Joseph Ratliff

I write, I draw, and I think about technology’s impact on society.

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Staring Deeply Into the Cosmic Abyss

On the insignificance of the aggregate of our human accomplishments … and why we will not make contact with another species of intelligent life…

This might be considered my hypothesis for the Fermi Paradox solution.

They (any other non-human intelligent life) might receive our messages, but once they see who we are and what we consider accomplishment, they will scoff at our attempt at existence.

They will likely be harsh critics of our stewardship of this planet, its resources, and our willingness to literally kill one another in the interest of man-made false constructs.

Remember, if they had the technology to travel to our planet … they will be more evolved as a civilization. Not necessarily in a good way, but look at where we are now, and we haven’t figured out 75% of what we have to yet.

Because there is more to interstellar travel than just the technology required doing it...

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“Sealed For Your Protection”

I opened a new bottle of probiotics this morning, and it had one of those circular “seals” on the top, you know, the one that says “Sealed for your protection.”

And that seal got me thinking… how much protection do we need? How much security is enough?

How much homogenization, pasteurization, disinfection, national security, etc… do we need before we stop, or at least slow down and allow nature (and our own individual and collaborative thoughts) to do the rest?

How many wars (not just abroad I’m afraid), surveillance methods, widespread data gathering efforts, etc… do we need before we say we have ENOUGH?

(In my opinion, the idea of “World Peace” will never happen if we keep fighting, and finding more reasons to fight etc…)

And don’t get me wrong…

I respect our soldiers for what they do, my best friend was a Marine. I respect the good intentions of all the people involved in trying...

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