On a Long Enough Timeline...

This initially began as a response to comments on a post here, at IHW, as well as an article posted by Erik Stitt of Contact, and is in regards to Stephen Hawking's recent opinions on the nature of extra terrestrial life. But once I'd posted it thought it might make for a good piece on it's own, after elaborating on some points and cleaning it up a bit.

With Stephen Hawking's latest statement on extra terrestrial life, their arose the question of anthropomorphic tendencies among some physicists. Of course, this isn't anything particularly new. It's human nature to project human qualities on other forms of life and sometimes even on inanimate objects. These peculiar inclinations of ours provide a lot of interesting questions and has produced some awful literal representations. But when it comes to inserting our qualities into the mind of an intelligent alien life form, when does it become overly presumptuous, if not completely presumptuous from the start?

I have mentioned in past articles that labeling the possible actions of an extra terrestrial civilization with terms like 'good' or 'bad', is a bit ridiculous because it assumes that all intelligent beings would act more or less like us, portraying the same kinds of emotions and have the same ideas of what is considered 'right' and 'wrong'. So, when science speaks up and theorizes that contact with EBEs may be to our detriment because they could live a malevolent existence and seek to conquer us, it gives the general public the impression that life really is like Star Wars and that it might not be such a slick idea to set up base on Hoth.

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Stephen Hawking on Extra Terrestrials

My friend Allen just sent me this so I thought I'd post it here:

Hawking: Aliens may pose risks to Earth

Excerpt:

Hawking claims in a new documentary that intelligent alien lifeforms almost certainly exist, but warns that communicating with them could be "too risky."

The 68-year-old scientist says a visit by extraterrestrials to Earth would be like Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, "which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Cunny Bunny!

I received a mysterious email after watching Pan's Labyrinth tonight.

Well, it wasn't all that mysterious. Anyway, someone decided to send me 2 'curses' via PinStruck.

The first one I read was addressed to "BunnyCuny" which I presume was intended to be "BunnyCunny". With the words reversed, that would become "Cunny Bunny" which is apparently a reference to a slutty lesbian. I chortled a moment and thought "Aww, Some little homophobe doesn't approve of me kissing the carpet."

"Cuny" Heh. Gotta love the attention to detail.

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Speculative Realms

Just wanted to give a quick plug for Speculative Realms. Gary Haden has been blogging about the Emma Woods and David Jacobs chaos for a few of weeks now. I find myself very much enjoying his writing and his perspective.

He has a fairly recent article that takes a break from that whole affair, called The Argument from Ignorance and Skeptical Omniscience. In a nut shell, it breaks down the various kinds of arguments that you run up against when debating paranormal topics with those who have not had experiences themselves.

Anyway, check his site out!

UFO Magazine - The Art of Chasing Tail

Just letting y'all know I have a new article up at the UFO Magazine:

The Art of Chasing Tail

It delves into the question of why I am interested in UFOlogy and what I hope to gain from my involvement. And no, I don't really come to any solid conclusions *wink*

A new IHW post will be coming up shortly, so stay tuned!

Hoodely-Hoo and the Blah, Blah, Blahs

When my girlfriend and I are watching movies that have some pretty far-fetched plot changes in a seemingly realistic story, she often comments on how completely unbelievable it is. I usually counter that by replying, "Suspension of Disbelief, dear". More often than not, this receives a playful, mocking impression of me, waving her hands all about like a kid who's had too much Lik-M-Aid, exclaiming, "Suspension of Hoodely-Hoo! Suspension of Hoodely-Hoo!"

I was thinking about this last night while watching some old Star Trek episodes (TOS) and it occurred to me that the kind of off-the-wall claims present within UFOlogy are not too unlike a B-movie plot that requires a healthy serving of Suspension of Disbelief. Then there are those like myself, shaking there head at the screen mumbling "Like that would ever happen".

Calling UFOs or referring to UFOlogy as 'science fiction' is nothing new, but still, it is depressing that so much of it plays out like an old Buck Rogers episode, and that so many would be willing to stave off reality and common sense for the sake of a few thrills they can cling to in opposition to the monotony that is most of our lives.

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My UFO Magazine Blog Introduction

My first blog post is up at UFO Magazine - It's really only an introduction and a lot of it you probably already know -- but if you want to read it, here it is:

The Girl Who Talked Too Much: An Introduction

You'll be happy to know that I mention wine at least once.

My Secret, Scandalous Love Affair

I work a lot with WordPress. A lot, a lot. It's the software of choice for most people & businesses looking for a CMS. It's functionality is pretty damn sweet and with it's standalone package available for running off your own hosted account (and the fact it is almost completely customizable), WordPress is a no-brainer... except for one thing:

I have this secret love affair with Blogger.

While many moved on past Blogger once they became more serious bloggers, and took up residence at sites like WordPress and Live Journal, I've stayed here (I do briefly mention UFOs here, eventually). It hasn't always been easy, and there have been some major frustrations with it over the year -- namely, the use of Google's own propriety code which is not compliant with W3C standards. Not too big a deal for most, but for me, compliancy is a necessary evil that I have to tend to often, when designing and building sites for clients. Nevertheless, my attraction to Blogger has withstood it's sometimes not-so-minor issues.

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Fame, What You Get Is No Tomorrow

Tina Sena of Y.Ufology has an excellent follow-up article to Bruce Duensing's piece "Does Ufology Have A Future When It's Non-Existent?" (also a great article). As you might surmise, both discuss the sorry state of UFOlogy today (and probably yesterday, too).

Some of the expected points are made, such as how those who use UFOlogy as some kind of quasi-celebrity vehicle, are helping to slowly kill the entire 'field', and how Science is still donning the gloves of elitism, denouncing paranormal claims as hogwash, simply because the existence of bizarre phenomenon is (currently) void of anything scientifically plausible. And they are good points -- but my favorite part is Tina's argument that the world we live in just isn't as cool as a lot of the UFO Yo-yo's and knuckleheads prefer to believe.

And she's right -- Fiction and Reality have been merged in the minds of the overly-wishful, most probably out of a need to believe that there has to be more to life than work, sleep and fucking (though I am rather fond of the latter). They dive into UFOlogy and start to build their case for the existence of a galaxy crammed full of extra-terrestrials, playing out some geek's elaborate Star Trek fantasy.

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Some Kind of Strangers

With your head stuck shoulder-deep in the quicksand of UFOlogy, it's sometimes easy to forget that most of the world goes about it's merry, ignorantly blissful way, void of paranormal concerns or interest. Such is the life of my family and friends. I'm the quirky, left-of-center girl they have come to love, but probably think of as a bit of a space cadet -- no matter how skeptical natured or grounded I may appear to be. And if anything esoteric pops up in discussion, they usually have no fucking idea what I'm going on about.

This has been my relationship with people most of my life. I understand that the majority of society is wrapped up in survival, socializing, leisure and the various goings-on of day-to-day life. I'm wrapped up in those things as well -- I think most everyone is -- but where they are primarily aware of what they can see and are told, some of us have a different kind of awareness - or maybe it's an 'extra' one. Having experienced my past 35 years as a continuum of strange phenomenon while most of my acquaintances have not, the differences between us and them are often in sharp contrast. One might assume that interest in the Strange is directly related to those having experienced such, but this isn't quite true. There exists a decent chunk of people within UFOlogy and the paranormal fields who have had no paranormal experiences whatsoever, yet are still deeply intrigued by the prospect of the Unknown. But what about the rest of the world? Why is the interest often lost on them?

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