instructed me to tell you guys that all your silly Earth theories are dead wrong.

Oh, I'm sure it's quite, quite safe...

[Admiral Buzzkill]

There's no face on Mars. "Ancient Alien theorists" appearing in the media are idiots, con men and loonies. Von Daniken is a crackpot and the entire premise that extraterrestrials were responsible for a single thing we know about the history of this planet is moronic beyond belief, pabulum for the credulous.