From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Are we alone?
This has been a question that has often been asked. Given that so many science-fiction stories feature encounters with alien beings, it's an important question for science fiction.
A while back, a book titled "Rare Earths" made the news. Its bold
hypothesis was that in a typical galaxy, there was only a narrow ring in
which solar systems would have enough heavier elements so that planets
which could bear life could form, on the one hand, and those planets would
not be so constantly pummelled by asteroid impacts so that it could never
get past the stage of single-celled microorganisms.
While there was certainly some plausibility to its arguments, this sort of argument is... too contingent for my liking. That is, it seems to me that
it's entirely possible that if some facts were overlooked, it could turn
out to be mistaken.
But it seems to me that there is an argument - and, in fact, a fairly well- known one - that the kind of life that writes books and builds spaceships
is indeed very rare in the Universe.
How did human intelligence evolve?
Our big brains have a high metabolic cost. And while human intelligence
has obvious survival benefits... _now_... it took time for us, with our
large brains, to develop all this technology that we now have.
It seems quite unlikely that our large brains yielded enough in the way of *immediate* benefits to permit them to evolve in the face of their
metabolic cost.
This question was faced at a _very_ early stage by biologists studying evolution.
Charles Darwin, after _The Origin of Species_, went on to write a second
book on evolution, with the title _The Descent of Man, or Selection in Relation to Sex_.

And so we've known *all along* that the giant brain of Man came into being
to facilitate social interaction among humans... and thus this giant brain came into being through the same process as the tail of the peacock or the horns of the Irish Elk.

And, since the targets of sexual selection are essentially random - we wouldn't expect creatures with giant horns like the Irish elk to
necessarily exist on other planets, or creatures with tails like that of
the peacock - it reasonably follows that far from being a common and inevitable result of evolution if it has time, brains of the kind needed
to venture out into space... are likely to be rare indeed if they're just
one random choice out of so many that sexual selection might happen to enhance.

John Savard
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On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 05:42:21 +0000, John Savard wrote:

While there was certainly some plausibility to its arguments, this sort
of argument is... too contingent for my liking. That is, it seems to me
that it's entirely possible that if some facts were overlooked, it could
turn out to be mistaken.

On further reflection, I realize that my reasoning was mistaken, and that intelligence is likely a product of sexual selection is not one of the strongest arguments that we are alone in the Universe, or nearly so.
A friend of mine recently got a fish with very colorful fins for her
aquarium.
So the tail of the peacock is not entirely random: the products of sexual selection fall into certain common patterns. Things that enhance social interaction could be one of those patterns.

John Savard
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

John Savard <quadibloc@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:

A while back, a book titled "Rare Earths" made the news. Its bold
hypothesis was that in a typical galaxy, there was only a narrow ring in >which solar systems would have enough heavier elements so that planets
which could bear life could form, on the one hand, and those planets would >not be so constantly pummelled by asteroid impacts so that it could never >get past the stage of single-celled microorganisms.

I had come across different stories about unlikely twists in the
history of life, the kind where if they had not lined up, there
might not have been any life at all. I never got around to laying
all that out in a way others could follow, but it left me with the
sense that life might be more improbable than the sheer number of
planets is large. I think it is possible that life on Earth is the
only life there is. But since there are stretches of the universe
we will never be able to see, we will never know for sure.

On Earth, not only did life show up, but out of life
came consciousness, which is still a huge mystery!

What hardly anyone considers is that there could be other phenomena
on the same level as life and consciousness. Things we do not even
have words for. Or, as a Secretary of Defense once said:

|As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know
|we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say
|we know there are some things we do not know. But there are
|also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.
.


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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 07:47:27 -0700, a425couple wrote:

view it all at: https://screenrant.com/citizen-of-the-galaxy-animated-movie-development-

details/

director Jay Olivia is now helming an animated adaptation of Citizen of
the Galaxy. To be penned by Red Sonja's Luke Lieberman, the film will
follow a young slave whose destiny will see him go on to shape the
galaxy at large.. To be penned by Red Sonja's Luke Lieberman, the film
will follow a young slave whose destiny will see him go on to shape the galaxy at large.

