Posts by Jessica Gonzalez

Here it is officially: 7 Wonders of the World

Walter Grant5 said:Officiality—just so we don't confuse it with actual service.

Mostly yeah, just so there's some kind of authority behind something like the 7 Wonders of the World. I mean, nobody owns those. Plus, terms like "wonder" or "world" are pretty abstract and loosely defined.

I’d call official info something like when a pro athlete signs with a club and it's confirmed by the team owners or a spokesperson. Throwing undefined concepts into undefined categories isn't what I'd call an official confirmation. Nobody has authority over vague concepts that aren't even tied to specific organizations that could issue an official statement anyway.

Is Pluto a planet, btw?

Not really. He’s like a tiny planet, maybe something along the lines of Lionel Messi.

Walter Grant5 said:why aren't the Terracotta Warriors on the updated list of the 7 Wonders of the World?

It’s a fair question, I guess, but since there isn't actually an official list, you could probably just put one together yourself.

Please.

I honestly have no idea when you guys find the time to catch up on these shows. It’s almost like nobody actually has a job or anything to do! I guess I finally managed to finish S01 of Boardwalk Empire, but only because I was sent on a two-month business trip and didn't really have any responsibilities outside of work.

mp4 said:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLl5...nnel=ManUnited

cool 🙂

I've been to plenty of similar attractions, and I guess roller coasters are pretty great. But this is all about those intense G-forces, so maybe I'd really like to try this out.

I guess the Republican Party really shot themselves in the foot with this whole veteran situation.

Just business as usual.

Robin Fox2 said:Ivica "maybe decisively" Racan certainly showed more backbone than this current clown running the show... Just call in the National Guard, clear out the square, and be done with it. Since you’re going to lose the election anyway, you might as well show some actual grit for once...

I guess I don't see why they would lose the election? It's not like the Republican Party is offering anything fresh or better, right? So, both sides will probably fight for every single vote. If riots had broken out last night, it would have been right when we were finally getting some decent economic news this morning. The Republican Party doesn't really have any winning cards besides picking fights with veterans. It feels similar to what happened back in 2003, when they rallied the whole country around Norac and Gotovina, only to sideline them once they took power. That seems pretty wrong to me. I mean, what kind of promises can they actually make when the GDP sank so much during their terms? Saying they are leaders is a bit like saying a young Pedro is the driving force behind FC Barcelona. Instead of taking responsibility for the scandals and trying to fix their reputation and the country's image, they're running a campaign on the streets with veterans. And then there's someone like Šuker calling out ministers over taxes and the economy—the same type who introduced that crisis tax that hit all the workers' paychecks without achieving anything. I still remember those paystubs from back then... that "crisis tax."

James Anderson5 said:Honestly, Peter Thompson4, if you ask me, most theories like Daniken's are on the same level as David Icke or those lizard people conspiracies. That said, it doesn't mean everything can be explained away—I actually find the story about the Dogon pretty fascinating. They're a tribe in Africa with creation myths that align surprisingly well with modern theories about the universe's origin, including specific details about Sirius B and its surrounding system that would have been scientifically impossible for them to know back then...

On the other hand, what kind of evidence could even survive that long? I mean, will our modern skyscrapers or cars even last this long?

And science is such a tricky thing; it doesn't really help us grasp the meaning or essence of life, just how to master our surroundings and explain how things work. It’s interesting that Popper told Einstein that science is just one paradigm for viewing the world, not necessarily the absolute truth. Even Schopenhauer noted that Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism reached conclusions similar to Western philosophy and science up to his time, even though they started from completely different places...

For instance, I was just reading in an American journal about experiments trying to derive matter directly from light. When you look at the creation stories in many religions, they often say it all started with light before the material world was formed...

I don't think they're interesting because there really isn't any evidence or even a hint of proof. It feels like just some random lies from someone on the internet. I could easily claim there's evidence of a volcano erupting in Washington, D.C., just because I smelled something like gas near my local ExxonMobil yesterday by the Prečka area.

And the Dogon are a nice culture, but their knowledge of space and science is probably about as deep as the LA Galaxy's knowledge of the playoffs in Europe.

brightpilot6 said:Living through the Centim era ☕

It seems like Centim will stick around longer than Blatter stays in power. I guess even Hawking couldn't calculate how much longer he might last.

Jesse Sullivan5 said:Is it actually a must-watch, though?

I guess so, if you're looking for somewhere to hide out in a church.

brightpilot6 said:Perhaps life was simpler back in the Middle Ages, when you could just assume the entirety of human wisdom rested in the hands of some gluttonous, corrupt priest. Back then, the curve of total human knowledge likely moved with the same sluggishness we've seen in the U.S. GDP over the last few years. So, even if you were a sharp individual with access to all the available resources of that era, I doubt you would ever feel the urge to slit your wrists over missing out on future breakthroughs.

The real issue arises now, precisely because we know that knowledge is expanding exponentially. A single year today carries the weight of two centuries from the medieval period. Within the next decade, we will likely experience a leap comparable to everything that happened between 1900 and 2000. What happens in a hundred years, or a thousand? We might be just a few human lifetimes away from the possibility of uploading our consciousness into some digital medium—standing mere millimeters from the finish line in this cosmic marathon—yet we won't be around to witness it. And that’s to say nothing of all the other miracles; just imagine what our grandparents would have thought if someone had handed them an iPhone during their childhood.

Ultimately, my point isn't about the quality of daily life, but rather those profound, heavy questions for which we probably won't live to find the answers.

My grandmother is over 90, so she doesn't deal with smartphones much.

