This has occurred to people! But if you run the numbers, they are still not good enough in that early (~100 My) window when stars in the parent nebula are close together, you get something like 1 chance in 1000 of possible panspermia events (based on modeling lumps of rock flying back and forth). Not terrible odds, but nothing like the Mars -> Earth odds.
A more extreme version of this is the idea of panspermia in the early universe, when the cosmic microwave background radiation was warm enough to keep water liquid: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/habitable.pdf
Yes indeed, I've thought panspermia in the Sun's natal cluster is an interesting idea. What could make it even more interesting is that small bodies in our Solar System (and likely its sister systems) were warm enough for liquid water to exist for some millions of years then, so there would be an enormous volume of material in which Origin of Life might have occurred (and, if it did, to then spread after the parent body froze and then fragmented.)
It would make a fine science fictional scenario that could get around the Fermi problem: those 10,000 or so systems could have life, but the rest of the universe not have life.
>those 10,000 or so systems could have life, but the rest of the universe not have life.
That's also neat to contemplate, thanks.
I was thinking bigger: if panspermia gets dramatically more viable, then nebula could switch over in their probability distribution from "default sterile" to default teeming.
In this scenario, we could find (related!) life essentially everywhere, and caused by panspermia no less, despite numbers still saying panspermia is wildly improbable for mature stars.
"Default teaming" really isn't viable due to the Fermi problem.
But if OoL is extremely unlikely, the cluster panspermia idea still allows extraterrestrial life to reasonably exist and be reachable, because that life didn't require a separate highly unlikely OoL event.
I think SETI should focus on stars that look like the Sun's siblings.
"Teaming" (social) organisms are also fun, sure. ;)
The Fermi paradox assumes we'd be good at observing aliens, and that aliens will leave evidence that's conspicuous to us. These two statements are roughly equivalent, basically saying there can't be too much "impedance mismatch" between the two.
But again, even besides that, the nebula can still "teem" even though we never see any here on Earth, because the Sun vs nebula math is just so different for interstellar travel too. Many civilizations, seeded from common dirty chemistry, then permanently separated by vast distance as the star migrates out of the nebula.
TL;DR nebula parameter differences solve Fermi even in a teeming universe, but I doubt we'd see the aliens even if they were here. ;)
The Fermi paradox doesn't require we're good at observing aliens. It asks why didn't aliens colonize everything, including the Solar System, billions of years ago, in which case we wouldn't even exist.
Forgive my ignorance here, but at such an early period in the solar system, wouldn't there have been few if any rocks with sufficient gravity for life to form on?
I mean we as humans have a way to approach light speed (with nuclear explosions) today, with our primitive technology. Anything even 500 years more advanced than us can probably travel very long distances.
> But if 2-9-3 really had been isolated from its relative for a quarter billion years, enough random mutations in the rDNA should have accumulated for there to be a difference of at least 50 base pairs
Occams razor definitely points to this just being a sterilization problem. But it would be funny if the bacteria was just way more stable than people expect.
"Some of the problem is cultural. Geologists, petrologists, and microbiologists come from different scientific tribes that don’t typically read one another’s papers, or buy one another beers. Even the various subfields can often talk past each other, and many researchers have yet to absorb the full implications of modern sequencing techniques on their field."
I would love to see this problem addressed at scale, across all fields. In my experience, the funding models and institutional norms that predominate go out of their way to discourage crosstalk. If I could snap my fingers and make that go away, I suspect there would be a ton of new low-hanging fruit that would be realized, just in casual conversation between new colleagues.
I think if we do not first figure out how to cooperate on this planet, the division will only grow. IMO the Expanse is more or less what I would expect if we began colonizing the solar system right now.
We’re going to be able to potentially make “perfect” humans through genetic engineering less than a 100 years from now, we are not stuck with our current state forever. It is something I never see sci-fi tackle, probably because it would take away most things in a story humans find interesting.
We're absolutely not going to agree on a definition of "perfect human" in the next 100 years. If that level of genetic engineering becomes available anytime soon, which template to use will just become another thing to fight about.
Humans would build and control the robots that go out, collect resources and bring them back without risking human life's. They can also do experiments, since we do not know nearly enough to keep people safe.
I'm sure lots of people would. I just think it is more likely at this point that we spread and it just exacerbates our existing issues by shifting them to a much larger scale.
That's not what I said. However, I do believe that colonizing other planets at our current level of cultural development will exacerbate the negative aspects of our current reality a thousand fold while providing little to no benefit to anyone who doesn't own a company making money off it.
In their defence, dyauspitr is imagining that cultural development will be solved within 100 years. At least I'm pretty sure that's in scope for '"perfect" humans'. That said, I could hardly ask for a better subthread to prove my point about the infeasibility of defining a perfect human.