I thought this post would be about your own suggestion that it would be a
nice project to have happen.

So I was all ready to criticize your idea by saying that I didn't think it likely such a thing could ever be made - unless it was a complete travesty
of the source material, hardly related to it at all except in name.

But since it's a real project... I have to add some things...

a) I'm still afraid that this is what might happen, but if serious people
are really trying to do it, that is a good sign, indicating at least a *possibility* what I fear may be avoided, but

b) Come to think of it, this has already happened once in real life,
although with a live-action movie. Apologies to anyone reading this post
who had managed to make himself forget Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers".

If one is tasked with making a film adaptation of a novel which one
believes to be an apologia for fascism, and one rightly believes fascism
to be wicked, then doing what Verhoeven did to the book, making his movie based on it into an indictment of fascism, is the right and moral thing to
do. So I do not fault his morals, I fault his reading comprehension.

In a Star Trek novel, there is a moment where, after looking at the mirror universe version of Shakespeare... he declines to look at the mirror
universe version of the Bible. On my list of alternate universe movies not
to watch... is one where The Lord of the Rings recieves the Verhoeven treatment.

John Savard

John Savard
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On Aug 23, 2025, a425couple wrote
(in article <4wkqQ.611983$xyt3.148724@fx15.iad>):

view it all at: https://screenrant.com/citizen-of-the-galaxy-animated-movie-development-detail
s/

director Jay Olivia is now helming an animated adaptation of Citizen of
the Galaxy. To be penned by Red Sonja's Luke Lieberman, the film will
follow a young slave whose destiny will see him go on to shape the
galaxy at large.. To be penned by Red Sonja's Luke Lieberman, the film
will follow a young slave whose destiny will see him go on to shape the galaxy at large.

Anakin Skywalker lives!

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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

In article <108fkvo$2v6m4$1@dont-email.me>,
John Savard <quadibloc@invalid.invalid> wrote:

So I was all ready to criticize your idea by saying that I didn't think it >likely such a thing could ever be made - unless it was a complete travesty >of the source material, hardly related to it at all except in name.

But since it's a real project... I have to add some things...

a) I'm still afraid that this is what might happen, but if serious people >are really trying to do it, that is a good sign, indicating at least a >*possibility* what I fear may be avoided, but
( Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers" )

I'm hoping this treatment will be at least as respectful
as the "Puppet Masters" movie, which I thought was a pretty
decent treatment, especially considering the limitations the
filmmakers were under. (Budget issues, studio involvement,
and, of course, not wanting an NC17 rating, so things couldn't
be allowed to progress to Schedule Suntan.) A lot of Genuine
Heinline shown through.

Fingers crossed...
--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/26/2025 9:12 PM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

In article <108fkvo$2v6m4$1@dont-email.me>,
John Savard <quadibloc@invalid.invalid> wrote:

So I was all ready to criticize your idea by saying that I didn't think it >> likely such a thing could ever be made - unless it was a complete travesty >> of the source material, hardly related to it at all except in name.

But since it's a real project... I have to add some things...

a) I'm still afraid that this is what might happen, but if serious people
are really trying to do it, that is a good sign, indicating at least a
*possibility* what I fear may be avoided, but
( Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers" )

I'm hoping this treatment will be at least as respectful
as the "Puppet Masters" movie, which I thought was a pretty
decent treatment, especially considering the limitations the
filmmakers were under. (Budget issues, studio involvement,
and, of course, not wanting an NC17 rating, so things couldn't
be allowed to progress to Schedule Suntan.) A lot of Genuine
Heinline shown through.

Some one could make a list of all the times RAH snuck his
nudism hobby into his books....

pt

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