omw_68
4d ago
but the Stelliferous Era (the era of stars) is expected to last 100 trillion years. The universe is 13.8 billion years old. 13.8 billion / 100 trillion = 0.000138. We are at the first 0.0138% of time when life could have conceivably formed; suspiciously early.
My issue with this calculation is that it more or less assumes that the rate of loss of free energy is roughly constant throughout this time period. How much of the negentropy from the Big Bang has been used up already? My instinct is that it's significantly more than .0138% but of course I'm not a physicist so I have no idea.
I don't know about the Milk Way specifically
I think this is a more important issue because the Fermi argument is much stronger if it's limited to the Milky Way Galaxy. Because most galaxies in the Observable Universe are so far away that they are unreachable even on the order of 100s of millions of years of Von Neuman probe and/or colonization wave activities.
omw_68
4d ago
If intelligent life is so hard, why is the universe so young? If intelligent life was so improbable, you would expect an intelligent civilization to find itself in a much older universe, because it would take a long time for the cosmic rolls of the dice to produce something like us. That's not what we see.
Well, assuming that the Universe's starting level of free energy/negentropy/whatever you want to to call it was E; and it's on track to end up at some epsilon, how much of the journey have we made? Are we at 0.99E?
Same question, except limited to the Milky Way Galaxy?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but if the Milky Way Galaxy is at 0.99E, then yeah, I would have to agree it's an indication that intelligent life is very probable in some general sense.
omw_68
4d ago
I think this might be counterproductive. I think maybe a 7/10 can fly under the radar, but is still cute enough to get a guy's attention.
Yeah, I think few men can resist the attention of a young woman who is cute (but not stunning) and who manifests strong romantic interest in them. Probably it doesn't hurt that a lot of these honeytrap agents are trained to be great in bed.
omw_68
4d ago
I half wonder if Alice isn't a double agent.
Yeah, at a minimum there's a pretty good chance she is an unwitting double-agent. The FBI and CIA are surely well aware that the CCP uses honeytrap agents and it seems highly likely that they keep tabs on prominent men to see if they are having relations with likely honeytrap agents.
omw_68
4d ago
No, as i said in my own reply, if there were a civilization comparable in sophistication to Renaissance Italy 150 light years away from us right now how would we even know?
I would go with the basic Fermi argument on this. If development of intelligent life is so likely as to produce intelligent civilizations that close to use in space and time, then almost certainly there would have been either Von Neuman probes or a colonization wave (from other intelligent civilizations) passing through our solar system hundreds of millions of years ago. And we don't see these things.
So we wouldn't specifically detect the hypothetical civilization you propose, but we can be pretty confident that it's not there.
omw_68
5d ago
You are making couple of assumptions here. That Von Neumann probes are possible and easy. That may not be the case.
Of course I agree -- it's possible that there are unanticipated hurdles which are extremely hard to overcome. Still, the current Voyager probes from the 70s are chugging along at c/20,000; AI is improving at an astonishing rate; and with that in mind, Von Neuman probes which can travel at c/1000 seem pretty likely to me.
Even if the maximum speed for an expansion wave is c/10,000 (double the speed of a Voyager probe), if intelligent life were as dense as your scenario assumes, I would be pretty astonished if none of it had made it here.
In any event, you don't really know whether dust and rocks are part of the distance filter you described so it kind of undercuts your argument.
omw_68
5d ago
Why should we agree on the exact opposite of what I just said?
Well, I'm not sure what you meant by "full to the gills" There are about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. If approximately 1 in 100 galaxies have intelligent life, that's 20 billion different species. I had assumed that by "full to the gills," you meant something like that -- lots and lots of species but very few in the same galaxy. My mistake, sorry.
We may have 1000 human level civilization in 10k ly radius and not many ways to detect them.
I would have to disagree with this based on the basic Fermi argument. If intelligent life is sufficiently likely that there are 1000 human level civilizations within 10,000 light years, it's reasonable to be pretty confident that it happened many many times in the past 200 million years that civilizations emerged within 10,000 light years which were capable of sending out Von Neuman probes and/or a colonization wave at speed of c/1000 or more. Which means they had plenty of time to reach our solar system. Thus the question: Where are they?
omw_68
5d ago
Distance. Distance is the great filter. Both K2 and K3 civilizations require new physics. And there is scant reason to believe that there exist one. if we are stuck with the absurdly low speed of causality of 300000km/s the universe may be full to the gills with life and we won't be able to detect it.
