[walleeee]

Fewer every year. If 3I/A is ET flyby, perhaps our progress trading primitive simulacra for biological miracles will satisfy it that we pose no great risk, annihilation being costly and reserved for planets with better long term odds

[kulahan]

How do you figure? Just because we gain some understanding of how a caterpillar turns to slush, then turns into a butterfly, yet somehow retains some level of memory from before, doesn't mean that it's somehow less of a miracle.

[walleeee]

Strongly agree. Our beginning to grasp how it works even adds to the miracle!

But what we're beginning to understand we're also destroying far more rapidly even as we devote more and more effort to digital facsimiles of our faculties

My dry pessimism was a comment on this foolish inversion of priorities. Alien visitors, if the forest is truly dark, may conclude we're well on the way to self-annihilation in pursuit of false idols, while we fail to recognize the miraculous nature of existing biology.

[kulahan]

Sure, I can agree. We probably need to spend more time focused on Earth. There are many mysteries still.

[walleeee]

Yes, so many.