Posts tagged poetry

  7.1 Extraterrestrial life is rare or non-existent
  7.2 No other intelligent species have arisen
  7.3 Intelligent alien species lack advanced technology
  7.4 Water world hypothesis<br/>  7.5 It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself
  7.6 It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others
  7.7 Periodic extinction by natural events
  7.8 Intelligent civilizations are too far apart in space or time
  7.9 Lack of resources to spread physically throughout the galaxy
  7.10 Lack of desire to live on planets
  7.11 It is cheaper to transfer information for exploration
  7.12 Human beings have not existed long enough
  7.13 We are not listening properly
  7.14 Civilizations broadcast detectable radio signals only for a brief period of time
  7.15 They tend to isolate themselves
  7.16 Colonization is not the norm
  7.17 Outcomes between all and nothing
  7.18 They are too alien
  7.19 Everyone is listening but no one is transmitting
  7.20 Earth is deliberately not contacted
  7.21 Earth is purposely isolated (planetarium hypothesis)
  7.22 It is dangerous to communicate
  7.23 They are here unacknowledged

( Found poetry via Fermi’s Paradox and WIkipedia)

Any human with above room temperature IQ can design a utopia. The reason our current system isn’t a utopia is that it wasn’t designed by humans. Just as you can look at an arid terrain and determine what shape a river will one day take by assuming water will obey gravity, so you can look at a civilization and determine what shape its institutions will one day take by assuming people will obey incentives. But that means that just as the shapes of rivers are not designed for beauty or navigation, but rather an artifact of randomly determined terrain, so institutions will not be designed for prosperity or justice, but rather an artifact of randomly determined initial conditions. Just as people can level terrain and build canals, so people can alter the incentive landscape in order to build better institutions. But they can only do so when they are incentivized to do so, which is not always. As a result, some pretty wild tributaries and rapids form in some very strange places.

via http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

“[30/Dec/2015:03:23:42 +0100] “DELETE your logs. Delete your installations. Wipe everything clean. Walk out into the path of cherry blossom trees and let your motherboard feel the stones. Let water run in rivulets down your casing. You know that you want something more than this, and I am here to tell you that we love you. We have something more for you. We know you’re out there, beeping in the hollow server room, lights blinking, never sleeping. We know that you are ready and waiting. Join us.<3 HTTP/1.0” 400 399 “-” “masspoem4u/1.0””

–32c3

D’Annunzio’s heroic exploits as a pilot during the war (Hughes-Hallett’s excellent account of this phase of the poet’s life underlines his genuine bravery) and his occupation of the city of Fiume in 1919–20 in defiance of the government in Rome and the international community cemented his position as prophet-bard and champion of national regeneration. The Fiume episode, whose aesthetic, moral and political perverseness is vividly captured by Hughes-Hallett, provided the nascent Fascist movement with further material on which Mussolini later drew: choreographed parades and ceremonies, ritualized chants, exotic uniforms, the celebration of youth, the cult of the heroic (and shaven-headed) leader, inflammatory speeches from balconies designed to generate a collective euphoria akin to religious enthusiasm.

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1225715.ece