Dr. Neil DeGrasse - A fascinatingly disturbing thought

[TheBoxingCannabyte]

And of course, Carl Sagan, among many others. Sorry to those that hated my spam :P

[TheBoxingCannabyte]

I have three major story arcs plotted, one takes place across 36 normal comic-sized issues. So 3 years, another would be a small break. It's the idea of "what happens when you take a badass and stick him in "The Hills Have Eyes and Friday the 13th?," my character gets captured in the desert and subjected to a very horror-like experience. That's the fun of this series I'm penning, it will do comedy, horror, tons of action, drama and hopefully be thought-provoking. Thanks Neil, Michio, Stephen!

[TheBoxingCannabyte]

Sorry for rambling it's just stuff like this gets me excited as a writer :P I know my idea probably sounds really dumb, and it probably is. But I want to take the idea of a character who is born not-quite-human and doesn't age, heals rapidly, (many stuff that transhumanism and a superior species would have theoretically), and eventually, after 170+ years he finally gets embroiled in a plot with humans finally catching up. Between that he encounters others like him, government agencies..

[TheBoxingCannabyte]

-Part of my own futurist dreams and aspirations. My character is a mix of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Spike (black nail-polish, strange half-british accent from living in Europe for a few decades), Justified's Raylan Givens (with a pinch Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name), Batman, Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. House and a touch of Dexter and The Punisher, as he has developed an addiction to war and death as well as drugs (House/Dexter/Punisher). With the combined skills of all of them martially

[TheBoxingCannabyte]

Nothing to gawk at, yes this is science fiction, I am a science cheerleader, not a scientist, so much of this will be purely fantastical. But I'm hoping to get people interested in the ideas of transhumanism. My character himself wears a hat (which amazingly enough, I found a hat JUST LIKE THE ONE I WROTE ABOUT in a shop last week and bought it, and am wearing it) with a revolver on the belt. If I had to shorten this up, which I should I'd say this is a mix between the Deus Ex PC gam series and-

[TheBoxingCannabyte]

BTW I'm working on an ongoing online graphic serial (pre-production, still working on story-boarding, finding an artist, figure concepts, etc.) but the character in it, called "Revolver" is a civil war-era born child who's still alive, his father, Emil Richards, was very special, and eventually met Nikolai Tesla among others. But his son, "Revolver" was even more special, he wasn't a full 1.8% difference like we are with chimps, but a %0.0420 genetic difference with an extra chromosone is-

[TheBoxingCannabyte]

This is why I'm a transhumanist, so we can bridge the gap between the very special 1% (in this context) :)

[AmiZya2]

Watch out guys ..!

[emerickscott]

Can I like this more than once?

[keithrose4227]

one more thing, why read the bible when you could listen to this man talk? He just said more beautiful things in 12 minutes than the entire bible

[keithrose4227]

TYSON 2016

[ItsPalm]

3 people had their cool knobs turned off

[zmarcusz]

we cant be that stupid if we can share these idea's and come up with the same idea's independently. i said all that shit when i was 9.

[tornadoofsouls626]

@zmarcusz Yet we must take into account our shortcomings as humans. Like NDT said, what we call "optical illusions" are actually nothing more than the brain's failure to comprehend what is visually being taken in.We can't will ourselves to see past the illusion any more than a chimp can will itself to ponder on it's own existence. We simply aren't smart enough to beat the illusion.

[philzimelman]

Dr. Neil DeGrasse: the perfect successor to Carl Sagan!



[hughc023]

Brilliant!! . . . Such a fabulous communicator on the joys of scientific discovery . . .

[srsharg]

I don't want to impose or defend any beliefs or thoughts, but I have a question. Couldn't that existance who is 1 percent smarter be what religions refer to as god?

[koneye]

@srsharg Yup

[DaToNyOyO]

@srsharg Nope.

None of those gods are that smart, as demonstrated by their "holy" books; which is the result of god being an invention of man.

[diomedes39]

@srsharg If you don't want to defend something you say, don't say it.

[mrmackilla]

agreed 

[8Aspider]

This video makes me sooooo excited and happy about life!

[MrLaz0rz]

I just had a 12 minute long mind orgasm.

