What did Star Trek teach you INCORRECTLY?

[PR109]

What are even the chances of another world providing humanoid life? I know the universe is vast and endless but it seems like we are most likely to see aliens like the Horta or even 8472 than aliens with primate like physiologies like Klingons, Bajorans, Vulcans and Cardassians. They are all warm blooded, have body hair and lactate. Too much of a coincidence. They explain the genetic similarities in The Chase but it's always been unrealistic.

 

[Greg Cox]

What are even the chances of another world providing humanoid life? I know the universe is vast and endless but it seems like we are most likely to see aliens like the Horta or even 8472 than aliens with primate like physiologies like Klingons, Bajorans, Vulcans and Cardassians. They are all warm blooded, have body hair and lactate. Too much of a coincidence. They explain the genetic similarities in The Chase but it's always been unrealistic.

Ah, but did you ever truly believe that the universe was overrun with humanoids?

There's a big difference between what STAR TREK told us and what we actually learned from it.

 

[Discofan]

Assuming there are other species in the Universe that have reached a technological stage, it's very unlikely that they'll look like us. On Earth duplications are rare and they usually concern one single characteristic. For example, all mammals are related and descend in fact of a single species, same thing for vertebrates, and before that for four-legged animals...etc... So just imagine how unlikely it would be to find somewhere else evolved beings who would be similarly mammalian, vertebrates and four-legged ( four-limbed in fact). It's likely that they will be very different from us in at least one of these characteristics. As for interplanetary reproduction, it's laughable. Not only genetically but also it's likely that these beings will seem repulsive to us, just as a giant spider, a snail, an octopus, a crab or an insect would be. That's probably the most ridiculous aspect of ST.

 

[jmidnight_99]

What are even the chances of another world providing humanoid life? I know the universe is vast and endless but it seems like we are most likely to see aliens like the Horta or even 8472 than aliens with primate like physiologies like Klingons, Bajorans, Vulcans and Cardassians. They are all warm blooded, have body hair and lactate. Too much of a coincidence. They explain the genetic similarities in The Chase but it's always been unrealistic.

Ancient aliens "seeding" the galaxy with DNA is no more or less unrealistic than any other theory of life... "Panspermia" is a valid scientific hypothesis:

"In April 2018, a Russian team published a paper which disclosed that they found DNA on the exterior of the ISS from land and marine bacteria similar to those previously observed in superficial micro layers at the Barents and Kara seas' coastal zones. They conclude "The presence of the wild land and marine bacteria DNA on the ISS suggests their possible transfer from the stratosphere into the ionosphere with the ascending branch of the global atmospheric electrical circuit. Alternatively, the wild land and marine bacteria as well as the ISS bacteria may all have an ultimate space origin."

"In November 2019, scientists reported detecting, for the first time, sugar molecules, including ribose, in meteorites, suggesting that chemical processes on asteroids can produce some fundamentally essential bio-ingredients important to life, and supporting the notion of an RNA world prior to a DNA-based origin of life on Earth, and possibly, as well, the notion of Panspermia"

This theory has been around for a while... probably where "The Chase" got it's inspiration in the first place.

 

[Mytran]

Panspermia simply suggests that the original proteins which gave way to cellular life may have originated on another world: It does not suggest that lifeforms on Earth evolved with any particular body plan in mind though, which is the incredibly unrealistic aspect of the episode.

 

[Discofan]

...
"In November 2019, scientists reported detecting, for the first time, sugar molecules, including ribose, in meteorites, suggesting that chemical processes on asteroids can produce some fundamentally essential bio-ingredients important to life....

There is more distance between sugar molecules and the simplest form of life than there is between a stone-knife and a computer. Finding amino acids or sugar in an asteroid is light years away from finding a bacteria.

Panspermia is extremely unlikely. Sure we got meteorites from Mars, but Mars and Earth are practically touching compared to the nearest extra-solar planet. And planets that are in the goldilocks zone of all essential parameters are extremely rare. The closest one could be thousands of light-years away.

 

[jmidnight_99]

There is more distance between sugar molecules and the simplest form of life than there is between a stone-knife and a computer. Finding amino acids or sugar in an asteroid is light years away from finding a bacteria.

