I Can't Believe It's Not An Index CCXXXIII - Jasdoif's Random Banter #233

[Lacco]

How do you plan on convincing these people to indulge you?

Good question.

For the philosophers... I'm counting on the power of free food and the catalyst for any advanced philosophy - wine.

Meyer and Angelo ran fencing schools. Enrolling would be mainly a matter of presenting correct credentials and finding enough money. Both could be fixed with a time machine... Thibault would be trickier, but mainly due to his whereabouts.

[Rater202]

Re: Extraterrestrials.

If they exist, they're either going to be very similar to life on Earth... Or radically and utterly different, mayhaps to the point that we'd have trouble recognizing them as intelligent...

Or recognizing us them as alive.

Something like The Klyntar is more likely than something like The Shi'ar.

[Anonymouswizard]

Aliens probably exist. They probably look like no Alien in any giving written on Earth.

Giger's/Scott's Xenomorph is a good benchmark for weird. I can develop an ecosystem where they actually might make some vague kind of sense, but it's nothing like Earth's.

On that note, I kind of actually prefer the lifecycle envisioned for the creatures in Alien where it went egg->facehugger->chestburster->adult->egg, without any kind of Queen stage. Partially because the drones seen to have had a downgrade in intelligence after the hive got a core, although I suppose the idea that the Queen is just a specialist egg producer stage they'll only move into if a hive is large enough kind of works as a bridge between the two versions.

[Fyraltari]

Something like The Klyntar is more likely than something like The Shi'ar.

I am sure there are meanings attached to these words.

[Rater202]

Aliens probably exist. They probably look like no Alien in any giving written on Earth.

Giger's/Scott's Xenomorph is a good benchmark for weird. I can develop an ecosystem where they actually might make some vague kind of sense, but it's nothing like Earth's.

On that note, I kind of actually prefer the lifecycle envisioned for the creatures in Alien where it went egg->facehugger->chestburster->adult->egg, without any kind of Queen stage. Partially because the drones seen to have had a downgrade in intelligence after the hive got a core, although I suppose the idea that the Queen is just a specialist egg producer stage they'll only move into if a hive is large enough kind of works as a bridge between the two versions.

I'm honestly not sure what kind of environment the "gene reflex" where you absorb a host organism's DNA(with it making up 10-15 of the offspring's genome) in order to adapt to ti's natural environment could naturally evolve in.

It'd either require rapidly changing climates or Xenomorphs to have long since entered an environment not their own and this being the only method of adaption that random mutation could give them.

The fact that they don't seem to retain these traits past one generation also seems.. they'd have to evolve to specifically cast off all of those traits when forming reproductive cels that gestate into eggs.

Otherwise yeah, I could see them being the dominant predator of an ecosystem.

Not sure why Weyland-Yutani is so obsessed with using them as bio-weapons, though. In practical matters they die to a strong enough shotgun, they can't be trained, they hunt for either food or hosts indiscriminately... Their only conceivable military use would be to leave eggs in a civilian center where you don't want it but don't want anyone else to have it either and even then you'd have to monitor the area and torch the please with nuclear or thermobaric weapons if they get loose so you might as well just cut out the middle man.

Their real value would be in analyzing their genetic and biochemical properties, and you don't need to capture them alive to do that. f you can crack the gene reflex than you'll advance the science of genetic engineering by decades or centuries.

[Lacco]

I am sure there are meanings attached to these words.

Sounds like cleaning product and an exotic food.

Would you like some Shi'ar? Oh, no! Give me your t-shirt, I'll wash it with Klyntar and the stain will go away.

[Anonymouswizard]

The genre reflex is weird, but it doesn't come up until Aliencubed (and even then I don't believe it's an explicit thing). Looking at just the basic package they're strong (and as an extension fast), their exoskeleton works as armour and potentially camouflage*, the acid blood is an incredibly good defence mechanism of your opponent's use claws, and they clearly adopt their host's stance. Sure their main method of attack is weird, but I'm sure we can work something out.

I mean, they are fairly stupid weapons, that's why I prefer them being a naturally evolved thing. I suppose what I'd do if I wanted to use them as one is to stick as many eggs into drop pods as I can and try to speak then between a planet's cities.

* Their native environment likely looks weird to humans if going with 'naturally evolved' instead of bioweapons

[Rater202]

I am sure there are meanings attached to these words.

The following pictures are all sourced from the Marvel Database wiki.

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These are Shi'ar. They look human and are capable of reproducing with human partners.... Despite the fact that they evolved on a different planet in a different galaxy and their evolutionary ancestors resemble in terms of physiology earth's avians rather than earth's primates.

