Das Gap

[alexsarll]

cappuccino_kid invited me to his space-age penthouse bachelor pad last night. He supplied a lovely meal, the horribly good Peep Show DVD extras and new Vichy Government material. In exchange, I turned off his spellchecker. I feel slightly guilty over this imbalance.

Between us we also worked out the solution to Fermi's paradox*, which cropped up in the programme about aliens which I watched on Monday night. If the aliens are out there (which they should be), and more advanced than us (as they should be), then why aren't they here yet? Pessimists have usually suggested that they all wipe themselves out, noting that we attained spaceflight and nuclear weaponry within the same century, and others may well have done likewise.
Close, but no cigar. The real answer is something else we discovered last century - reality TV. The civilisations which evolved before us are too thoroughly engrossed in Big SiblingGestalt series 8 billion to bother themselves with colonising the cosmos.

*I like this article's mention of Bracewell-von Neumann probes, as it makes me imagine an effort to explore the universe with self-replicating missfrosts.

Comments

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

The civilisations which evolved before us are too thoroughly engrossed in Big SiblingGestalt series 8 billion to bother themselves with colonising the cosmos.
How depressing is that!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It's arguably worse than the nuclear holocaust solution, isn't it?

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

much much worse. I removes the last vestiges of hope that we might overcome the vast swathes of peons threatening to suffocate anything good on the tv.
nuclear holocaust, one might survive!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

This all reminds me of the South Park episode where Cartman gets *another* anal probe and they realise they're in a repeat, and the aliens have created Earth as the ultimate reality show 'put all different species together on one planet and see what happens!' and then it gets cancelled because now the kids have found out the show won't be funny anymore, and the kids have to re-pitch the show to the alien TV execs who are all on coke.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a hybrid of Secret Wars and Armageddon - the Musical.
I really want to see it.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I have it on my computer at herm, in some sort of weird format that manages to run in Media Player but not Real Player for some reason. I can lend if you like... kat dot stevens at gmail dot com...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Alas, I have no facility for watching TV on computers. But thank you for the offer!

[ksta.livejournal.com]

tis an ace lecture, that one on the internet there.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yet 'twas only the second result on Google, after a really rubbish one. Bah.

And why are there not more people here to talk about ALIEN REALITY TV, anyway? Peons.

[ksta.livejournal.com]

clearly, dahling, no-one likes you anymore. Note the lack of comments to your previous post. You should retire and allow wardytron to take over.

:)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've already had a 61-commenter this week, and it's not long since my best result so far with 123. I am made of sterner stuff than to quail at this blip!

[ksta.livejournal.com]

except, clearly, your next post has at least 21 comments.

[ex-dumbgenius.livejournal.com]

dude, i solved Fermi's paradox when I was like 8 years old.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Share with the class, then!