So is this where you got it from Saice? ;)

[the_j485]

GUYS. SERIOUSLY? Nobody has mentioned Vsauce? He is fucking awesome. He does science vids, awesome/weird/interesting stuff you can buy vids, internet pics vids, all sorts of awesome shit.
OK now I see it looks weird, but trust me he's awesome. Vsauce2 is pretty cool too.

 

[the_j485]

WOOT! Someone has!

 

[tehBlobLord]

WOOT! Someone has!

Why does your signature say that it's not a signature when it's a signature
That joke only really works if you don't have the rest of your signature as a signature.

Like so:

Non c'e una signatura


and that is all

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Aparently we're in the middle of one now.. kind of a scary thought..

Eh, he didn't mention the one about ten thousand years ago that killed off the Mega-Fauna and gave us a chance to get established. We wouldn't have fared well if we had to deal with the Dire Wolves or the Entelodons or the Terror Birds...

And honestly, we might well be in the middle of an extinction event, but not the one most of the 'greenies' are complaining about. Look at the pacific continental plate and how the Ring of Fire is acting up again. Look at Tokyo getting hit by that 9+ on the richter scale. Look at all those volcanoes that are starting to light up again. That whole continental plate is going unstable at the edges, and it could easily set off a supervolcanic event which could really do a number.

Heck, if Yellowstone goes (and there have been some disturbing trends with some of the warning signs lately), it would make Krakatoa look like a firecracker. Most of the Midwestern North American continent (mostly in the US, but also pretty much obliterating half of southern Canada) would simply be buried in pyroclastic flow and magma and ash. The whole world would experience grey-out conditions for over a decade solid. Choking ash would be in the atmosphere across the entire globe.

Granted, Yellowstone hasn't done anything in a good ten thousand years... but if she does wake up, everyone is going to have a bad day.

 

[Lambert2191]

Aye I watch vsauce.

I didn't know about that one 10k years ago, any linkies?

 

[GPuzzle]

aye, sorta reminds me of one of my fav disturbed songs..

Some guys played this song during a talent show in my school (I played Under Pressure on the bass during the same talent show).
They also played the clip (no sound, of course) on the background.
You should see the judges' face, it was hilarious. The songs from everyone had either been shitty "rap" (I refuse to call all the "swag rappers" actual rappers) or so sweet they almost tasted like Diabetes.

 

[Technician]

My inhalation took a sharp edge then I made a inward smile at the fact Romans used to call Christians atheists.

Inb4 this thread becomes flame war with Lambert arguing, Saice being them most logical guy ever, Whizz arguing and going "lets just stop this" and me pointing out things for both sides and Ferg posting things.

Then it gets deleted.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Aye I watch vsauce.

I didn't know about that one 10k years ago, any linkies?

here is a good document on it. In brief, it is hypothisized that the Clovis People were the catalyst for the extinctions because the climate and other changes were already weakening the hold the megafauna had and then the introduction of the Clovis Era humans was the final straw on the camel's back. As with any extinction theory, there are many competing theories, but I think this paper does a good job at addressing most of the major ones.

 

[Technician]

It's funny how much humans have fucked stuff up.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

It's funny how much humans have fucked stuff up.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of the theory that the extinction event happened which enabled the Clovis People to flourish in the first place, rather than the reverse. Quite frankly, too many people are willing to brand Humans with the blame regardless of the actual validity of the argument or not.

The Clovis People didn't show up until the end of the Extinction Event, so they couldn't have been the initial culprits, unless you wish to posit that humans have been around for 40,000 years rather than 10,000. They might have finished the job, possibly, but the Megafauna were already on their way out the door long before Humanity had any say in the matter.

 

[Technician]

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of the theory that the extinction event happened which enabled the Clovis People to flourish in the first place, rather than the reverse. Quite frankly, too many people are willing to brand Humans with the blame regardless of the actual validity of the argument or not.

