Reddit, what is the most powerful image you have ever seen?

tokerjoker11 · 2012-05-26T01:49:58.600561+00:00

Except karma is not real. Our justice system is fucked, but at least it has the benefit of existing.

mepper · 12 days

I'm sorry, perhaps I misread your suggestion of using extremophiles or cyanobacteria, in a mars rover type of contraption putting around on the face of mars. I was trying to take your idea seriously, and seriously address the points you were making about actually having the technology to terraform.

The point I was trying to make was exactly this one: "Obviously we would need to find a form of life that could live on whatever planet we intended to try and terraform." <-- This is very hard. Extremely hard. Hilariously hard.

And this is the EASIEST problem. Your contention that we have (or are close to having) the technology to tackle terraforming is laughable at best.

mepper · 12 days

Extremophiles don't automatically live wherever you put them. They aren't magical super-hero tough bugs. Extremophile is a catch-all name for organisms that live in environments where most of "life as we know it" don't do well. This includes thermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. Those organisms are extremely well adapted to those environments. If you put a thermal vent extremophile on the earth's surface, it will die. Kaput. Same thing for putting some random cyanobacteria (this is a HUGE GROUP of diverse organisms, btw) on Mars.

Once you have that in mind, the rest of your idea pretty much unravels, so I won't go into the rest of it, except to say that creating the organisms to live on Mars is the EASIEST PART. This stuff is REALLY HARD. Waving your hands won't magically defeat the technological and scientific hurdles. In the near future, terraforming is firmly out of our reach.

mepper · 12 days

There is a HUGE LEAP between what Monsanto does (splice resistance to pesticides into existing plants) to making plants that will thrive on Mars. Consider all of the individual steps required. All of the technology to support getting to Mars, having the plants not die along the way, figuring out EXACTLY what it would take for the plants to thrive (this is extremely not easy) and produce what we want (also extremely not easy) while continuing to live and thrive in the radically different environment they've created (final nail in the coffin of extremely hard).

The point of this entire thread is to point out that THIS STUFF IS REALLY HARD and waving your hands and saying, hey, no problem, isn't going to make it magically easy. Which is not to say we shouldn't try, but it's a total non-starter now, or in the near future.

mepper · 12 days

That's an awful lot of ifs, most of which are almost certainly not possible without godlike technology. And even with godlike technology, I would encourage you to do some reading on ecology. It's not really that straightforward to set up a self-sustaining ecology from organisms that are mostly invented without evolution to tune their interactions. On the same note, read about Biosphere-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2.

As for the rest, we really have very few answers about why Earth worked, and the other planets probably didn't. We need to know a HELL OF A LOT MORE about our planet in order to even BEGIN thinking about making another Earth.

mepper · 12 days

Money, of course, is a big obstacle. But while it is certainly a necessary condition, it is not a sufficient condition. Beyond that, you need to assume that, given unlimited money, that the technologies required are, first, possible, and second, actually invented and refined by someone. Just because people can imagine it doesn't automatically make it possible.

mepper · 12 days

No it's really not with our current level of technology. It's the classic "engineering problem" fallacy. In theory, we have ideas about how to do this stuff, but no one has actually tried any of it out, or made any of the specific inventions or technologies required, and even then, our ideas may not work the way we'd hoped, or in the combinations we need.

mepper · 13 days

Be honest now, you have no idea how to do any of the rest of it either.

mepper · 13 days

"Terraforming" isn't actually a thing. It is a science-fiction catch-all for a set of ideas that are wildly unlikely to be possible any time in the near future. Think FTL or Time Travel. Same level of plausibility.

Beartholomew · 14 days

That is some disturbing imagery. Kudos to the artist.

throwawaygirl444444 · 14 days

"Say I'm upset and clearly crying he will never know what to say." Here, you are clearly expecting him to read your mind.

There are PLENTY of mature, adult, non-jerks who honestly don't know what to say when people start crying. If you want him to comfort you while you are crying, go, put your arms around him. He'll hug you back. Problem solved.

Here. Read this. It might give you some tips about how to express your needs to him, clearly, without being a jerk. http://lifehacker.com/5909055/how-to-productively-call-people-out-on-their-bs-without-being-an-asshole

YouD0ntKn0wMe · 14 days

Sorry you're going through this. :(

throwawaygirl444444 · 15 days

It's not that he's not good with words. It's that YOU aren't. He CANNOT READ YOUR MIND. If you're upset, or you want something from him, tell him so. Use your words.

redsoxrule995 · 15 days

This

nicks1205 · 15 days

Whedonesque seems to be down anyway.

ghostofanimus · 22 days

All that's missing is a soul.

OpenEyes21 · 22 days

You'd be horribly, horribly surprised.

sundae14 · 22 days

They are itinerant minstrels and street performers, apparently.

InigoJonze · 23 days

If not for sitting, why is made of warm?

possiblywrong · 24 days

Agree with virtually everything you said. However, I am a bit hesitant to generalize my experience and motivations to the larger population.

My graduate lab (computer science and evolutionary biology) is well populated with successful women, some of whom are girly and some that are not. However, one thing we all agree on is that when trying to figure out how to attract more women to our field, that you shouldn't ask us for advice. We didn't need special attracting, and yet, somehow, here we are. We were all geeky types who motivated ourselves without any special angst or effort, so we have no earthly idea how to motivate girls who don't already share our passions. In that sense, we are exactly as clueless as everyone else about how to get and keep regular girls in our field.

However, for all that we don't know how to fix any of this, we all agree that the efforts to "pink-up" computer science and engineering are at best misguided, and at worst profoundly insulting.

UrinalCakes · 1 month

This may be one of the saddest things I've ever seen. :(

bretflo03 · 1 month

You ate a butt for your family.

Swoopz · 1 month

This thread is so full of win. :D

greenmars · 1 month

Trigger discipline

mrspectaculer1988 · 1 month

Probably drunk now?

voidptr

TROPHY CASE

voidptr

TROPHY CASE

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