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Cake day: July 24th, 2023




  • High school teacher in my case. I knew a bit of BASIC before his lessons, but nothing major. I couldn’t really see how to use it to make a whole program.

    Then his TurboPascal lessons opened up a whole world of possibilities. Not only did I take in the basics of any programming language, I also saw how these little blocks could lead to whole applications. Then I applied what I learned to PHP for some class websites, and am happy to say I’m still coding PHP to this day. I’ll be forever grateful to that teacher.




  • There might indeed be ways around the filter, e.g. a stable, non-exploitative society but they would never reach space. The filter might indeed not even exist, space could indeed still be young but I’m not very convinced. If space were young, and if it were to expand as it currently does, civilizations would have fewer opportunities as there would be fewer visible stars to explore. As time grows, chances get smaller still.

    Let’s say humans do cling on. I believe they will face challenges that are too steep to make long-term survival probable. Not only the heavily pollution and the unlivable climate, but the depletion of basic minerals will probably prove too great an obstacle. That band of humans must have held on and maintained all current technology, and have sufficient power sources, to be able to do some deep underground mining, as all easy-to-reach minerals have already gone. Without technology or those minerals, I’m not sure how we’ll be growing food or cleaning the air to breathe.



  • I believe we’re seeing a universal law in action: any technologically advanced civilization will end up destroying itself. Whether it’s the warming due to extracted fossil fuels, or a nuclear war, or AI, …, there is, and must be, a seed of destruction in every advanced civilization. I purposefully say ‘must be’ because of the Fermi paradox, which should indicate to us all how any sci-fi future is forever beyond our grasp.














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