The Clovis People didn't show up until the end of the Extinction Event, so they couldn't have been the initial culprits, unless you wish to posit that humans have been around for 40,000 years rather than 10,000. They might have finished the job, possibly, but the Megafauna were already on their way out the door long before Humanity had any say in the matter.

I was more meaning murdering dodo birds.. weakening animal populations... I can't wait to see how animals will fare when we start exploration of planets and stuff.

 

[atheneftw]

Why does your signature say that it's not a signature when it's a signature
That joke only really works if you don't have the rest of your signature as a signature.

Like so:

Non c'e una signatura


and that is all

"signatura" lol.

 

[tehBlobLord]

"signatura" lol.

Italian is awesome, you add "a" to the end of french words and you speak it fluently.
I'm a linguist.

I'll ruin German for you as well;

Das wird eine Signatur

You take out as many vowels and capitalise the first letter for german.

 

[atheneftw]

Italian is awesome, you add "a" to the end of french words and you speak it fluently.
I'm a linguist.

I'll ruin German for you as well;

Das wird eine Signatur

You take out as many vowels and capitalise the first letter for german.

"whats a wovel"?

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I was more meaning murdering dodo birds.. weakening animal populations... I can't wait to see how animals will fare when we start exploration of planets and stuff.

Dodo killed themselves off by excessively poor parenting skills.

I wouldn't worry too much about exploration of planets and stuff. After Obama deep-six'd NASA, it's up to private enterprise to push us into space, and they're only going to be concerned about the bottom line. In other words, it's not going to happen in our generation, possibly not in the next few thousand years if we do see a technological collapse. After all, the Greeks had calculated precisely the distance between the earth and the moon with nothing more than a stick and a shadow... then it was nearly a thousand years later that the idea was picked back up, and even then you risked execution for trying to state that the earth is not the center of the universe and other such 'heresies'.

 

[Technician]

Dodo killed themselves off by excessively poor parenting skills.

I wouldn't worry too much about exploration of planets and stuff. After Obama deep-six'd NASA, it's up to private enterprise to push us into space, and they're only going to be concerned about the bottom line. In other words, it's not going to happen in our generation, possibly not in the next few thousand years if we do see a technological collapse. After all, the Greeks had calculated precisely the distance between the earth and the moon with nothing more than a stick and a shadow... then it was nearly a thousand years later that the idea was picked back up, and even then you risked execution for trying to state that the earth is not the center of the universe and other such 'heresies'.

We're gonna get there eventually mate. You presume because advancement has been slow in the past (much more hindering religion then.) means it shall ALWAYS be. I think not.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

We're gonna get there eventually mate. You presume because advancement has been slow in the past (much more hindering religion then.) means it shall ALWAYS be. I think not.

Human history seems to be cyclic rather than linear. Advances have come and gone many times in the past. Why should this time be any different? In fact, we've advanced to the point that our technology infrastructure has become 'fragile'. Meaning that we can no longer build the tools without other tools.

If all the power grids went down, we'd probably see 90% of the human population die off. This equates to total killoff in urban areas, with more rural areas and third world nations having a higher survival rate. The start would simply be a lack of sanitary facilities and food in population-dense clusters, leading to panic and people dying off in droves. Then diseases start hitting in full force, Cholera from lack of sanitary drinking water, insect and vermin vectored diseases like Malaria come next as the populations provide opulent breeding grounds for the vectors and can no longer control their populations. And, of course, people killing others off for resources such as clean drinking water and food and just plain paranoia and panic.

Quite frankly, we would regress to a pre-Rennisance technology within a decade simply due to being unable to maintain our current level of technology. The more technologically advanced cultural areas will die off, and surviving population clusters will be in the areas which never depended on technology as much.

Progress is by no means inevitable. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in mass quantities, which is pretty much any government in existence (well, totalitarian regimes are a single very stupid person rather than a bunch of stupid people, but it amounts to the same net level of stupidity).

As has been said before... "History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes". Also: "I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones".

 

[Lambert2191]

I think as long as we don't blow ourselves up and Nicola Tesla comes back to life, we'll be A-Okay