Do you believe aliens exist and visit our planet Earth?

[Dahlia Babe Ailhad]

It's sunny outside..maybe with some luck, we can spot a UFO or even a unicorn.

Hi CD Sasha,

Yea, i see you. How's about you be CweeDdee and cast a vote for yes or no in the poll.
See, there's a UFO an alien AND a unicorn all in the same shot.

For CD Sasha.jpg Photo by da6is9 | Photobucket

Babe,

xoxo

[Dahlia Babe Ailhad]

Hi everyone,

Whoopie Goldberg: "In the 1967 movie,
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Sidney
Poitier says to his father. 'You think of
yourself as a Negro man and i think of
myself as a man and that's the
difference.' "
"Is that still relevent, today?", Whoopie asks,
and then adds, "I ask you - what ARE we?
Who ARE we?"

Barrack Obama: "Well, we are Americans.
We share common hopes. We share common
dreams. We share common aspirations. We're
going through common struggles. I mean, the
fact of the matter is, is that everybody here,
and i look out of this audience - and it's
representative of the country - everybody here
is connected in some fashion. Uh...and our
success and our children's success...uh...is
tied up...uh...together, and so...i think most
Americans feel that way.

But, what is still true is, is that...uh...there's
still a, kind of, reptilian side of our brain, right?
...i...err...ah...uh...that...that...part of our brain,
that if somebody looks different or sounds different,
that...there's a part of us that is cautious...and...
what we have to do is fight against that - and
that's part of what Shirley (?) was trying to say
in the speech, if you actually read the whole speech,
she was acknowledging, 'I have my own biases based
on my experiences but if i am able to look inward
and reflect, then i can get beyond my biases'.

And that's an exercise that all of us have to
undergo day-in day-out and it's a constant
struggle and...ah...ah...you know, it's something
that...there's nobody in America who doesn't have
to, at some point, think about their own racial
attitudes, but if we do, i think there's no reason
we can't overcome."

Broken down:
Obama: "...if somebody looks different or sounds
different, there's a part of us (the reptilian side
of our brain) that is cautious...and...what we have
to do is fight against that urge to be cautious."

And that answers Whoopie's question, "Who are we?
What are we?" ?

And then, trish awards me with "the dumbest dipshit
on the internet" prize because i merely suggested that
if she was saying that Obama was referring to
neuroscience, that i think she gives him far too much
credit.

Hmm, speaking of using the lowest part of the human
brain, trish, you sure have demonstrated your ability
to do so on several occasions since i've come to HA.
You spare no time to call me disparaging names to
either...make me feel bad about myself?...to stifle my
opinions?...to bully me?...or to just reign supreme as
the most educated?
What could it be? I think all of the above, plus more.

I don't see any awards being handed out, trish.
So, calm down and just be a member like everyone else
who posts their opinions and so forth. Not everything
has to pass before your über judgmental eyes and be
scrutinized as correct or incorrect, worthy or unworthy.

And you highly consider yourself to be a hetaera? I really
fail to see it. You lack in the courtesan department due
to your self-proclaimed higher-than-thou self-esteem.
Your arrogance shines through more than any grace you
try to emit. Substitute prostitute for hetaera and that
shoe will fit your foot much more snugly.

I'm often ask myself, "What is trish's purpose in my threads,
picking apart my paragraphs and looking only for fault
to debate, i mean, if she has such a low opinion of me
and my opinions?" as she clearly seems to.
I see more of an intellectual "bully" who preys on people
with a lesser education for the sole purpose of appearing
highly intelligent and über sophisticated. WOW! You're so
smart, trish!
Calling me "dumbest dipshit", amongst other things you've
called me, is a prime example of your inability to communicate
intelligently and most importantly - gracefully.
Yes, indeed, a prime demonstration of a your uncontrollable
reptilian side of your brain.
Thank you so much for enlightening my ability to see
the real you.
I knew who you were before when i had to read many of
your subtle insults to my intelligence, and your constant "jives"
and "tongue-in-cheek" rudeness, but to stoop to such a low
level is quite...sobering, indeed.
Enough now.
If you do not like the topic of this or any thread, don't
engage in it if only to discredit it and people's comments,
especially mine. Otherwise, you're just trolling.
Imagine that, eh?...YOU, trish the "high-class",
"sophisticated" "hetaera", trolling.
Wow!
My goodness! Your BAD!

I try to prevent my reptilian side of the brain from
causing me to make rash, rude decisions. I try, at least.
Your self-pride is so incredibly high, and your addiction
to always being correct are not personality traits worth
cherishing.
You, trish, are constantly on a hunt to seek out the faults in
others, or is it just me?
I, actually, pity humanity because - we are not all
perfect - and there's you, trish, with your gavel - ready
to judge and even to insult anyone who errs or refuses to
agree with your opinions.
And ready to pat anybody on the back for agreeing with
many of your foolish comments, as you are, also, not
perfect, as you also make errors. Don't think we don't see
them all.
I think many are just too polite to point them out to you.
Maybe many are intimidated by your very sharp tongue.