The only way to tell that they're not human is to look closely at their heads and realize that they have feathers instead of hair.

(they also are sometimes depicted as laying eggs, but on other occasions are shown carrying a fetus to term and giving live birth so..)

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Everything in this picture, except for the ship in the back, is a Klyntar.

Becuase Klyntar are completely amorphous and they adapt to their environments. and it's honestly questionable if they can be called alive int the strictest biological sense, because while they benefit from eating they have n need to do so under normal circumstances. While they have a genetic code, their biomass doesn't have many properties in common with other forms of biologically living beings. They do not possess any discrete organs but possess anything from rudimentary awareness of their environment to complete sapience and a sophisticated intellect via a combination of emergent consciousness frm the interaction of the many simpler thinking particles they're composed of and learning from the environment.

Under proper conditions, they can live on their own or in symbiosis with other organisms and this symbiosis can be mutualistic or parasitic based entirely on the Klyntar's own whims. That nature of the symbiosis and, in such cases, the degree of parasitism varies based on individual.

Klyntar do not have a home planet. They were born in the void of space, and they manufactured their planet via millions of them joining together to form one.

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Granted, the Klyntar have a supernatural origin, but I don't think that undermines my point:

They're alien, in every sense of the world. They are not like anything on Earth, and that's the point.

Life on Earth is an utterly complex series of random coincidences. If complex life exists on other planets, it's either very similar to life on earth, or... Well, the aliens would be alien.

And we're more likely to run into shoggoths than into sexy green chicks.

[Fyraltari]

Thing is we have a grand total of 1 singular data point for the apparitions and development of life. We simply have no ability to make any prediction on what alien life would be like.

[halfeye]

Thing is we have a grand total of 1 singular data point for the apparitions and development of life. We simply have no ability to make any prediction on what alien life would be like.

Just life? as you say no idea.

Interstellar travelling life? They can live for a long time in interstellar space, that probably means adapted to low gravity and low light. If they ever come they will want to live out in the Oort, and they will hate the idea of deep gravity wells like stars, planets or big moons.

[2D8HP]

So anyway if time travel exists (which I know it is.) Would you travel back or forward in time. I know I would go forward to see the futuristic future in the year 1,000,000.

Backwards in time, to gather certain goods that used to be easier to get, or to tell past self to:
Buy and stockpile those Navy surplus long officer's coats, they looked great and finding them later will be really hard or expensive (this last month I bought a replica that while it hard a better liner was more than 10x the price that I paid in the '80's and early '90's).

Don't give your Derby jackets to girls you fancy, they'll stop making them and they'll become much more expensive.

Buy more Converse sneakers while they're still made in the U.S.A.

Don't give your leather motorcycle jackets to girls you fancy, leather becomes much more expensive in the future.

Buy Doc Martin's boots while they're still made in the U.K.

Buy more Red Wing boots while more are still made in the U.S.A.

Stockpile clothes in general, in the future what's typically in all but very high end stores is much flimsier, convince the woman who will become your wife to do the same, besides the general flimsiness she'll hate how shallow pockets in women's pants become in the 21st century.

Buy the metal Andis hair clipper early on, the plastic ones by them and others are shoddy.

Buy custom fitted shirts for wearing with a tie.

Don't buy leather "dress" shoes that aren't made by Alden or Church's

Two button suit jackets look better, and go with Brooks Brothers or even higher end for that.

For work, get the knee pad inserts right away, and don't bother with non-Carhartt overalls and pants.

All new clothes will become shoddier, lighter, and/or more expensive in the future, only the lighter (if all cotton) will be welcome, and only when it's hot.

The future will be hotter, San Francisco starts to have more San Jose-like weather, much to your annoyance.

They'll be no changes in fashion that you'll follow, your tastes in 1991 will be the same as your tastes in 2021, in many ways it will seem that pop culture changes hardly at all compared to the many changes of your first 23 years. At almost 53 you'll dress, and listen to mostly the music as you did at 23.

You'll suffer "I didn't buy it remorse" far more than buyer's remorse.

[Sermil]

I'd go back and tell myself:

When you see that Doonesbury cartoon where the punchline is no one wants to be the next Apple? BUY ALL THE STOCK YOU CAN.

[enderlord99]

Did anyone else have movie nights in elementary school where the class got to vote on the movie, but you weren't told what the options would be ahead of time, and you were only allowed to vote once without knowing if there would be a better option later (and couldn't change your vote) and the teacher thought this system was fair somehow?

When I asked to be told the options before voting, the teacher replied "that wouldn't be fair to everyone else, would it?" and I was (IIRC) sent to detention for pointing out that she could tell them too.

