Aliens Among Us
The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren’t any space aliens. We can’t be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we’re not all there is. If so, we’re in big trouble. ― Ellen DeGeneres
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]One of the most potentially disturbing questions for humanity is whether we are alone in the universe. Many are sure we are not. Many are equally certain we must be. No matter where one stands on the issue, though, the question remains fascinating, one that dominated movies and literature in the 20th century, and is almost considered matter-of-fact in entertainment today. Through the safety of special effects, we’ve explored, with varying success, just how other species of beings might look, how they might behave, and how they might interact with humans.
Almost everyone we meet has a pre-existing concept of how aliens might look, to the point that should we ever actually meet one we might be disappointed; rather like meeting a movie star without the glamorous makeup. What amuses me is how much we want them to look like us. We want them to be bipedal oxygen breathers with, at the very least, two eyes and a mouth on their heads. We prefer them to have arms and legs and walk upright as we do. Movies that present aliens in any other form are rare, with Jabba the Hut from Star Wars being one of the more notable exceptions.
Every day, there are thousands of people attempting to search for and attempt to make contact with alien life. On the opposite side there are hundreds of people whose job it is to debunk any theory of extraterrestrial communication. Both meet with varying success and no small amount of skepticism from the general public. Some think that to make contact with another race of beings could be exciting and propel humanity into a great new leap of evolution. Others fear the chaos that would ensue should alien life actually make its presence known. Some notably intelligent people, such as Stephen Hawking, warn that, should we make alien contact, they may consider us too inferior to be anything more than food, much the way we look at cattle.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Creating alternate worlds and transforming humans into alien beings is something at which Photoshop™ and similar programs excel, if one has the patience and understanding of the tools. Even with a detailed concept of what I wanted to create, there were still plenty of challenges that consumed a great deal of time. Eventually, one has to say, “Okay, we’re done with this project” and move on. I could sit and tweak the image for weeks and chances are I would be the only one who would notice the difference. Almost immediately after declaring the image done, I thought of things I would do differently.
I’m one of those people willing to entertain the possibility that not only does alien life exist, but that they’ve likely made communication with us before. I’m even willing to consider the possibility that we ourselves are some mutant strain whose evolution was hijacked by visitors from another planet conducting a giant science experiment. Given how we approach other planets and our exploration of things, we cannot consider such tampering to be impossible. We may, in the grand scheme of things, be the equivalent of  algae growing in some cosmic petri dish.
Experiments such as these, whether in real life or digital imagination, come with varying success and as we’ve seen in our look at variations in photo processing and manipulation, some things work better than others. Processes that may work well on one photograph might totally ruin another. Batch processing photos is hazardous and sometimes careless and irresponsible if one has not carefully curated the images beforehand. What we want is not always what we get. One thing for certain, though, is that as long as we have people with active imaginations there will constantly be the desire to manipulate photographs and see exactly how far we can push reality.[/one_half_last]
Standing Nude (2010)
Morning Update: 06/30/24
Normally, it’s the cats who are up early, making noise about wanting to be fed. This morning, it was the dogs who had me up at 5:00 AM, not because they wanted to be fed or anything, but because they wanted the entire bed to themselves. After fighting them for space, I gave up, fed the cats, and made coffee. On the plus side, that gave me extra time to read through this morning’s news. I’m likely to need a nap much sooner, though, than what I normally schedule.
Yesterday’s rain brought the usual challenges. Arthritis is a bitch on these days anyway and adding chemo pain on top of it and it can be debilitating. I was determined to not let it stop me, though. I had new pictures to process! If you’ve not yet seen our Indiana Dunes photo set, then by all means click that link and do so! I’ll pause here and wait while you go through them all. Taking new pictures and editing them really is some of the best possible therapy, both physically and mentally, that I could have. Hmmm… I wonder if I could use that excuse to get insurance to pay for new camera equipment. Do you think I could get a doctor to sign off on the prescription? Might be worth checking out.