Can we agree that in this scenario, we are probably alone in the Milky Way?
omw_68
5d ago
Did you literally not read what he just said?
No, I did not not read it. i.e. I read it. Are you saying I missed something important? I certainly misread things now and then so please feel free to point out.
Estimations that there should have been hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other intelligent species were probably way too high, which means that there is no need to invent some "great filter" to explain why they aren't there.
If by "great filter" you mean future great filter, then I tend to agree with you.
omw_68
5d ago
But this in turn debunks the great filter arguments people(mainly liberals) make about all sorts of pet issues-
I'm sure I'm not the first person to make this argument, but if the Great Filter is ahead of us, we're in deep trouble. It's not a problem that's going to be solved by cutting carbon emissions or pausing AI development for 6 months or implementing a worldwide North Korea style police state. It's something that's wiped out every last one of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other intelligent species, including species which were well aware that they potentially faced a Great Filter.
omw_68
5d ago
Assuming you want to defend the legitimacy of Israel, I can piece together some of what you think makes a state more legitimate. For one you wanted to establish that there were less non-Jews in the area rather than more, 100 years ago.
I wanted to correct your misrepresentation regarding Palestine being "crowded" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So to the extent you are guessing at my criteria, you are actually guessing at your own criteria.
Anyway, you are the master of your post. You can define the word "legitimate" any way you like. I would just ask that you make your definition and criteria clear and consistent. As far as I can tell, you haven't done this as of yet.
You did almost that.
No I didn't. The record is clear that I didn't. What happened is that you made a counter-accusation that you were being automatically accused of antisemitism due to your attack on Israel. This is a very common claim and certainly in my case it's not true. In fact I didn't say you were motivated by anti-Semitism until you asked me about your motivations.
I also discussed the legitimacy of the United States. I did not single out Israel.
Here's one of the things you said in your original post:
There is nothing new or elevated about Israel. What is the higher purpose?
You didn't say that about the United States. Moreover, the original post was primarily focused on Israel. In your brief mention of the United States, you introduced it as "Israel's greatest ally, or should I say its uncle, old Samuel"
I thought it would be less of a mindkiller than talking about a Western state that people here live in.
In my opinion, this claim is highly suspect. Obviously the topic of Israel is a huge culture war issue.
It was unproductive, but on principle you should not call me an anti-semite because of it; that is bad.
To be absolutely clear, you asked me about your motivations and I answered your question with my best and most reasonable hypothesis. I did so in a polite fashion and I presented the evidence for my conclusion. I can't think of any way to answer your question in a way that's less antagonistic.
What are your standards then?
What difference does it make? If I had claimed that Israel was "legitimate" (or "not legitimate") it would be reasonable for you to ask me what criteria I was using. But I am pretty sure I have not made any such claim. If you want to quote me where I have made (or you think I have made) such a claim, I will try to clarify it.
When I say that "I'm far more interested in teasing out clear consistent standards for legitimacy," I'm referring to the standards of people who claim (or imply) something regarding Israel's legitimacy. As far as I am concerned, anyone is free to define that word any way they like provided they are clear and consistent about their definitions and criteria.
omw_68
5d ago
What is the point in calling anyone who criticizes Israel an anti-semite?
Say what? You explicitly asked me what I thought your motivations were. I answered your question and supplied the evidence.
I should also note that your post contains a straw man. The idea that I automatically use the label "anti-Semite" for anyone who criticizes Israel. Which, of course, is untrue.
Rather it seems we're doing the thing where if I judge someone it must mean that I hate them.
Again, a straw man. It's the way you single out Israel and exhibit bias against Israel (and Jews) as outlined above. It's Occam's Razor.
omw_68
5d ago
omw_68, to the same line: «I agree, but I think it's worth keeping in mind that "might makes right" is difficult to get away from.»
To be clear, what I was agreeing with was your characterization of @Bartender_Venator 's argument.
In this thread, I'm pretty sure I haven't taken any position on whether "might makes right" is what gives a state legitimacy. I'm far more interested in teasing out clear consistent standards for legitimacy.
