One Of My Favorite Youtubers Has A Fantastic Video About The History Of The Human Species That Ends With

one of my favorite youtubers has a fantastic video about the history of the human species that ends with a prospective message about ourselves to alien intelligences, and the closing paragraphs always get me right in the feels.

“We’ve pulled a bunch of fuck-ups, and we’re really quite confused, and alone, and frankly: scared. But we hope to enjoy the privilege of being a semicolon in history, rather than a full stop. So on behalf of the hundred and fifty billion who came before us, and our human cousins who didn’t make it, we just hope this message finds you well. And we hope when you find us, thousands of years from now, that we are well, too.

“In any case, please just write back. It’s dark out here, and we’re the last humans left.”

i cant think of the fact that humans send messages saying ’where are you? who are you?’ from earth to the giant and empty space all around us for too long because it makes me cry so hard and feel so human and lonely

astute of you to pick up of the hurdle that firestarting presents! but I promise you, fire is not a universal keystone for tool-using sapience. let’s look at it this way: what did early hominids use fire for?

cooking food - octopi don’t necessarily need to do that. if they really felt like it, they could strategically sun-dry and store fish onshore (octopi can survive out of water for significant periods of time!)

providing light and warmth - octopi have much better low-light vision than we do, so again, they don’t need fire for that.

fending off predators - octopi have the most advanced biological camouflage in the world and lack bones. they can hide extremely effectively, and if worst comes to worst they have ink to provide cover during an escape.

metallurgy - this one is more of an issue, as fire is necessary to produce the vast temperatures that smelting and forging common metals (iron, nickel, copper, etc) require. however, there’s more than one way around this! of course they could just come onto land to do their metallurgy, but there are a few metals/metalloids that are malleable at relatively low temperatures (i.e. underwater); notably, aluminum, zinc, and lead. but who says metals are the only way to make advanced tools...?

two words for you: artificial selection. due to the fact that metallurgy (and, later on, electricity) is a technology that isn’t feasible underwater, it would make much more sense to selectively breed other organisms to be living tools. they might start by carefully cultivating a few generations of clams to produce hatchet-shaped shells, but given time, resources, and the right base stock, the possibilities are virtually endless, especially once they unlock the secrets of direct genetic engineering. as far as we can tell, the psychology of octopi is extremely alien to that of humans, and from what I’ve read they show a remarkable amount of patience, which is needed to achieve significant progress in this toolmaking method. can you imagine it? vast biopunk metropoli sprawling across the ocean floor...!

Octopus filmed changing colours while sleeping.

I'm taking a bath with lights off and a lit scented candle, I thought it would be a nice relaxing experience but I feel like a draugr in a skyrim dungeon

a map of the brightest stars in the Pleiades open cluster, adapted from a SpaceEngine screenshot. please be aware that space is 3-dimensional and thus APPARENT relative distances and positions on this map do NOT correspond to ACTUAL relative distances or positions. you can figure those out on your own with SIMBAD data and this calculator here. this image is public domain by my explicit authorization, because I did all that work so why should anyone else have to?

stellar charting is soothing for me, idk why? manual data entry and cross-referencing is just pretty zen in my book, and there’s nothing better than the sky to hold my interest.

I also have a handy local stars chart here, with a Sol-centric radius of 10 parsecs.

Native artwork is honestly fucking gorgeous and it infuriates me that when you think of or try to look up “Native American art”, you get fetishistic, colonizer bullshit.

I’m so fucking sick of it. We’re always defined by how other people see us.

literally the ONLY things preventing octopi from finishing their evolution to a fully civilizational sophont species are their lack of social cooperation and the fact that they have no way to transfer knowledge across generations. once they can figure out language and thereby the capacity to organize, they will be unstoppable.

I can’t wait.

Octopus filmed changing colours while sleeping.