[CheckerOfReality]

There may be millions of Earth-like planets in the universe, but consider how unlikely it is for life to form spontaneously. Not only did the first form of life need to, by random chance, have a means of making an energy source usable, but it also needed a viable genetic code and the means to use that code to produce another viable organism. It's about as likely as nature forming a functioning automobile with a set of blueprints in the glovebox. It's possible we're alone in the universe.

[theguythatcouldfly]

@CheckerOfReality Of course it's possible. But as the point of this video, we are too stupid to figure out if we're alone or not, that nature is damn good at creating life, and that although two grains of sand are never the same, two out of the trillions and trillions may be too similar to notice a difference.

[CheckerOfReality]

To put sharing ~98% of our genes with chimps into perspective, consider we share around 85% of our genes with mice. Most of our genes relate to the inner workings of our bodies, which are pretty similar across all mammals (which is why testing drugs on mice usually works pretty well). We even have perhaps 60% of our genes in common with something as simple as a fruit fly.

[ThisNameIsNotYerrs]

I love this video, but i have to point out he totally sounds like the dinosaur from toy story.

[Bballinjosh]

ofcourse one of the most enlightening, thought provoking, well spoken, logical, mind expanding, views of the universe that WE ALL LIVE IN TOGETHER would only have 13k views. yet a 6 second cat video hits 4mil in 2 days. SUPPORT INTELLIGENCE!!!!!

[gogerychwyrndrobwll]

Silly Neil: we don't need to be smart enough to figure out the universe. We only need to be smart enough to figure out how to become smarter.

[bobx9000]

0_0

[RlEL444]

who are the 2 christian fucks who disliked this?!?!?!?!

[DStud29]

Interesting theory. If aliens evolved anything like we have, though, I don't think it's very likely: I think it may be a universal truth that the point at which a society develops the capacity for empathy towards the stupid individuals in it as well as the ability to care for them, is unfortunately (or fortunately) also the point at which natural selection and therefore evolution ceases.

[gogerychwyrndrobwll]

@DStud29 Evolution never ceases, not ever. It's a constant process of adaptation, whether we may consciously change the factors that affect natural selection or not.

I don't think, however, that there's any evolutionary advantage for a species to know string theory intuitively -- I'd wager that most intelligent species in the universe, if there are any, have similar biological and physical prejudices to our own. Even if they're smarter.

[Anthwun]

Very powerful words at the end there. Me too, Neil, me too.

[iminspacespace]

Now if fox news spews bullshit 24/7, why isn't there shows like this?

[DrazhiHD]

2 people are Chimpanzees.

[neutrino741]

Enlightening! 

[Weezyer]

wow.



[mm5192]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is the fucking man... i love him. He's like the Morgan Freeman of astrophysics

[Nutesack]

umm... mind = blew.

[classISsick]

When I listen to Neil talk it's almost as if I escape reality for a brief moment. Wondering about all the possibilities around the universe. It depresses me that I'll never be as smart as that man.

[lilchrondog]

@classISsick Oh come on now. Take Richard Feynman for an example. I paraphrase him saying, "I wasn't born smart just like many other people, I was a kid who worked hard and studied hard to get where I was today"

[alexherrera84]

Exiled Coalition!

[06stephend]

Yes!

[1234r4321]

Neil DeGrasse is our generation's Carl Segan!

[Lleanlleawrg]

@1234r4321 Yes. They even knew eachother somewhat, as you may be aware.

[dbraddillon]

where's the moron who disliked this video?

[rap99sta]

@dbraddillon The same one who voted for Newt Gingrich when he told them he believed in family values.

[tommyj73]

@dbraddillon My guess it was a fundie.

[XBOX360FOEVA]

@dbraddillon a christian

[nhall022]

@dbraddillon making pasta collages?

[crixxed]

Truly inspiring

[KoolaidluvsStephanie]

Wow...this guy should be debate nominee against every religious nut XD

[TheOmnImpotent]

@KoolaidluvsStephanie Him and zombie Hitchens. Unstoppable.

[eikons]

I love Neil, but I think he's taking that 1% notion out of proportion. The 1% difference in DNA between us and chimps doesn't mean our brain is 1% different. It means that of every single instruction needed to build our bodies, 1% of them is different. The genes responsible for building a brain are contained within that 1%. Our brain has twice the mass of a chimp's. If you're ONLY considering what Neil calls intelligence, we're probably around 100% smarter than chimps. I agree with the rest.

