A post that will annoy my brother if he reads it

[onewaystair]

So I was reading this thread at MeFi. And I am so weirded out by the sentimental ideas people have about the possibility of intelligent space-faring life elsewhere in the universe. It really strikes me as an atheist's form of religious hope, a yearning for the transcendental when no proof of its existence is in evidence. And I'm totally cool with

Comments

[cerine]

Tangent! One thing I always mention to my mom on this subject is how we always define possible habitable planets for life forms by our standards. I mean, it makes sense, since a) we're probably more interested in finding potential planets to subjugate to our whims, and b) it's what we know. Like that comment says, there are probably alien lifeforms evolving happily along on their own somewhere. But they might, I don't know, breathe neon or some yet unknown gas noxious to Terran life. So we're not finding 'em (and that's probably a good thing, haha).

The cat comment is spot on, though. You never know if it's going to cuddle up to you, claw you up, or ignore you, and it's supposed to be a "pet". The octopus comment is pretty good, too, and in the same vein of thought. Maybe it's my cynicism about humanity at large, but I would be super wary of anyone showing up with open arms (or the equivalent). |D