Regarding that cosmic marathon, I guess you have to wonder: what is the actual goal?

bluebison47 said:Well, moving on from that to this—and we were just talking about movies a second ago—I have this nagging, heavy feeling, I guess, that I’ve seen a scene exactly like this before in some movie or maybe a TV series. It was one of those things where someone was supposed to be getting arrested, and then the guy just ducks into a church and, well, damn, 🤣

I think it might be Steven Seagal, maybe in that movie where he plays Nick.

I think the biggest clowns are people like Michio Kaku, who predicts flying cars and teleportation within ten years, while 90% of Africa still lacks basic indoor plumbing.

brightpilot6 said:Honestly, we barely grasp the fundamental mechanics of the universe; you can read some amateurish primer on quantum physics or watch something like this and still feel completely lost. It’s one thing to run calculations, but actually grasping the practical reality of Einstein’s theories? That's another matter entirely. We can crunch numbers all day, but deep down, we don't truly understand a damn thing, with a few rare exceptions.

In my view, hunting for life that looks just like us is perhaps the most primitive way to search, a simple byproduct of our own perceptual limitations. "Others" could be living right here alongside us, yet we lack the biological hardware to detect them, much like how we are naturally blind to the viruses swirling through the air around us at any given moment.

There is something deeply unsettling about the realization that we will all pass away with an understanding of our place in this cosmos that is closer to the guesswork of a newborn than to actual, total knowledge. I often find myself gripped by a sense of dread when I dwell on that thought.

I don't really get the chills from that; if anything, I feel the opposite. For millions of years on Earth, life was completely unintelligent from a human perspective—dinosaurs were the dominant large species for nearly 200 million years. Just to give some context, most extinct and living human species have existed for only about 2 million years, which is just one percent of the era the dinosaurs ruled! One damn percent. And that unintelligent life, where dinosaurs just laid eggs and ate grass or each other in perfect balance with nature, was untouched for so long. Romantics from the FC Barcelona camp might call it an untainted era of beautiful life. They didn't know what was over the next hill, and they probably didn't care. Nowadays, we waste time on forums and screens dreaming about multiverses we'll never see, wasting lives in wars, or killing animals not for food but out of greed. How can that possibly be better than the romance of the Mesozoic? I'm not sure if intelligent beings are the pinnacle of evolution. Maybe we're just a very powerful, creative, ambitious, and dangerous anomaly. When they eventually find other life, I hope it's just bacteria or some kind of "tullyans" from another planet.

I guess all of that just had something to do with those ancient astronaut theories; they're just extremes. There wasn't some outside hand helping us along, either—thousands of generations worked incredibly hard through blood and sweat to get us to where we are today, under this triple crown.

Based on what I’ve picked up over the years, I guess it isn't just about how many planets are out there. It feels more like life is driven by chemistry, which relies on a handful of simple compounds that we know are scattered all throughout the universe. We've even found the building blocks for organic molecules on things like space debris or comets, not to mention water being everywhere. So, maybe life is actually pretty common since those same elements will likely trigger similar processes wherever they turn up.

I suppose I agree that if they knew how to hunt mammoths collectively without firearms, they definitely had some level of coordination down. However, the idea that they understood astronomy better than we do today with all our high-tech gear feels like a bit of a stretch to me. It seems like a myth pushed by someone on American television trying to sell themselves as an expert.

I think most people struggle with their sense of time, honestly. It makes it pretty tough to wrap your head around the distant past when you don't have the right context. When scientists discuss human evolution—which is actually what I'm reading about in a book right now—they date evidence using methods that have a margin of error of a few thousand years. This means any talk about how advanced prehistoric technology or knowledge was is based on estimates that could swing by several millennia in either direction. Meanwhile, in our world, just a few generations of mobile phone tech can change in less than twenty years! Then you hear people insisting there's no way the Egyptians built the pyramids on their own, claiming they "just couldn't do it without outside help or heavy machinery." But their civilization lasted for thousands of years, built by people who were just as intelligent as we are today. If a group of people can build a skyscraper now, then a skilled, educated group could have done the same 4,000 years ago. Neither happened overnight. I guess because of this skewed perception of time, it’s hard for people to realize that centuries of learning likely preceded those massive constructions. It's much like how we didn't jump straight to skyscrapers after living in small houses; there was a long progression.

James Anderson5 said:The ones from BBC Horizon and PBS are the absolute best, followed by the others...

Movies are great, but it would be even better if people actually debated what they read. It feels like 99% of the people I know either don't read at all, or they skim something like a Dan Brown thriller and suddenly think they're intellectuals...

Yeah, Horizon definitely has a reputation for quality, but I suppose how much I enjoy an episode really depends on the topic. Plus, Horizon feels a bit like a testing ground for new ideas that might not be fully proven yet. Personally, I find the health segments hosted by Michael Mosley to be the best, though the space ones—which I usually prefer—can sometimes feel a little slow. Brian Cox’s "Wonders of..." documentaries are amazing, though. He’s such an enthusiast with so much knowledge. He occasionally pushes a theory that only he believes in, but he just rolls with it. I feel like the British really nail this; they focus on solid, practical science. Americans seem to lean too hard into that spectacular, high-drama style centered on catastrophes. To me, that feels a bit superficial and Hollywood-lite.

Personally, I think I just need documentaries from the BBC—well, more specifically, their series.

1) BBC - Blue Planet
2) BBC - Planet Earth
3) Michael Palin - Pole to Pole

As for scripted shows, I don't really have any recommendations. I've watched plenty, but I guess I just appreciate it most when they focus on the real world; sci-fi and fantasy feel a bit too much like mere playthings to me.