[yesitsnicholas]

@eikons I think he understands what you are saying fully - which is why he finds it so fascinating. All it took was a 1% change in the genetic code to create a 100% change in intellect. Imagine that with a 1% change in DNA you could have 1,000,000 synapses per nerve instead of 10,000. Maybe then I could intuit string theory instead of intuiting Algebra - with a 1% change in my code.

[Necrobutcher82]

Neil DeGrasse is so awesome.

[sappyxsorb]

Wow. A man who can explain complex thoughts in a more or less simple manner. Incredible video

[AnteroX1234]

vid was great, but this guy is way too nihilistic about it

[cds123564]

@AnteroX1234 what do you mean..?

[atheismforthewin1]

Consciousness is the universe experiencing itself. What is more poetic than that?

[Palidor19]

the best way to describe this video is hauntily beautiful

[stathamajf]

I see what he's saying, but leaving aside the seeming unlikelyhood of a species naturally evolving more then the basic intellect we started with I feel the thing being missed out is artificial augmentation of intelligence.

It seems to me that this route is the most likely to ever lead to a species reaching that kind of intellect, indeed I doubt we're that far from starting down that route ourselves. And as for the intellect gap...well personally I think uplifting chimps sounds better everyday.

[halfLotusMusic]

@stathamajf Based on exactly *what* evidence are you saying that it is a "seeming unlikelyhood" of becoming particularly smart? Based on the fact that you cannot understand it? Bad news for you, friend. The universe doesn't care. It has no obligation to make sense to you. It doesn't make sense to people much smarter than you. Your claim that "oh it seems rare" is hilarious. Rare events happen every moment in a universe of this size. Why on earth does being "rare" make it special?

[AlexisBV]

@halfLotusMusic That makes me think of a quote I saw in the game Civ V, from Lyall Watson: "If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."

[stathamajf]

@halfLotusMusic Not my focus, but hey. Actually if you read my post again, that's not what I said, I said unlikely, which means a very different thing, in this case while intelligence evolving is merely rare, a massively advanced intelligence evolving is unlikely, as in there's no evolutionary reason for this to happen so it probably won't.

But feel free to climb back on your high horse and yell your ignorance to the world, it's funny.

[Greywindx]

Brilliance in action right there.

[TheAzureSky1]

Those goddamn 1%.

[iLaughOut]

the insight that this man offers is simply outstanding. the last part about the 1% difference in DNA was awesome!

[Gafaton]

It's a shame this has only 2300 views.

[TheBobbyLean]

Panspermia!!!!

[Reskier]

Dr Neil DeGrasse one fundamental mistake we humans consistently make is to think too linearly. An alien intelligence may not necessarily have followed the same evolution pattern as we have. Nor hold the same value system as we have.

[flubno]

I love how this guy thinks outside of the box, and he is one point. It is hard for people to think in a correct way. The Human Ego can be a very limiting thing. Take the primitive human ego and add Religion to it and you have a recipe for brain damage. I wish sometimes that i could turn my Ego off. It really does get in the way of clear and realistic thought.

[vancouvermild]

@flubno

Well said! You're beginning to make me think that YOU yourself are a brilliant scientist (by current earth life standards, that is)?

[vancouvermild]

@flubno

I forgot to add, referring to my last message, that might very well be how you've stumbled upon this video in the first place. You might either be a brilliant scientist, or at least a science student or a layperson very interested in science?

[flubno]

@vancouvermild I'm just a atheist that likes to think for my self. I like science but haven't been in a class sense I was a kid. I don't hate religion , but I do think the church teaches people not to think. The myopic dogma of it can lead people to have this quasi-child like mentality, who were never really taught to think and reason in a good way. Witch is what the church likes, loopy people who are easy to manipulate.

[DAVROSS44]

i love this man!

[lamerizzle]

@DAVROSS44 If I'm ever lucky enough to meet NDT I'm skipping the handshake and going in for a hug.

[Sandford28]

this is the best video on youtube as of 2011.

[hellasow]

@Sandford28..... Neil deGrasse Tyson: The Perimeter of Ignorance...I think is better.....I Think both of these vids were copied and made before 2011 but i could be wrong...

[brooksmax1]

@Sandford28 Best speech of all-time.