Poll: Which of thes do you find the most depressing/unnerving?
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Not only that, but the fact that we would be the most advanced form of life in existance.Trilligan said:
*brrrrr* Perish the though! XD
We're alone in the universe.
The universe is a pretty darn big place, if we were the only living things it produced, that's pretty sad.
The universe is a pretty darn big place, if we were the only living things it produced, that's pretty sad.
That we're alone, and "intelligent design" is a bunch of a poppycock. Heck, I always feel alone in myself, to the rest of humanity, because of how goddamn complex and broken we are.
None of those upset me, because the only one I can treat as being real is the idea that we're alone. It's not that I'm not open to the idea of other life, but I can only deal with what I can see, and all I can see is us; so someone coming along and telling me other life exists in some varying state of advancement really means nothing to me. This is still the world I have to deal with.
I think I'll go for the cosmic Lovecraftian horrors.
I don't give a crap about being alone in the universe since there are billions of other people here on Earth along with billions upon billions of other fascinating creatures.
I'd rather be alone in the universe than having to share it with giant space squids from beyond the moon.
I don't give a crap about being alone in the universe since there are billions of other people here on Earth along with billions upon billions of other fascinating creatures.
I'd rather be alone in the universe than having to share it with giant space squids from beyond the moon.
I didn't know which one to pick, because the one I like the least is "the universe is teeming with life, a whole lot of it just as advanced as ours".
See, for each of your poll options, the reason we've never detected alien life is because none of it exists and/or wants to contact us. This is good, because the alternative is that alien life that gets as advanced as we've gotten happens a lot, but it always, or almost always, gets destroyed by something. This isn't necessarily cosmic horrors, so I wouldn't pick that poll option - it could be a high frequency of cosmic disasters, like gamma-ray-bursts, or it could be a very high probability for intelligent species to wipe themselves out right about now... or of course it could be just some... Thing. And the scariest part is we don't even know what the danger is, just that it's almost guaranteed to kill us all.
So yeah, your options don't come with that implied guarantee of extinction, so none of them are all that bad.
See, for each of your poll options, the reason we've never detected alien life is because none of it exists and/or wants to contact us. This is good, because the alternative is that alien life that gets as advanced as we've gotten happens a lot, but it always, or almost always, gets destroyed by something. This isn't necessarily cosmic horrors, so I wouldn't pick that poll option - it could be a high frequency of cosmic disasters, like gamma-ray-bursts, or it could be a very high probability for intelligent species to wipe themselves out right about now... or of course it could be just some... Thing. And the scariest part is we don't even know what the danger is, just that it's almost guaranteed to kill us all.
So yeah, your options don't come with that implied guarantee of extinction, so none of them are all that bad.
I'd be disappointed if we were the last remaining life. I wouldn't be sad, but I'd be really disappointed.
So you mean that you don't care because it's not applicable to you, or do you mean that you can't fathom it's existence, or do you mean it is meaningless or unimportant? I don't fully grasp what you're saying.
inb4 Coming across as a douche, I didn't mean it.
That's really, really interesting. I find it hard to visualise how that would feel. I can't really guess how I would feel if I only conceived of things which I can physically see.JimB said:
So you mean that you don't care because it's not applicable to you, or do you mean that you can't fathom it's existence, or do you mean it is meaningless or unimportant? I don't fully grasp what you're saying.
inb4 Coming across as a douche, I didn't mean it.
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I think the worst would be being the last remaining life in the universe, as that would mean that life may end with Earth, and that would be pretty crappy, a universe with no life may as well don't exist at all, but can't say any of them bother me too much.
I don't actually find any of those depressing. Where we come from doesn't matter compared to the fact that we are here. If we're the most intelligent then we can drive evolution of life on other planets towards sentience, and if we're not, then we have a lot to learn from more advanced civilizations. Being alone in the universe would probably be my favourite outcome as this means humanity could essentially act like gods, spreading out across the universe and seeding planets and moons with all sort of interesting GM biology.
The only thing that I'd find depressing is knowing that humanity is doomed to extinction within the next thousand years or something.
The only thing that I'd find depressing is knowing that humanity is doomed to extinction within the next thousand years or something.
That we might be alone and that we hold the position of the most advanced race in the universe. That way there are no other more advanced civilizations that we can hitch a lift on to steal their technology.
What if we're the cutting edge? Stuck on a rock with rapidly diminishing resources and in the arse end of nowhere. Of course by comparison all of the other life on this planet is stupid as hell but at least there's still the possibility of running into something equal or greater in the vast unknown.
What if we're the cutting edge? Stuck on a rock with rapidly diminishing resources and in the arse end of nowhere. Of course by comparison all of the other life on this planet is stupid as hell but at least there's still the possibility of running into something equal or greater in the vast unknown.
Pretty much this (though I'd be sure to qualify it as "what I experience from my first person point of view" rather than just "what I see").JimB said:
It would certainly be nice to have either a deity, nature itself, or something equally embedded in the cosmos to shelter us and keep us company though.
Sometimes I just sit by myself at night and worry about space dolphins.
Not sure what option that counts as.
Not sure what option that counts as.