• elbucho@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Now, I’m not the conspiracy-minded type. I’m not going to say that aliens from some other part of the galaxy detected us as an emerging threat, and so sent a probe to our planet to spray stupid juice into the atmosphere. But if aliens from some other part of the galaxy DID detect us as an emerging threat, and sent a probe to our planet to spray stupid juice into the atmosphere, wouldn’t that explain, like, pretty much everything?

      • elbucho@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You make an excellent point. Maybe Thomas Midgley, Jr. was actually an alien bent on the destruction of Earth’s galactic expansion potential. He was, after all, the person responsible for both leaded gas, and chlorofluorocarbons.

        • TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Midgley contracted polio in 1940 and was left disabled; in 1944, he was found strangled to death by a device he devised to allow him to get out of bed unassisted.

          Maybe, JUST MAYBE, there is some justice in this world

        • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          He was a brilliant chemical engineer who ended up having the most tragic of legacies . He probably had a greater effect on earth’s ecosystem than any other single organism.

          • omega_x3@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            A terrible person who also died testing his own invention. So even though he caused massive damage to the Earth and humanity he also is responsible for the death of one of the biggest threats to the Earth and humanity so at least one thing he did was helpful.

            • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Just like heroic Adolf Hitler who killed the evil Adolf Hitler, sacrificing his own life in the process.

              Now I imagine an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam Beckett is Hitler in the bunker.

          • tyler@programming.dev
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            4 months ago

            Brilliant? From reading the Wikipedia page it sure does seem like he just wanted to invent stuff no matter how terrible it was for humans, including himself. And he made up fake press conferences to “prove” that it was safe. Completely unethical and idiotic.

  • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Honestly I’ve given up hope for humanity. I want us to hurry up and destroy ourselves already. Maybe those who come after will actually learn but looking at human history they won’t.

    It’ll be the same shit different millennium.

    • CyberMonkey404@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Nobody’s “coming after us”. We’ve used up the resources. You know how early humans could just find iron sands or copper nuggets? Well now you can’t do that. Resources that didn’t need mining have been used up, and whatever will be left in processed form (iron rebar, cars, you get the idea) is processed to the point it requires our current machine civilization to recycle. Can’t just toss it into a bronze age blacksmith forge and call it a day. Likewise with the fuels.

      So no, nobody’s coming after us

      • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You misinterpreted what I meant.

        “Those who come after” doesn’t mean someone’s coming after us as in chasing us.

        Those who come after as in those who exist after us. Future humans or whatever species takes over after we inevitably fuck ourselves over.

        Edit: I’m the dumb dumbass here. I’m the one who misinterpreted what was said.

        As a true rebuttal with my updated understanding, I don’t see humans dying out. We already survived one mass extinction. I have no doubt we’ll in one way or another survive the next.

        • Birch@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          And this exchange right here serves as another exhibit for Prof. Cox point.

          E: Redemption achieved, but still serves as reminder to read before posting :p

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You can smelt aluminium with as little as a candle. Its normally incredibly hard to refine but we’ve left tons of that stuff in pure form all over the place. Fossil fuels would likely be a pain but charcoal exists and would do buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo for smelting iron with a well built forge, It’d be harder to do but finding clearly artifical constructs made of the stuff would probably give them a huge incentive to figure out how to melt the stuff as opposed to our civilization that didn’t even know iron could be smelted for a really long time.

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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    4 months ago

    I didn’t even believe it was possible for Brian Cox to get mardy.

    He knows he’s posting on Fascists Social, doesn’t he?