Hawai'i cults, conspiracists, and fringe beliefs, oh my

[MyManao]

I'm agnostic..

Ah, another true believer. And in Puna no less.

[Durian Fiend]

TomK - They're are opinions and likelihoods
Oh so you don't have any evidence, don't actually know, but still have an opinion. Maybe you're a man of faith?

I doubt it.   “Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

[TomK]

1) Life exists on Earth, it's a planet.

2) We now know other stars have planets around them, some of them have been imaged directly.

3) Some of those planets are Earth-sized, rocky and orbit the star in a region where liquid water can exist.

4) Atmospheres have been detected on some of these exoplanets.

5) We know complex chemistry happens in atmospheres, especially if water is present.

Much of this evidence has come from the telescopes on Mauna Kea. I have an opinion, based on this evidence, that life exists elsewhere in our Galaxy.

[ironyak]

TomK - I have an opinion, based on this evidence, that life exists elsewhere in our Galaxy.
I think you mean based on inference, and everyone has an opinion of course, some having the notion that everything was made by some higher power. What makes you think your opinion is exclusively the right one?

MyManao - Ah, another true believer. And in Puna no less.
More of an equal opportunity skeptic, a Daydream DisBeliever as it were, to reappropriate Monkees of a different sort. As you gaze out into the Puna jungle and contemplate all those known unknowns lurking in the bushes, and then up at the stars from the lanai and recognize the dark matter of the unknown unknowns, and then into the math and science books on your Hilo Bamboo & Teak bookshelves, with the proven Unknowability of some knowledge, it really keeps one humble and puts things in perspective. Who would be so arrogant and oblivious to try and claim their preferred story is the exclusive access to truth and not see how much of a posturing fool that makes them?

As you said elsewhere, maybe best to adopt a more of a live and let live mindset and, as long as people aren't causing harm, take little issue with whatever beliefs float their boat.

Speaking of which, word is Cinderland has gone private - does this mean the arks are all ready? Anyone have an in with Jezus and can get some passes for the delayed / looming apocalypse? (here's a helpful PW thread with the background deets).

[Obie]

Jezus ran into a little snag.

Probably shouldn't have advertised all over the internet but if you would like to help, there's this :

https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-cinderla...legal-fees

[Durian Fiend]

TomK - I have an opinion, based on this evidence, that life exists elsewhere in our Galaxy.
I think you mean based on inference, and everyone has an opinion of course, some having the notion that everything was made by some higher power. What makes you think your opinion is exclusively the right one?

Interesting video that Tom linked.  The evidence he presented suggests to me there's a good chance his inference is correct.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

60s-style "mind powers" in Hana sci-fi writers,

I had no idea Frank Herbert, author of Dune, lived on Maui.  Thanks for that nugget of galactic lore.  Hana is the perfect place, or a perfect place among many in Hawaii, to set a mind free, roaming wild across the universe.


He valued his privacy, as this note on his letterhead stationary illustrates.  Short, sweet, gracious.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/276837245009

[ironyak]

Durian Fiend - Interesting video that Tom linked.  The evidence he presented suggests to me there's a good chance his inference is correct.

By "his inference" do you mean Tom's inference that alien life exists, or David Kipping's "The Eschatian Hypothesis"?

Personally I'm not taken with the The Eschatian Hypothesis as Kipping provides an easy counter example in his presentation - that 1971 suggestion to nuke space as a way to signal our presence to distant alien civilizations. Nothing about that idea requires civilization to be in some sort of "unstable or terminal phase".

Imagine TomK, the Uncle Robert's clan, and other members of the "little green men" cult get their hands on political power and decide that instead of bringing about the Biblical Apocalypse, the new goal of the US Government should be to signal to alien life. They could detonate nukes with some mathematically interesting and unnatural schedule and pattern, send the Puna kids who yearn for the mines off to obtain more fissile material, and invite billionaire ketamine addicts to bring enough money to finally convince Kau to open those launch sites. If nothing else, the reduction in nukes and the related jobs program would likely stabilize civilization during this newest attempt to do things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

It's like believing that the only reason there's periodically a rager at Kehena, or fireworks in HPP, is that those groups must be dying and signalling for help, instead of any number of cultural and/or political reasons some choose to extravagantly expend such energy regardless if the popo might show up from the "Dark Jungle", or just because monkey brains get off on bright lights and loud noises (imaging the kala to be made in tourism for space nuke viewing on Mauna Kea!)

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

that 1971 suggestion to nuke space as a way to signal our presence to distance alien civilizations

We did it unintentionally in 1962, with Starfish Prime.  It blew out early satellites, electrical transformers in Honolulu, and lit the nighttime sky as far away as Haleakala.  It may be a few centuries before we find out whether distant civilizations picked up the signal.  Through the noise of black and white tv broadcasts showing how young boys could be rescued from farm wells by an animal, and another young boy that was for some reason named after a different animal named the Beaver.  Not exactly showing off the highest characteristics and attributes of human intelligence.

Krell probably will say to Klorg “don’t call us, we’ll call you, snorf snorf!”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4822/1

[TomK]

TomK - I have an opinion, based on this evidence, that life exists elsewhere in our Galaxy.
I think you mean based on inference, and everyone has an opinion of course, some having the notion that everything was made by some higher power. What makes you think your opinion is exclusively the right one?

It's my opinion. It's based on evidence rather than faith. I didn't say it's exclusively the right one; it's simply my opinion. I see you building the straw man here, and when I see you and MyManao using these logical fallacies, it tells me a lot about the lack of genuineness in your arguments.