Panspermia is extremely unlikely. Sure we got meteorites from Mars, but Mars and Earth are practically touching compared to the nearest extra-solar planet. And planets that are in the goldilocks zone of all essential parameters are extremely rare. The closest one could be thousands of light-years away.

You should let those scientists and astronomers know about this...

 

[Discofan]

You should let those scientists and astronomers know about this...

Which ones? The ones who advocate panspermia or the ones that are still searching for Noah's Ark?

 

[STR]

Please give me one example how a computer can "become" trapped in a "recursive cycle"

Def enternalLoop():
while true:
eternalLoop()

You could also toss in a line about factoring ever increasing prime numbers until the thing freezes or dies. I mean, if you can't #### up a computer in less than ten lines of code, I question what kind of programmer you are. They're dumb as ####.

 

[jmidnight_99]

Def enternalLoop():
while true:
eternalLoop()

You could also toss in a line about factoring ever increasing prime numbers until the thing freezes or dies. I mean, if you can't #### up a computer in less than ten lines of code, I question what kind of programmer you are. They're dumb as ####.

Now, this isn't "becoming" trapped in a "recursive cycle", this is writing an errant program that intentionally puts the computer (or at least one process) in an endless loop. It's a programming error, and not what we were talking about.

What we were really talking about was putting a computer, most likely some AI, into an endless recursive loop by telling it something like: "This sentence is false". This would presumably cause the thing to melt down because If "this sentence is false" is true, then it is false, but the sentence states that it is false, and if it is false, then it must be true, and so on.

 

[jmidnight_99]

Which ones? The ones who advocate panspermia or the ones that are still searching for Noah's Ark?

I guess just all of them... you can tell them where they're going wrong.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I’m not sure it’s that unlikely that other planets races are the basic shape as us.

How do you know the reason we developed abstract reasoning isn’t that the two legs, two arms form isn’t the optimal form for developing such traits?

Now the odds we can reproduce with those aliens is much lower.

 

[STR]

Now, this isn't "becoming" trapped in a "recursive cycle", this is writing an errant program that intentionally puts the computer (or at least one process) in an endless loop. It's a programming error, and not what we were talking about.

All real world programs are errant. It's why hacking is a thing. And if you think your software is perfect, guess what? The hardware is made of Swiss cheese.

What we were really talking about was putting a computer, most likely some AI, into an endless recursive loop by telling it something like: "This sentence is false". This would presumably cause the thing to melt down because If "this sentence is false" is true, then it is false, but the sentence states that it is false, and if it is false, then it must be true, and so on.

Sounds like the system didn't sanitize its inputs. Which...yeah...hilarity will ensue the moment you expose that app to the world. Hey, at least it didn't start spouting alt-right race hate

 

[Vger23]

Star Trek taught me that the base of intelligent, sensitive fans who so passionately follow the franchise are dedicated to the ideals of tolerance and diversity.

That was incorrect unfortunately.



https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/wilson-cruz-quits-social-media.303047/

 

[jmidnight_99]

I’m not sure it’s that unlikely that other planets races are the basic shape as us.

How do you know the reason we developed abstract reasoning isn’t that the two legs, two arms form isn’t the optimal form for developing such traits?

Now the odds we can reproduce with those aliens is much lower.

I still wanna get me one of them Klingon wimmen.

 

[Discofan]

That earthlike planets are as common as dirt...

That you can go on any planets or even moons for that matter without any kind of breathing equipment, let alone an EV suit. In one episode we see Riker and team go down on a planet where there are toxic gas emanations and they don't take any kind of precautions, they even have trouble beaming them back. I think that breaks the foolish barrier...

EVEN if we find planets with life on them, it's likely that we won't be able to breathe their atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere has changed considerably since life appeared on it. A hundred million years ago it contained twice as much oxygen as it does today.

 

[Forbin]

Right? You can go anywhere in the galaxy without even wearing a jacket.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Star Trek taught me that the way to tow a barge into a sun is to tow it towards the sun and then let go

 

[Kor]

Star Trek taught me that humanity can rise above barbarism and savagery and be better than all that.

Kor

 

[Discofan]

Star Trek taught me that humanity can rise above barbarism and savagery and be better than all that.

Kor

That would be a first. Each time when it looks like democracy is on the right track, the nazis (or people like them) are making a come back.