It would be refreshing to read how someone can point out
an error you've made (and without "accusing" you of it, or
ridiculing you for it) but to just post something that you
didn't think about which proved a point (or a comment) you've
made to be incorrect, and to actually, see you say, "Oh yea,
you're right. I missed that. Thanks", and then see you chuckling
at your error (as we all err and need to laugh at that).
But you can't do that as you need to always be right, and
even at the expense of other people's feelings and their
own self worth.
Is it so important to be correct that you must hurt people's
feelings in trying to prove it?

And even though people don't rub it in your nose, you consider
their grace or politeness towards you as a sign of stupidity
or daftness.
You look at that as an indication that they must have missed
it when they proved you wrong (when actually they didn't
miss it) just because you refused to acknowledge that they
proved you wrong or how you, maybe, spoke too soon
about something.

I have often praised your high level of education, but i can't
offer any praise for your humility as i believe you have very
little for others - unless they agree with WHATEVER (even silly)
notions you offer. You must have been an only child who
always got your way.

The whole triune brain topic that YOU brought up is so
steeped in neuroscience that it's hard to NOT say it's
just that - neuroscience.
You used a neuroscientific term (triune brain) to explain
the reptilian side of the brain in Mr Obama's strange comment,
and you have even dropped names of famous neuroscientists
just to say it's NOT neuroscience. Duh!
I don't care how a metaphor which clearly stems from
neuroscience can become a word or phrase which means
exactly what it is supposed to mean but is now commonly
used in society as a mere metaphor.
It still originated from the study of neuroscience.

So i suppose i do owe Mr. Obama an apology for
underestimating his knowledge of the human mind? He has
it from me. As well as, an apology for my prematurely jumping
to any conclusions about a slip up. I do think that he was
referring to something that stemmed from the study of
neuroscience - the reptilian side of our brain, even if he
perhaps had no idea if he was doing so. YOU brought THAT
to my attention by the mere mention of the triune brain.
lol What a dope.

And, perhaps, i do owe an apology to the readers who
may have been mislead by my error in posting that Obama
video. However, i am a little confused as to why the reptilian
side of our brain was even mentioned when responding to
Whoopie's questions about racism and who and what we
are (as a race of humans, if she referred to humanity as a
whole, or perhaps just Negroes when she said, "we").
Obama, the great orator, seemed to use the reptilian
brain metaphor only to explain how people should refrain
from racism...
"...struggling from being cautious about people who look
or sound different"...
but he didn't address the "who and what are we?" part
of Whoopie's questions. Unless Whoopie, as well as, the
audience and the millions of TV viewers in the USA weren't
very sure of their American nationality, and she and the
whole audience were satisfied to hear him confirm, "We are
Americans."... and so forth and so on.
And Mr Obama's response caused many people's eyebrows
to raise in unison, especially in this day of a soon-coming
alien disclosure, when he commented about the "reptilian"
side of our brain.
He didn't say that WE HAVE a reptilian side, he said,
"...there's still, kind of, a reptilian side of our brain...".
He only "hinted" at it, when it is, in fact, unmistakably there.
That's where, i think, people (me included) became suspicious.
If it's there, say it's there if he knows about the triune brain.

I think i would prefer listening to him with his trusty
teleprompters telling him what to think and say than to
listen to him "winging" it. At least he might make more sense
if what is being said was written by him (or by some "higher
power") well in advance, and was well thought out.
He is, after all, the only president in USA history to use
these karaoke teleprompters like a puppet being controlled
by "invisible" strings.

I possess enough humility to openly admit i was wrong or
that i was ignorant of something that i've never heard
of before.
That does not make me stupid, nor deserving to be called
"the dumbest dipshit on the internet".

Even the mere mention of the triune brain and then further
dividing it up into its three separate components, basel ganglia,
neocortex and reptilian is discussing neuroanatomy - not as
you wrote - human anatomy.

I feel as though you, trish, are, sort of, "competing" with me,
somehow when i am not even competing. You devote a heck
of a lot of time trying to make me look stupid, inadequate
and most importantly, as though i am not very educated.
I am not all that educated, i make no secret of that fact.
However to call me names like the dumbest dipshit on the
internet is very low-level behavior.
If you don't like what i post, i should not have to endure
your abusiveness, and just because i post my opinion should
not make me subject to, or even a "target" for that type
of harsh insult.

