Our universe is so rad!

[pnjguy]

I've been extremely into the universe since the remake of Cosmos aired. And since then I've been having more and more trouble in finding the point in anything we do as "normal" human beings. Nothing I'm gonna do is going to have an effect on humankind. I'm not planning on having kids. I'm not a religious person. So what's the point in any of this? Just to keep on keeping on? Have a good time? It's becoming harder and harder to not realize just how completely insignificant any of us are, and what any of us do. We're less than a speck on a beach of sand. Even the greatest, most important amongst us are completely pointless in the grand scheme.

I work my ass off, for what, to have money to buy a nice new Macbook so I can essentially entertain myself while I gradually die?

I just...

ugh.

The fact that this speck on a beach of sand can begin to understand who we are, where we came from, and our place in the universe should make you feel empowered.

[malice]

I've been extremely into the universe since the remake of Cosmos aired. And since then I've been having more and more trouble in finding the point in anything we do as "normal" human beings. Nothing I'm gonna do is going to have an effect on humankind. I'm not planning on having kids. I'm not a religious person. So what's the point in any of this? Just to keep on keeping on? Have a good time? It's becoming harder and harder to not realize just how completely insignificant any of us are, and what any of us do. We're less than a speck on a beach of sand. Even the greatest, most important amongst us are completely pointless in the grand scheme.

I work my ass off, for what, to have money to buy a nice new Macbook so I can essentially entertain myself while I gradually die?

I just...

ugh.

nothing anybody does has an effect on humankind
there isn't any point to anything
and your place in the universe is nothing and nowhere

in essence we do not exist and never will

aside from that, it's a lot better than the alternative.

i read somewhere a long time ago that the existence of all things can be looked at as an attempt by the universe to gain sentience. to become something other than what it is. all things stem from that. all experiences are carried out in that quest - from the expression of a rock on a sidewalk to a holy crusade fought to make everyone a christian.
all of it is of a piece. should you care to participate in that experience, the world is here and waiting for your experiences to be added to the whole sum total of everything.
should you not care to participate, the world is still here and waiting for your experience to be added to the whole sum total of everything.

it makes little difference to the world, and none whatsoever to the universe what you think or choose or do, however, it makes all the difference to you when you decide how you want to perceive and participate in the world around you.

that's it.

also, watch out for middle age, then the real head trip begins.

[malice]

btw, i wanted to instead post a cartoon strip from bloom county about binkley griping about how he'd been reexamining his values lately and beginning to question what it's all for... as he's walking away he yells: and what about this whole death thing??? I don't like it! not one bit!

with a gopher or whatever noting: middle age has come a wee early for mr. binkley

however, i couldn't find it online so you'll have to trust me on it, it was very funny.

i kinda hate the internet.

[LoathedVermin72]

I'm gonna start a "malice Transcribes Comic Strips" thread.

[E.H. Ruddock]

I've been extremely into the universe since the remake of Cosmos aired. And since then I've been having more and more trouble in finding the point in anything we do as "normal" human beings. Nothing I'm gonna do is going to have an effect on humankind. I'm not planning on having kids. I'm not a religious person. So what's the point in any of this? Just to keep on keeping on? Have a good time? It's becoming harder and harder to not realize just how completely insignificant any of us are, and what any of us do. We're less than a speck on a beach of sand. Even the greatest, most important amongst us are completely pointless in the grand scheme.

I work my ass off, for what, to have money to buy a nice new Macbook so I can essentially entertain myself while I gradually die?

I just...

ugh.

nothing anybody does has an effect on humankind
there isn't any point to anything
and your place in the universe is nothing and nowhere

in essence we do not exist and never will

aside from that, it's a lot better than the alternative.

i read somewhere a long time ago that the existence of all things can be looked at as an attempt by the universe to gain sentience. to become something other than what it is. all things stem from that. all experiences are carried out in that quest - from the expression of a rock on a sidewalk to a holy crusade fought to make everyone a christian.
all of it is of a piece. should you care to participate in that experience, the world is here and waiting for your experiences to be added to the whole sum total of everything.
should you not care to participate, the world is still here and waiting for your experience to be added to the whole sum total of everything.

it makes little difference to the world, and none whatsoever to the universe what you think or choose or do, however, it makes all the difference to you when you decide how you want to perceive and participate in the world around you.

that's it.

also, watch out for middle age, then the real head trip begins.

tl;dr

[Alex]

I've been extremely into the universe since the remake of Cosmos aired. And since then I've been having more and more trouble in finding the point in anything we do as "normal" human beings. Nothing I'm gonna do is going to have an effect on humankind. I'm not planning on having kids. I'm not a religious person. So what's the point in any of this? Just to keep on keeping on? Have a good time? It's becoming harder and harder to not realize just how completely insignificant any of us are, and what any of us do. We're less than a speck on a beach of sand. Even the greatest, most important amongst us are completely pointless in the grand scheme.