FWIW, I genuinely don't think that a Muslim state in Palestine would be much better. I think it would be more peaceful, certainly, and that Israel is a massive destabilizing power in the region,
Given the situation in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria, I strongly disagree with this claim.
As for my motivations, what? I actually don't care much about this topic, rather I am using it as a vehicle for philosophy and I am disappointed that it summoned people who absolutely refuse to entertain philosophy and demand instead to assert how awesome it would be for Israel to invade Cairo or exactly how many Jews there were in the region in 1920.
What are going to say, that I'm Muslim? That I'm a progressive? That I'm a Nazi? None of these are accurate.
Since you asked the question, I will try to answer as nicely as I can: In my opinion, you are an obvious anti-Semite. It's the most parsimonious explanation for various items, including the following:
-
The Big Coincidence: Of all the countries in the world, you just happen to focus on Israel;
-
The Coy Attack: You attack Israel's legitimacy but insist your argument has no bearing on modern Israel. When you are asked if this means your argument is purely academic, you sidestep the question. Obviously you want to attack modern Israel while denying you are doing so. According to you, you are just philosophizing.
-
The Land Ownership double-standard: You refer to Palestine as "Muslim land," implying that it somehow is that property of Muslims. You don't refer to any area as "Jewish land" in this way.
-
Diminishment of anti-Semitic persecution: You refer to Israel as a "vanity" state, completely ignoring the aggressive persecution of Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries; the fact that it was difficult and later impossible for Jews to immigrate to the United Sates; and the fact that lots of Jewish refugees were sent to Palestine as displaced persons after World War II.
-
Holding Israel to Impossible Standards: You claim that there is "nothing new or elevated about Israel," that it lacks "higher purpose" And yet refuse to identify any other states which meet this standard and refuse to concede that approximately 0% of the world's states meet that standard.
Applying Occam's Razor, I see only one reasonable conclusion. (Well, either that or you are just trolling, in which case: Bravo!)
ETA: By the way, I think that a lot of anti-Semites are not consciously aware of it. It's sort of like Leftist news reporters who genuinely think they are reporting on things objectively.
I'd say so yes,
So if I understand you correctly, in any situation where a state is founded with the consent of whatever power occupied its land previously, the new state inherits any moral culpability for the granting power's conquest. Right?
We are all guilty for letting things stand as they are, and for the meekness of the US bodypolitic, with our balls firmly held by aipac.
I'm not going to respond to this as I perceive it as an off-topic jab.
omw_68
6d ago
This is not the gotcha you think it is, it merely implicates the British as well as the [I]sreali state.
Well, in a hypothetical world where the British never came in but it was the Ottomans who left in 1948 and agreed to a Jewish state, would you say that this implicates the Ottomans as well as the Israeli state?
omw_68
6d ago
Of course, the Israelis don't support such a solution because they don't want the right to live in the West Bank, they want to dominate the West Bank by removing the Palestinians entirely.
I disagree, I think that different Israelis think differently about the best approach to J & S. The main concern, of course, is that if Israel ends the occupation, then the same thing will happen in J & S that happened in Gaza -- they will end up with a terrorist quasi-state on their border.
But this is kind of a silly post because no Israeli settler is showing up with a legitimate land deed purchased voluntarily,
I disagree, but let's do this: If I can show you 3 instances of Jewish settlers moving into property either (1) under color of a voluntary deed; or (2) into formerly unoccupied Ottoman lands, will you concede you are wrong?
omw_68
6d ago
The 1922 census did not cover Transjordan at all
Thanks for pointing it out. In any event, your figures contradict your claim that the area was "crowded Muslim land" at the time. 757,000 is about 7 percent of the current population of Israel.
I'm still not sure what your point is though.
Are you saying that due to the Muslim super-majority in British Mandatory Palestine, the entire Mandate belonged to Muslims in some sense, even areas which had been predominantly Jewish?
Are you saying that Muslim control of the entire Mandate area was preferable to any other state of affairs, such as the existence of a Jewish state on a modest percentage of the Mandate area with the rest of the Mandate being under Arab (or Muslim) control?
omw_68
6d ago
Thanks for posting this. Probably it's worth noting that in 1922, British Mandatory Palestine was far far bigger than 1948 Israel. It included what is now Jordan; Gaza; and J & S.