I was listening to David Icke lecture on the topic of the
reptilian brain earlier today, and he described you to a tee.
Move the timer to 12:50 and listen to what he says about
reptilian behavior in the human mind. It's how i am beginning
to view you based on your behavior towards me.

And it continues into the next (part 4) video
.

Now, trish, i, actually, like when you step in and say this or
that thing i said is incorrect because it causes me to research
what you've pointed out, and i learn new things - i don't get
all snappy about it. I encourage that.
But lately, i find you really sarcastic, rather hateful and now,
quite directly insulting.
I don't even tolerate that on a working job where i am paid
money to be there to do work.
I've walked out of professional kitchens more than once because
the chefs were like those rude, overbearing chefs who seem
to think that employees, actually, need to be there to endure
the chef's crappy attitude pushed under my nose. I don't need
that from any boss as i would start to hate myself, and i certainly
don't respect that from someone on a forum which is supposed
to be fun and entertaining in my spare time.
It seems this forum is your life as you are always here and
ready to shoot down opinions of certain others you don't like.
Who needs that? You?

Hi everybody,


...I tend to write long posts when i have something to
say, so i hope people like to read a little bit. If not, please
do not read what i write only to complain about it. Move on
to what you like to read. I don't want to bother anyone and
by the same token, i don't want people bothering me...

...I have a long life story, as do most people, i think.
My life has been a real adventure, so far. I'm not sure how
far i will get but i am hopeful - i've made it THIS far, so i'll
keep my fingers crossed (maybe you can all cross yours for
me, as well). I wish nothing but the best for everyone.


...If i want bad attitude and lots of insults, i can simply
visit my family, right?!...

...I am here, mostly, to be noticed; here to flirt; here to
entertain; here to learn from others; here to have fun; here
to express myself - i hope all of that is okay, in here.

...If i don't like things that others have written, i will
not respond negatively...

EDIT (Feb 26, 2015): Unless i am constantly and unnecessarily AND unfairly attacked.

Babe
xoxo,

[trish]

Whoopie Goldberg: "In ah the 1967 movie,
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Sidney
Poitier says to his father. 'You think of
yourself as a as a Negro man and I think of
myself as a man and that's the
difference.' "
"Is that still releven’, today?" I...I ask you - what... what ARE we?
Who ARE we?"

Whoopie is asking whether African/American people today can identify as people or do the inequities to which that 1967 film refer persist and force them today to identify as black? Who are we? People or black people? The subject is racism, prejudice and identity. That is the context in which Mr. Obama responds. He says all citizens have common interests and goals but we still have to overcome our baser instincts (the reptilian side of our brain is the handy metaphor here) to see citizens with ethnicities different from our own as having opposing interests. Whoopie was talking about and Obama was talking about....they were all talking about racism,prejudice and identity, not neuroscience (and definitely not about the alien influences on human brain development which is where you wanted to take this thing).

Just curious: When you transcribed Whoopie’s question you edited out her hems and haws, but did not edit the President’s reply in the same way. Was that deliberate or accidental?

[trish]

Reading back over the last few posts this morning, I realized I wanted to say just a few more things:

Had Mr. Obama said, regarding racial prejudice, that we have to overcome our hardwired instincts to distrust ethnicities other than our own, he would not have been talking about computer science but rather using a by now tired old metaphor that has its origins in a popular conception of the brain that draws on computer science. It certainly would not be evidence that reptilian aliens have been wiring our brains and the President just stupidly let it slip in front of the whole world on The View.

I hope it's really really clear from this post and posts#173, #164, #161 and #154 that I personally think that (in the posted video link) Mr. Obama was not talking about neuroscience and that I said as much in each of the posts just mentioned. Let me put that in the third person for you. From Post #154 on, Trish has been saying that Obama was NOT talking about neuroscience. Let’s review the post that got your tail-feathers all out of whack, #161 wherein I say

Well if you think that I said he was talking about neuroscience (after I explained my point very carefully), then you win the prize for the dumbest dipshit on the internet. I said he was using a well worn, popular metaphor.

Yes, but if you have it out loud, then others have the right to judge your opinion.

If you still think that I said Obama was talking about neuroscience (after I explained my position very very carefully), then you are indeed the dumbest dipshit on the internet.

You bring up a second issue: can one expect to post their opinions in these forums without having those opinions criticized or without being judged for the opinions one holds. I would think not, though ultimately it is in each case a decision left to the monitors. If you do not want to be judged for ill, I advise you to not pollute threads like the one memorializing Oświęcim-Auschwitz or the one memorializing the late Leonard Nimoy with your childish and inappropriate whining...and do try to refrain from drawing your material from anti-semitic websites (as in your painful thread entitled Six million Jews).

