Crazy, non-serious theory: Bacteria readily adapt to space because the panspermia theory is correct, and these bacteria still carry within them genes that, four billion years ago, allowed their ancestors to hitchike to Earth on an asteroid. That’s why modern bacteria have these sophisticated, seemingly pre-evolved…

But blaming Rose isn’t much of an improvement over Pearl; one of the main reasons the Diamonds are so angry about the whole thing is because Rose *was* just a lowly Quartz; maybe not as lowly as Pearls in the heirarchy (though we don’t really know this, even) but the issue of rebellion and challenging the system is,…

The de-res destabilizing thingies probably weren’t invented yet at that point. The Crystal Gems didn’t seem to know what to expect from these weapons, and they seemed to be an example of how Homeworld technology advanced over the ages while the Crystal Gems were on Earth.

I like this puzzle, but it’s more of a language puzzle than one about identity. I think we just don’t have a good, established way of talking about such situations precisely because they are so... hypothetical. We don’t really “need” the sort of language conventions that would let us talk clearly about John and his…

Two snakes, with one body?

This is very sad. A serious question: Isn’t there a backup parachute that’s supposed to open if the primary chute fails?

The “illness” category is improving, since the article mentions one of the reasons for the smaller decline is that they’ve found a way to kill off some disease-carrying mites. But just because the other factors aren’t improving doesn’t mean they can’t be the ones to blame for the overall decline. If a river is…

I’d say the novels are more diesel-punk than steampunk. Definitely have some standard steampunk tropes, such as airships, but the overall tech level is a bit higher, and it’s hard to imagine many of the characters wearing top hats or cravats...

The world-building in the novels is awesome, but what really makes them work is the characters, and all the numerous shades of grey they come in. I think that’s what the movies will really have to work hard to get right...

The “mysterious female Outlander” would probably be Hester Shaw, the story’s female lead, especially given the scarf. How she’ll get portrayed in the film is something that worries me a bit. An interesting part of the book is that it breaks with the tradition of having a conventionally attractive female lead — Hester…

I don’t think consciousness is necessarily that mysterious. Mostly it means self-awareness, and that comes down to being intelligent enough that when your mind is creating a model of the universe around it, it’s capable of including a model of itself in there as well. In a way, I think it’s tempting to fall into…

That only makes sense up to an extent. A brilliant computer engineer isn’t necessarily going to be great at chess or jeopardy — I’m sure there’s geeky overlap, mind, but still. So it’s not the equivalent of a standard “they put more effort into being experts so they’re better than the average human at it” situation —…

Sawyer’s “Webmind” trilogy comes to mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWW_Trilogy) though frankly they aren’t, in my opinion, terribly good books as such, and they sort of handwave a lot of legitimate worries about privacy and the corruption of power. Still, they are a nice and refreshing “benevolent AI uses its…

I think in some of the best robot stories, the robots aren’t just pure cut and dried bad guys for us to fear, but also characters in their own right. But even then they often function to point out how inadequate and defective humans are, by showing how nasty we can be both to each other and to the robots themselves.…

Well, my personal, individual feeling is that gender isn’t a huge deal, or rather shouldn’t be. For me it isn’t, and I get very uncomfortable when people express expectations about me based on my biological sex because often they don’t fit who I am. However, I am also aware that other people find gender to be very…

I get the argument but I think it’s based in a bit of a false dichotomy. I.e. One of the two possibilities is that being non-binary is “real”, but then also everyone kind of has a fixed position on the spectrum, everyone already knows what their fixed position “really” is, and anyone who says they fit into one…

I get the argument but I think it’s based in a bit of a false dichotomy. I.e. One of the two possibilities is that being non-binary is “real”, but then also everyone kind of has a fixed position on the spectrum, everyone already knows what their fixed position “really” is, and anyone who says they fit into one…

So what? Isn’t getting people to see that sexuality is a spectrum and that they don’t have to fit into a binary, a good thing? Isn’t it a good thing to let people experiment? Obviously I’m not talking about this case, but rather the broader statement you’re making. On the one hand it makes sense that it can be…

I think a lot of alien invasion stories fit into this scenario. Footfall is a pretty straight example of the “marginally more advanced aliens come here, can’t go home, and have no choice but to attack us” concept, but even something like Independence Day — sure, the aliens had giant starships, but in a lot of ways…

The planet looks like it could be Vulcan. The desert costumes look similar to what we’ve seen of Vulcan fashion — though admittedly a bit plainer. It would also make sense for Vulcan to make an appearance early on in the series to remind the viewers that this is all taking place in the Prime timeline, and so Vulcan…