My apologies, I was not trying to be insulting, at least not in a serious manner. That comment was made more in a sense of jest, like claiming that being more than happy to do something sounds like a mental condition. A sort of “we’re all in on the joke” (elbowjab-elbowjab) kind of thing. Clearly it was not. I’m not seriously suggesting that cultures worshiping multiple gods were just unable to decide who to worship. As one who is always willing to follow their own standards, I’ll say that an equally valid claim could be made that monotheists, agnostics and atheists are simply too lazy to worship more than one, or any at all. Wouldn’t be serious about that, either.
not sure where you’re getting these percentages/assumptions from, but i do see what you’re getting at; i just think that’s a skew-whiff way of looking at it.
now, i’m no mathmatologist or whatever you call the bean counters at nasa, but it stands to reason that if you increase the number of places life could potentially grow, you’re increasing the chances of life growing to a percentage higher than zero.
from nothing to something (however small) is as appreciable a difference as you can get.
for sure.
Not necessarily. We’re talking about only having a planet; there’s a lot that goes into that planet not only being able to support life, but then actually doing it, and allowing the conditions for intelligent life to rise and then flourish. Having a planet that, just on its composition, taking no other factors into account yet, can potentially support life increases the chances, but not appreciably. Step one is the easiest step in this case, and the chances for the conditions to be met if the following necessary steps occur does increase, but not exponentially; rather, incrementally.
I think there are three separate questions here, each contingent on the previous one.
The first question, does alien life exist, is most assuredly a “yes”. Given the size of the universe (doesn’t matter if it’s local, confirmable, detectable, or anything else really), there is most likely some sort of life somewhere “out there”. I take that as a given.
The second question, whether intelligent alien life exists, is decidedly less probable but depends on the first question. To get intelligent life, we first need any life. From there, it’s a question of evolution to get to intelligence. Was there enough time to evolve? Did some extinction even snuff out the proto-intelligence before it developed? Did all the right conditions exist to get there? All unknowns.
The third question, whether that intelligent life ever visited us (or even if we could ever know about it) is most assuredly a “no”. Here, the vastness of the universe works against the question. Not only would some other form of intelligent life have to exist, it would need to be close enough to be able to detect us, and be around in the blink of an eye that we have been, and be technologically capable of visiting (or even just communicating) and want to do so. All of these bring the probability of any sort of alien visitation or contact to a very small number (not necessarily zero, but pretty close to it).
So all in all, do aliens exist? Most likely. Are they intelligent? Could be, don’t know, can’t say one way or another. Have they visited us? Most likely not and most likely never will.
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So you just got hired as an extra for a horror movie set to be slaughtered. Lucky you! So if you could choose, which of these horror icons would you, as an extra, rather be brutally butchered by?
- Chucky (Child’s Play)
- Pinhead (Hellraiser)
- Jason (Friday The 13th)
- Mike Myers (Halloween)
- Freddy Krueger (Nightmare On Elm Street)
- Jigsaw (Saw)
- Ghostface (Scream)
- Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
- Candyman (in…Candyman)
- I want somebody else to murder me…
0 voters
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Has anyone seen the new Candyman Movie? I think i saw all of the original ones but the only one i can remember is the first one, that was pretty good tho.
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Yeah, I also saw the original ones. Two of my brothers watched the new one and said it was just meh so I stayed away.
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I would say leatherface but I’m afraid I and my family will never mentally recover from that. So I chose Michael Myers.
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Hey, nobody said your family has to watch you get murdered in the movie. 
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i don’t think i explained myself very well.
i’m not talking about only a planet; i mean all the conditions required for life to potentially grow. i’m not focusing on Intelligence either; it wasn’t the thrust of the original post, so i’d like to stick to life in the broadest sense to keep things simple.
so!
if a planet cannot possibly support life, that is a flat 0% chance.
if a planet can possibly support life - and bear in mind we don’t really know all the conditions required for this to occur, so there could potentially be lots more ways for this to happen or fewer than we imagine - then that is a greater than 0% chance.
the difference between 0% and anything higher - especially when we’re talking about something the size of our universe* - is huge, because the more universe there is, the more chances there are that ‘greater than 0%’ planets exist… and there is a lot of universe.*
the chances life does take hold on each planet (or whatever) are unrelated, individual rolls of the dice (which i think is your point?), but the fact there are more possible rolls that can be made at all (as opposed to not be made at all) is not insignificant.
it’s the difference between rolling a dice and not having a dice to roll at all, and that is a big difference by any measure.
*just as a related side note, i don’t think this can be understated: the universe is staggeringly, mind-breakingly, lovecraftianly vast. it’s functionally infinite from our perspective; like our solar system must be to an ant. words or numbers cannot truly express the size of this thing we’re in. we don’t even fully know how big it is, just that it really is stupidly bigmungus.
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Mikey M for me. A simple stabbing will do quite nicely
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When is a stabbing from him ever simple?
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I vote for either the Alien Queen or Lady Dimitrescu because we need more women in STEM (serial killing, terrorism, exorcisms-reqiured, monsters I’d like to mash)
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Damn, I knew I was forgetting a couple of heavyweights. But now that I remember, I’ll go with the Predator. Knowing his preferrence in prey, I’ll likely be some nameless henchman who died shooting, then strung up as a skinless corpse.
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I’d love to get mauled by Ginger Fitzgerald from Ginger Snaps 
Ginger Snaps is my favorite Werewolf Movie and Katherine Isabelle is a very, very attractive Woman, but i swear once she starts wearing those Fangs shes even more attractive.
I have this weird fondness for teeth, idk… 
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I guessing you would want her to take a bite out of you then…or several.
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A man of culture, I see
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You only noticed it now? 
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Surely your ego is big enough already and you don’t need us to acknowledge your greatness and glory EVERY time?
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Not by 47 (he tried).
I wouldn’t mind Dracula or the Swamp Thing.