I was so consumed with getting pictures edited, though, that I forgot to take the chemo meds until it was almost too late. There’s a window after which I have to wait until the next day. I barely made it. A dose of the diabetes meds had to be dropped, though, which isn’t a good thing. I was just starting to get a decent handle on the glucose numbers again and missing that dose yesterday may have set me back a bit. We’ll have to see what this morning’s numbers look like.
Most of the evening was spent re-watching Independence Day for the umpteenth time. There are times when it’s nice to not be surprised by what happens next. Are the good guys going to win? Yeah. Will Smith to the rescue. We still ignore the plot holes and all those places where reality had to be dismissed to keep the story moving along. In the middle of the whole thing, though, we got a surprise delivery of groceries courtesy of a good friend. We are blessed to have people who look out for us. I would probably be dead by now without all the help.
The movie did raise a couple of questions in light of current politics. The aliens brought millions of their kind to invade the planet. The inference is that they had been planning the invasion for over 50 years at the time the movie was made. Do you think that communicating via some unexplained form of telepathy made it easier for the alien leaders to convince the millions of followers to stay committed to the plan for that long? Is it possible that the aliens held some form of religious devotion that justified the wholesale killing of the residents of a planet? Hmmm…
Am I the only one disturbed by the right-wing flex in French and German politics? Today’s election in France could easily set up a far-right government there unlike anything that’s been seen since the Nazi invasion of WWII. There’s an “alternative” far-right push in Germany that’s a bit disturbing as well. Remember, concern over Germany once again becoming a problem for the rest of the world was the justification made for splitting it into two countries in the first place. Combine that movement with our own right-wing resurgence and I’m deeply concerned that half the planet may be ditching reason and intelligence in favor of authoritarianism and a religiously-fueled conservatism that spells trouble for LGBTQIA+ populations around the world.
John Naughton, professor of the humanities in the Romance languages department of Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, published an opinion piece in The Guardian yesterday that raises the question of how much conservativism pushes the world away from Democracy. He uses the closing of the Stanford Internet Observatory as an example. In the margin, right next to Naughton’s opinion, is this headline: Byron Bay is to be stripped of its nudist beach – and naturists blame ‘conservative creep’. Both ultimately come to the same conclusion: Conservativism is bad for a free way of life. Allowing them to gain control of multiple governments will push the world further and further away from the very freedoms that our grandparents and great-grandparents fought so hard to secure.
Last month, the United Nations released a report showing that nine out of ten people still hold biases against women. This is devastating, but it lines up with some articles I’ve seen recently touting a “women are meant to be mothers first” type of ideology. Conservativism is pushing women back, not forward. Hell, child marriage is still legal in all but 12 states! There is no more defeating way to hold women back by tying them down to marriage and children before their brains are done developing. The fact that much of this is being done with religious fervor and justification is unacceptable to a reasonable mind.
Yet, one of the fundamental qualities of Conservatism worldwide is to deny reason. They would rather stick to the mythologies of the past, deny the findings of science, and adhere to a morality that predates Socrates. I was severely disappointed yesterday when I saw a former college classmate post an article arguing that current US air temps deny climate change. He’s looking right past the fact that changes to precipitation patterns and sea level are likely to have a much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone. He also misses the fact that 2023 was the warmest year in the modern temperature record and that some scientists warn there is a strong chance 2024 could beat 2023. How does anyone look at all the evidence and think that because it wasn’t as hot in Paducah today as it was 100 years ago means that climate change isn’t real?
Right-wing ideologies ultimately lead to “everyone who disagrees with me deserves to die.” That’s almost exactly the same as the alien’s ideology that “everyone who is not like me deserves to die.” In the real world, though, I don’t think Will Smith is enough to save us, even if he were to run for President.
We hardly control what happens to our nation, much less the fate of the rest of the world. As we head toward another Independence Day this week, perhaps we would do well to ruminate on exactly how free we are and whether we’re still willing to fight for that freedom.
I’m not sure we’re willing to fight at all.
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