I work my ass off, for what, to have money to buy a nice new Macbook so I can essentially entertain myself while I gradually die?

I just...

ugh.

nothing anybody does has an effect on humankind
there isn't any point to anything
and your place in the universe is nothing and nowhere

in essence we do not exist and never will

aside from that, it's a lot better than the alternative.

i read somewhere a long time ago that the existence of all things can be looked at as an attempt by the universe to gain sentience. to become something other than what it is. all things stem from that. all experiences are carried out in that quest - from the expression of a rock on a sidewalk to a holy crusade fought to make everyone a christian.
all of it is of a piece. should you care to participate in that experience, the world is here and waiting for your experiences to be added to the whole sum total of everything.
should you not care to participate, the world is still here and waiting for your experience to be added to the whole sum total of everything.

it makes little difference to the world, and none whatsoever to the universe what you think or choose or do, however, it makes all the difference to you when you decide how you want to perceive and participate in the world around you.

that's it.

also, watch out for middle age, then the real head trip begins.

tl;dr

try this instead

[E.H. Ruddock]

No way I'm clicking that

[Alex]

excellent choice, sentient being

[bodysnatcher]

it makes little difference to the world, and none whatsoever to the universe what you think or choose or do, however, it makes all the difference to you when you decide how you want to perceive and participate in the world around you.

that's it.

I really like that viewpoint. Thanks for that insight

[BurtReynolds]

There is a thing on Netflix called Life in Our Universe. Its not a show like Cosmos. Its just a series of lectures on how they find other planets, and the odds that they could find one that would be habitable (don't expect any aliens to show up anytime soon).

Its cool if you are into this sort of thing.

[McParadigm]

We're all mad here

[dimejinky99]

ok..i'm a little freaked out by this...

Astronomers Find Quasars Are "Aligned" Across Billions Of Light-Years



Quasars separated by billions of light-years are lined up in a mysterious way. Astronomers looking at nearly 100 quasars have discovered that the central black holes of these ultra-bright, faraway galaxies have rotational axes that are aligned with each other. These alignments are the largest known in the universe.

Quasars are some of the brightest things known, and at the center of these super luminous nuclei of galaxies are very active supermassive black holes. The black hole is surrounded by a spinning disc of extremely hot material, which gets spewed out in long jets all along the quasar’s axis of rotation.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, a team led by Damien Hutsemékers from the University of Liège in Belgium studied 93 quasars known to form huge groupings. We’re seeing them now at a time when the universe was only about a third of its current age. “The first odd thing we noticed was that some of the quasars’ rotation axes were aligned with each other—despite the fact that these quasars are separated by billions of light-years,” Hutsemékers says in a news release.

So the team wanted to find out if the rotation axes were linked at that time—and not just to each other, but also to the structure of the universe on large scales. When looking at the distribution of galaxies on scales of billions of light-years, astronomers have found that galaxies aren’t evenly distributed: They form a web of filaments and clump around huge galaxy-scarce voids. This arrangement of material is known as the large-scale structure.

The team could not see the rotation axes or the jets of the quasars directly. Instead they measured the polarization of the light from each quasar and found a significantly polarized signal for 19 of them. The direction of this polarization helps to deduce the angle of the disc and the direction of the spin axis of the quasar.

These new findings indicate that the rotation axes of quasars tend to be parallel to the large-scale structures that they inhabit. That means that if the quasars are in a long filament, then the spins of their central black holes will point along the filament. (See the image above.) According their estimates, there’s only a one percent probability that these alignments are simply the result of chance.

“A correlation between the orientation of quasars and the structure they belong to is an important prediction of numerical models of evolution of our universe,” says study co-author Dominique Sluse of the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie in Bonn, Germany. “The alignments in the new data, on scales even bigger than current predictions from simulations, may be a hint that there is a missing ingredient in our current models of the cosmos.”

The findings were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics this week. Here’s a detailed simulation of the large-scale structure centered on a massive galaxy cluster. The distribution of dark matter is shown in blue, the gas distribution in orange. The region shown is about 300 million light-years across.

[LoathedVermin72]

That gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Insane.

[dimejinky99]

It's..i dunno..all i do know is that's me awake for the whole night..

[nyquillyn]

Why is this scary to you guys?

[Farmer John]

Why is this scary to you guys?

I was wondering the same thing.

[dimejinky99]

Design. On a scale this big, that can't be coinceidental?

Or maybe we are just living in a universe that is actually just an insignificant microbe floating in an organic soup in a larger being.

[nyquillyn]

The universe tends to be pretty symmetrical. It's not all that surprising.

[Farmer John]

If anything, it's kind of comforting knowing everything is exactly where is should be.

[dimejinky99]

It's not though

It's all moving away from each other.

Like families as time goes on. More and more distance the only thing each has in common