[Stavros]

Meanwhile, a rational debate continues. This is from today's Independent and begins:

Searching for life beyond Earth: Scientists debate danger of messages to 'hostile' aliens

It was near Green Bank, West Virginia, in 1960 that a young radio astronomer named Frank Drake conducted the first extensive search for alien civilisations in deep space. He aimed the 85-foot dish of a radio telescope at two nearby, sun-like stars, tuning to a frequency he thought an alien civilisation might use for interstellar communication. But the stars had nothing to say.
So began SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a form of astronomical inquiry that has captured the imaginations of people around the planet but has so far failed to detect a single “hello.” Pick your explanation: They’re not there; they’re too far away; they’re insular and aloof; they’re zoned out on computer games; they’re watching us in mild bemusement and wondering when we’ll grow up.

It continues here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...-10078189.html

[trish]

Thanks for the link to Joel Achenbach’s article in the Independent. The questions he raises (not for the first time) is it wise to signal our presence to the universe in the hopes of being noticed by extraterrestrial technological civilizations and does just anyone have the right to send up that signaling flare given we’re all taking the risk? What makes this an especially interesting question at this time is the fact that over 1800 exoplanets that have been discovered within the last decade and there are probably tens of thousands more that lie within those same distances yet to be discovered.

The article brings up a number of related issues.

One issue is, “Have we already revealed ourselves?” The idea is that before the age of cable and satellite TV, broadcast television and radio have already sent signals into deep space. I think probably not. The nearest exoplanet is on the order of 50 lightyears away. The broadcast signal that originated from Earth fifty years ago is spread out over a sphere a 50 light-year radius. That signal strength is now diminished by factor proportional to the area of that sphere. It would be a quite a feat to discover “I Love Lucy” in a such a weak signal masked by all the noise in the universe. To put it in reverse, I don’t believe we currently have the technology to view a TV show were it broadcast 50 years ago with 1965 broadcast technology on an exoplanet 50 lightyears away. We may have shown our hand, but I rather doubt it.

Would an exoplanetary civilization be hostile? Life as we know it is mindlessly adaptive. Survival adaptations include techniques that exploit whatever mineral and organic resources that are within reach. We have only to look at our own history to see what can happen when civilizations meet. Maybe they’ll want to trade with us, teach and learn. Maybe they’ll want to exterminate us and enslave us. Maybe they’ll want to convert us and rule benignly over us. I think all of these and various combinations of these possibilities are very real –– provided they have the ability to bridge the fifty light-year or more distance between us. Warp drives and wormholes are theoretically possible, mathematically beautiful constructs, but imo they are very likely unrealizable (as they contradict a number of rather reasonable relativistic energy conditions). Traveling at one tenth the speed of light (which is dangerously fast) it would take them over five hundred years to get here. We’ll probably fry ourselves to death under an atmosphere of greenhouse gasses before the first wave of "ambassadors" arrive. The thing that really get my goat is all the free TV those freeloading aliens are getting while I have to pay COMCAST to watch reruns of I Love Lucy.

Even though, in my judgment, the risk is small, I don’t think just anyone by themselves has the moral authority to go ahead and send Moose code to exoplanets with their green laser pointers. I suggest we delegate that authority to a government leader with high intellectual integrity and an intimate knowledge of science –– how about James Inhofe?

[trish]

I don’t think just anyone by themselves has the moral authority to go ahead and send Moose code to exoplanets with their green laser pointers.

See below for illustration of Moose Code.

[broncofan]

Even though, in my judgment, the risk is small, I don’t think just anyone by themselves has the moral authority to go ahead and send Moose code to exoplanets with their green laser pointers. I suggest we delegate that authority to a government leader with high intellectual integrity and an intimate knowledge of science –– how about James Inhofe?

The risk is small that our signal is received by a civilization that can then reach us. However, if they have the technological capability to receive our signals and to travel to our planet within a single lifespan when we're 50 light years away, we should be wary. This would make them many orders of magnitude more advanced than we are. Given what we know about life, would we want to have contact with a species that much more advanced (yes they could teach us a great deal, but there's a greater chance I think they would be antagonistic)? What use have we had for other species we've been able to exploit? Shoes, clothing, food...

[Stavros]

The rational debate continues today in The Independent (full article is here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/scie...oon-Titan.html

This is what alien life might look like, but sorry, not 'Nordic types' possessed of superbrains and an enduring love of Jesus...

How alien life might look on Saturn's moon Titan

Scientists have come up with a cellular lifeform which could exist in the chemical conditions on Saturn's moon Titan

[martin48]

Well, it's life, Jim. But not as we know it".



What "good" will come from advertising our presence to possible aliens?

What "harm" will come from ...?

I can think of some harms but not many goods