When Elephants Weep

Outer space plants? Didn't they ever see The Thing or Day of the Triffids? (Yes, I know the triffids weren't from outer space, but they were created in a lab).

I want the clock. I really need something that's going to tell me just how little I continue to accomplish in the next millenium.

Intelligence suggests that marmoset P. Furiosus designed this device
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to defeat the Mountain Man and his Timecube. ≡ Click to see image ≡≡ Click to see image ≡

Clock of the Long Now? That's the awesomest name ever. I need to become a rock star so that can be the name of my first album.

Or write a sci-fi novel about the Cuckoo of the Long Now.

Also, why are they so surprised by the elephants? I thought it was pretty well accepted that they were intelligent, emotional creatures. I once watched a documentary where a baby elephant fell into a hole and the rest of the group spent hours digging and placing tree limbs to make a ramp to get him out. It was amazing.

Saving a baby is (for the baby's relatives) clearly adaptive. Venerating or mourning the dead is not so obviously adaptive.

"Intelligent [and] emotional" need not necessarily mean "human-like". What's interesting is to separate intelligence and emotion into their components; more and more its clear that "intelligence" consists of many many "stupid" modules.

Point well taken, orthogonality. I'm guilty of anthropomorphizing.

The remote control for humans is particularly problematic.

I'm guilty of anthropomorphizing.

That's only human. ;)

"Intelligent [and] emotional" need not necessarily mean "human-like".

Can't it just point to commonalities among all animals? I'm not so sure (and I'm used to heavy disagreement here, so I'm not trying to start a MeFi-flavored argument) that there is anything that really separates humans from the rest of the animal world. There are things that make us different than, say, a cow. But there are things about cows that makes them different from humans. Not better, worse, just different.

Just after this photograph was taken, the man in the foreground was swallowed whole by the humanoid seen creeping up behind him.
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