[Peelee]

Ah yes, the futuristic future where people put commas in the years' numbers.

Today I learned the US is futuristic compared to France.

[enderlord99]

Today I learned the US is futuristic compared to France.

Today I learned that I should have been writing the year as "2,021" this whole time.

[Jasdoif]

An update from Zodi:
"You can update the forum: free of IVs, doing really well minus big right hand swelling, learning how to insulin. Will be out in a few days, potentially. And thanks for the well wishes!"

Ooh, learning how to insulin can be interesting. Admittedly, I was only twelve years old the first time, so I'm pretty sure my parents were better informed than I was; at least until I switched from dietary exchanges to carb counting like ten years later.

Thing is we have a grand total of 1 singular data point for the apparitions and development of life. We simply have no ability to make any prediction on what alien life would be like.

The big question, I think, is how we're defining "life". If the definition is bound by the concept of cells as we know them, then anything that isn't similar to Earth life won't be called "alien life" regardless; in which case it's practically tautological that alien life is going to be similar to Earth life...but that would kind of defeat the purpose. Perhaps some sort of multi-factor scheme is in order....

[Peelee]

An update from Zodi:
"You can update the forum: free of IVs, doing really well minus big right hand swelling, learning how to insulin. Will be out in a few days, potentially. And thanks for the well wishes!"

HUZZAH! I like a healthy and happy Zodi.I mean, technically, I like a healthy and happy everyone, but those people can get called out when they're in the hospital.

Also, I'm a bit exhausted now, so (selectively edited) copy/paste from what I told my friends, because I can't remember what I've said or not on here:

---

News update.

1.) I have downloaded a running app. Currently going through the 5k program. On week 2 of 6. It recommends running 3x/day, ideally Mon/Wed/Fri. I run every day. There's no room in the agency for cowards.

B.) I have also gotten a 12 lb weighted vest and have been using this during my runs.

As of today, I've noticed my mind and lungs are in top shape. I can get back to normal breathing incredibly quickly after the run sessions (currently 1 min runs x8, broken up by 2 min walks to recover.). Today my thighs felt like lead. First time since I've started that the biggest thing holding me back was legs, and not chest or head. But I still got in all the runs. Plus 20 push-ups after the runs. With the vest on.

Couldn't even get down to do the push-ups for a good half minute due to the thigh muscles not wanting to work. But I eventually got it. The push-up requirement ain't gonna knock me out.

[Fyraltari]

Today I learned the US is futuristic compared to France.

Funny thing is, we don't even use commas the way you do in numbers. We put a comma where you put a point and we put a space where you put a comma. So an American writes 23, 536.34 where a French writes 23 536, 34.

Today I learned that I should have been writing the year as "2,021" this whole time.

Indeed.

[Rater202]

Did anyone else have movie nights in elementary school where the class got to vote on the movie, but you weren't told what the options would be ahead of time, and you were only allowed to vote once without knowing if there would be a better option later (and couldn't change your vote) and the teacher thought this system was fair somehow?

When I asked to be told the options before voting, the teacher replied "that wouldn't be fair to everyone else, would it?" and I was (IIRC) sent to detention for pointing out that she could tell them too.

You weren't punished for pointing it out a more fair system.

You were punished for being smarter and/or wiser than the teacher.

Teaching does not pay anywhere near what it's worth. If you become a teacher, especially in elementary school, it's either because 1: You want to help children or 2: You want to have power over people who can't fight back because the system assumes by default that you're in the right.

And it's such a stressful job that a lot of people who start as the first just end up jaded and not going a crap, so the ones who become the second get away with it.

Whenever a student gets punished for something that isn't actually against the rules and almost any time a student gets punished for 'back talk' or 'disrespecting the teacher,' it's because the teacher is on a power trip and/or embarrassed that the student knows more than they do.

Respect can mean two things: Treating someone as an authority and treating someone as a human being.

Some people use the phrase "I won't respect you unless you respect me" but they mean "unless you treat me as an authority in all situations, I won't treat you like a person."

A disprorptionatly high percentage of those people become teachers because people under the age of 18 are already treated as if they weren't complete people in a lot of circumstances, including, in the united states, the law, and therefore it's easier to get away with disrespecting a child and/or ignoring their rights.

[Anonymouswizard]

Anybody else feel that Rater is unusually pessimistic? In my experience Primary School was much, much more lenient than secondary school, and I think every time we had to vote on a money we got to know beforehand (when I was in younger years the obit videos you got to watch were Look and Read, and sheet I changed schools movies were organised a will in advance to get parental permission). In secondary school punishments and enforcement was much tougher (actual detention! Although my school favoured lunch break detention over after school), but at the same time you got treated more as an equal. Punishment actually disappeared by Sixth Form because everybody actually wanted to be there, except for those having to resit GCSE Maths or English.