That being said, I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that due to the Muslim super-majority in British Mandatory Palestine, the entire Mandate belonged to Muslims in some sense, even areas which had been predominantly Jewish?
Are you saying that Muslim control of the entire Mandate area was preferable to any other state of affairs, such as the existence of a Jewish state on a modest percentage of the Mandate area with the rest of the Mandate being under Arab (or Muslim) control?
omw_68
6d ago
As for your question:
You haven't answered my question. I am asking you exactly what would have been preferable to the founding of Israel given the situation in Palestine in 1948. What should have happened in your view?
I will not be called an « Israel-hater », that is a slur.
You seemed to be admitting it above. However I edited my post a bit.
You are being an activist, you want to funnel the discussion into where you're comfortable and you want a win for your country
That's interesting, because I have a lot to say about your motivations but in the interest of civility I will refrain.
All of your questions can be answered by you re-reading the OP a few times.
I completely disagree, but if you wont' answer, you won't answer.
Cheers.
omw_68
6d ago
Good thing I didn't say the Muslims were entitled to it. I said it was a waste to take it from them merely to establish Israel.
I disagree with the phrase "take it from them," since it presupposes that a particular group owns an area and you haven't offered any evidence or argument which establishes such ownership. You just assume it.
But even putting that aside, you seem to be saying that one state of affairs (Muslim control of Palestine) was morally preferable to another state of affairs (Jewish control of Palestine). Do I misunderstand you? If I do, what exactly was being "wasted" by the foundation of Israel?
It was the Muslim Ottoman Empire. So there was a Muslim state -- this seems like pilpul/sophistry to me
Well let's suppose for the sake of argument that the Ottoman Empire can be identified with the Arabs living in Palestine due to shared religion. (This is doubtful since as I mentioned before, a large percentage of those Arabs were Christian and also I can assure you that the Turks at the time would have freaked out if you put them in the same box as Arabs.)
But in any event, the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1922, long before Israel was founded. In another post, I asked you what, in your view, should have happened. In 1948, what would have been morally better than Israel having been founded? And I am asking you that same question here.
As far as I can see the reasons were vanity. There was Hitler at a very late date, but then again there was also New York.
Respectfully, you should learn some history. There were pogroms against the Jews in Europe throughout the 19th century; by the early 1900s there were immigration quotas in the US; by 1925 America's doors were formally closed. In 1945, 1946, and 1947 a lot of Jewish Holocaust survivors were sent to Palestine because nobody else would take them.
Colonizing a crowded Muslim land
At the time, Palestine was not crowded and there were lots of Christians there. More importantly, when you describe Palestine as a "Muslim land" are you trying to imply that the land belonged to Muslims in some general sense?
and establishing your own ethnostate makes no sense.
When you say it makes no sense, are you saying it was an irrational decision? Or that it was somehow immoral?
This is an earthly demand that doesn't make sense.
Well in that case, can we stipulate for the sake of argument that approximately 0% of the world's states meet your "higher purpose" standard?
So? Of course I'm not a fan of Israel.
Ok, so it's hardly unreasonable for people to respond to you as they would any other (Edit: apparent Israel hater? a not-a-fan-of-Israel type? I guess "anti-Israel type" will do)
In any event, I asked a couple questions of you and I would really appreciate answers:
(1) Given your apparent position that any illegitimacy of Israel's founding does not taint the legitimacy of Israel today, why are you bringing up the subject at all? Is it a purely academic exercise?
(2) Also, given that the pre-existing state to modern Israel -- the Ottoman Empire -- collapsed due to external reasons, and given that there were many Jewish people in Palestine at the time, what do you feel should have happened? Should an Arab state have been established? (Actually multiple Arab states were established -- Lebanon; Syria; etc.) Should the French and British simply annexed their mandates?
I'm genuinely curious what you think should have happened which would not have been a "waste" as you put it.
Edit, oh and (3) Can we stipulate for the sake of argument that approximately 0% of the world's states meet your "higher purpose" standard?
I think it confirms exactly what I claimed -- that George Soros collaborated with the Nazis at the age of 14 or 15.
You asked for a source for this claim and I provided it. Evidently, he explicitly admitted to an interviewer that he had helped in confiscating property from Jews.
If you have some further point you would like to make, kindly just state it plainly.
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