I don't think my experience was unusual? Yes I can see teachers using unfair voting systems like the one described to rig votes, but it's something I never personally experienced (and as CGPG Grey noted, removing the 'vote once' restriction makes it fair and helps avoid choices anybody would be unhappy with). Maybe it's a difference made by an ocean, maybe one of us just had an unusual experience. But I've never had a vindictive teacher, although I have had a couple of stern ones.

[Rater202]

Anybody else feel that Rater is unusually pessimistic?

Imagine being bigger and smarter than just about everyone around you.

Now imagine that every year of your life, there's always someone who knows exactly how to make you feel small and stupid and gets off on it.

When it wasn't the teachers doing it, the teachers let it happen.

It wasn't until well into college that a teacher treated me like an equal.

I had good teachers, but I've never not had bad teachers.

You'd be pessimistic too.

Here's my academic career: Had to leave the fancy private school I was in for preschool(my family actually had disposable income before Dad got the cancer) because they preemptively decided that I needed to be in kindergarten twice before I'd even gotten to Kindergarten and my parents thought that was bull****. Public Kindergarten for reasons I don't know eventually started making me go home early so I very rarely got playtime with the other students and on one occasion before it started, I was told that I wan'sn't allowed to use colored pencils anymore because I choose to spend my playtime one day taking the time to properly color in a picture instead of just scribbling in an outline.

First grade, the art teacher was acting unfairly, I started protesting, so they expelled me instead of asking me why I was protesting her unfair behavior.

At my new school, I was put in a behavior program("the problem students") that I did not feed because the new school got a biased report of me fro the old school. Despite the special ed classes being in the same rooms at the same times with the same teachers, teachers did not know how to deal with an autistic student and I'd often get punished for things like "not wanting to sing int the Christmas show even though I was never asked if I wanted to be in the Christmas show and it says in my file that I'm afraid of crowds, heights, loud noises, and the dark" or "not doing work in class when the work didn't have any instructions."

I think I mentioned the time in first or second grade where I was punished because I was upset that another student broke the lego sculpture that I'd been working hard on which resulted in me essentially not getting any Friday playtime for the rest of the year because I wasn't allowed to use legos or any other kind of building block and it was either play wit legos or play board games and everyone else would rather play with legos than play a board game.

Or how just after I was transferred they started putting me in therapy but didn't ****ing tell me it was therapy so all I knew is that they were taking me out of class during reading time and locking me alone in a room with a strange woman and then assumed that I was racist because the woman happened to be black and I reacted with anger at being locked in a room with a strange woman with no one telling me what was going on.

Repeat that until the third grade, when I was mostly put in normal classes but still had occasional incidents of being treated unfairly.

Fifth grade, bank screwed us out of the house, had to move to another city, new school... Two teachers: English and Scinece was thought by an abusive, power tripping, gaslighting control freak, and math and social studies was thought by a teacher who alternated between being okay with fair rules, not giin a damn, and on one occasion just sitting there and joking about pulling teeth when I'm standing in front of her bleeding from the mouth and panicking too much to ask permission to go to the nurse.

Middle school, bullied relentlessly while teachers watched and did nothing. Also in the sixth and seventh grade I was sexually harassed by two different crazy girls. Teachers did nothing. On one occasion I was punched in the chest in front of witnesses and the staff did nothing, but the one time I laid hands on someone else in order to defend myself I was forced to apologize to the other person nor else the principal was going to have me arrested and press charges.

First, two years of high school were much the same as middle school, complete with being bullied and sexually in the middle of class... This time by guys. Also, someone spread a rumor that I was going to bring a gun to school and shoot the place up and, naturally, as a nerdy bullied loner with no friends I was just a trenchcoat short of the totally inaccurate media pushed stereotype of a school shooter... That was fun.

Continuously got my schedule screwed with all four years, and my IEP was ignored on a couple of occasions which I know to be a violation of both state and federal law.

The second two years were better because I'd made a couple of friends, had developed a reputation for being the word kid nobody wants to screw with, and my mother started working for the school city and the school city is basically the Mafia. Still occasionally got hit on in the middle of class.

I was screwed over in my first couple of years of college by the financial aid department, who refused to process my scholarship that was supposed to give me a four-year full-ride until I'd taken out loans(literally, said they wouldn't process it unless I take out loans) while also insisting that I needed to take more classes than recommended to maintain my qualification for it forcing me to reschedule y classes at the last minute and the combination of an excessive workload and erratic schedule right out the gate made me fail everything...

and then, and then, the program my mother enrolled me in, a program tha t helps people with disabilities get jobs and educations, a program that said they'd help me until I'd graduated with the degree I wanted and had been gainfully employed for thirty consecutive days... Cut us off, because I failed everything. Said I had to get off of Academic probation on my own and then I'd get help again, so we end up having to pay for my transportation out of pocket(the company doing transportation thought this was bullcrap, however, and pulled strings to give us a discount, to which I will always be grateful) and then I get off of probation two semesters later they say that since I'd been paying my own way and ended up fine I didn't need their help after all.

...Sons of bitches, I sighed a fricking contract with these people and they kept changing the rules on me.

Retaking introductory English, the instructor is not giving very clear instructions, I ask for more help, she says there's nothing she can do, so I do what th school's disability office told me to do: If you are struggling with classes, tell them, professor, your disability and ask for help. I do so, teacher says the disability office said nothing and that I was on my own(apparently the rues were changed between semesters and boy thought it prudent to inform me.)

I am naturally upset, but I walk it off.

Next class, there's a woman sitting in class: Afterward, she ambushes me. Turns out the professor felt threatened by my presence and this woman's opinion of my body language in class indicated that I was anger and that if I did not go with her right then and there to discuss proper behavior she would report me to the dean of students and have me kicked out.

My ride picked me up right after that class so I couldn't stay, I told mother and she sent an email on my behalf explaining the situation, got that crap shut down, but we had to schedule a meeting with the professor of the class and she just never responded to my emails, my mother emails, baby emails whatsoever. claimed she wasn't allowed to, so it took like two months to get the meeting scheduled and clear up the misunderstanding, and finally get clear instructions on the assignments, but I was forced to sign a paper admitting to wrongdoing and didn't know that I was allowed to note that I was signing it under duress at the time o for the rest of my academic career I had to walk on tiptoes around certain teachers because if anyone felt threatened by my presence that early incident would have screwed me.

I managed to pass English that semester and few semesters later I started to get professors who weren't just people who were exactly the same as my teachers from highschool, but I am absolutely certain that you can understand my pessimism regarding the education system.

[Anonymouswizard]

TLDR; Rater and I had very different school experiences.

My first school didn't know how to deal with me creatively, but my second and third did (partially due to having autistic units, partially because my secondary school had enough experience to suggest I get diagnosed). I actually got taken or of special situation classes because I'm a special snowflake who barely benefited. I'm sure many teachers would have just labelled me as a problem, mine didn't and thanks to them I got to study literature at A-level.

Maybe Rater's experience is closer to the normal, maybe mine is. I suspect is actually somewhere in the middle.

I do know that exclusions are rare here, I don't know how common they are in the US. I do know that I only ever got punished unfairly by a teacher one, but when you've forgotten at least one item of your PE kit every day of a term then counting each sock as one item* is the logical next step.

*You got detention if you had two items missing.

[Peelee]

Funny thing is, we don't even use commas the way you do in numbers. We put a comma where you put a point and we put a space where you put a comma. So an American writes 23, 536.34 where a French writes 23 536, 34.

Why yes, fellow EU citizen, that was the joke.

[Fyraltari]

Why yes, fellow EU citizen, that was the joke.

But, we write the years the same way... With no spaces...

[Peelee]

But, we write the years the same way... With no spaces...

Spoiler: You're just not futuristic ENOUGH.

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[Rater202]

Spoiler: You're just not futuristic ENOUGH.

Show

But I don't want to be enslaved by giraffes! I want to be a dragon and be big and strong and smart enough that nothing can ever hurt me physically or emotionally ever again and anyone who tries is both incredibly stupid and just going to humiliate themselves!

[Peelee]

I want to be a dragon and be big and strong and smart enough that nothing can ever hurt me physically or emotionally ever again

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[Rater202]

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"Nothing can kill a Jedi"
"I wish that were so"
*Jedi believe that no one can truly die because they become one with the Force*
*This specific Jedi is also training to become truly immortal.*

[Peelee]

"Nothing can kill a Jedi"
"I wish that were so"
*Jedi believe that no one can truly die because they become one with the Force*
*This specific Jedi is also training to become truly immortal.*

If you want me to defend Lucas' extended writing, you're going to be disappointed. But suffice it to say that even if you became a dragon invulnerable to physical pain, people could still absolutely emotionally hurt you.

[Fyraltari]

"Nothing can kill a Jedi"
"I wish that were so"
*Jedi believe that no one can truly die because they become one with the Force*
*This specific Jedi is also training to become truly immortal.*

Sounds like he really wish that were so.