Without knowing anything about the problem, I wonder if the contamination problem could be addressed by looking inside things from a distance, like we do with the scrolls of Herculanum?
Surely if a rock or salt crystal stays whole, then contamination is, if not downright impossible, at least extremely unlikely?
The problem is getting a DNA sequence through non-invasive imaging. We don't have technology that can do that; DNA in its natural state is incredibly tangled and wrapped around various helper proteins and structural supports.
The most promising technique is one I mention in the article, where you look for microbes visually and extract them with sterile tools. But it's hard to amplify the whole genome with current technology because salt interferes with the process, and the inclusion is concentrated brine.
An article like this that makes no mention of Tardigrades?
"They are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive severe conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other forms of life. They have survived exposure to outer space." [1]
The article discussed how a piece of rock could be ejected from Mars and land on Earth without ever getting hot, but I’m wondering whether living cells or even spores could survive the acceleration involved.
They can, the experiments have been done! Melosh (the guy I cite in the article) fired B. subtilis and D. Radiococcus spores from a rifle(!) and established that the acceleration and jerk aren't a problem, at levels far higher than the panspermia mechanism needs.
For you, life cannot wait. Please go out and make contacts. Be welcoming to people. Fall in love.
I wonder how my life would have turned out differently. I am a nerd. I am an introvert. I am single. Mostly, I am enjoying it. Sometimes - and increasingly more often - I am questioning it. I have baggage. Was visiting my (younger) sister's grave today. She had baggage with a sad outcome. I am thinking more about my existence.
I wish this world would be a more kind place. And I am praising anyone who is contributing to that. Try to be a contributor.
Maybe OP didn’t read the article, but often the title of the article is more interesting to HN than the article itself, which may be the case in this instance given it’s (currently) the top-voted comment.
(As a side note, I wish titles were more fitting to the article, vs. trying to bait clicks with catchy titles that often suggest a different topic.)
Perhaps a good solution in this case would be to add something to the HN title, say (to borrow a suggestion from the author): "How long can life wait? (microbe survival times in salt, permafrost, and open space)".
I'm not thrilled with this kind of clickbait-y title, but when you're subscribed to the blog, you know what it's likely to be about and ignore that, and the problem only appears here when this context is lost.
What would a better title have been, on a substack that is exclusively about space exploration?
"Hey lonely HN nerds, wipe the tear from your eye and come read about microbe survival times in salt, permafrost, and open space"? Something else? I'm open to suggestions.
I'm something of the opposite. Very introverted, moved to a very extroverted American city (which one isn't) in my 20s for work and excitement. I pushed myself - dates, meetups, social stuff. Never cold approaches but now if you'd met me you'd think me an extrovert. I'm not, because people stress and exhaust me, but I hide it.
In my 20s and early 30s whenever I left the city sometimes on the weekends, I'd feel this FOMO like I'm missing something fun.
Something changed as I got older. I think around the pandemic. When I was in the city on a beautiful day, I felt this sad feeling like I should be in nature instead.
I eventually got a place in the country. Now that I'm not single, I couldn't give two craps about going out, meeting people, and I hate crowds and noise. There's no greater pleasure than sitting and listening to water sounds outside, reading and studying.
People are overrated, but you need them sometimes. Don't feel bad about being an introvert.
If you're single and you don't want to be, you kind of have to learn extroversion cargo-cult behavior (being a bit more outgoing, interesting and interested in conversation and people, make first moves socially, etc.). Then you hopefully find a partner that's a bit introverted and you get out of there! I speak entirely subjectively as someone who lived in a city a long time and found it dreadful as an introvert.
Time seems to go faster, the older you are. When 5, a day lasts enormously, a month forever away.
When 30, a day is still noticeable. When 50, a day flies past. When 70? A week vanishes so very quickly.
A bitter truth of age, is the older you get, the less time you have left? Well, the faster that time seems to move to you. It's as if the more you try to hold on, the faster it goes away.
There are ways to improve this. New experience is one. Doing the same thing every day, with no challenge or change, just makes life fly by.
You can be an introvert and still experience loads of new and of change. Trust me on this. And as a geeky introvert, you have a mind to learn daily, and more importantly, learn different things, not just tech.
But I guess what I'm saying is, do indeed "live more", but do it as you. Don't let these weirdo extroverts make you dance to their tune.
My advice is, go dancing. Learn to enjoy your body and how to move it freely for fun, then you will find a likeminded body to enjoy together. But depending where you life, finding a good place to dance with nice people and not just drunk idiots can be a bit harder unfortunately.
Triathlon clubs are another great place to meet people. My club has has 8 weddings this year from people who met training. Turns out chatting over an 80 mile bike ride is a great way to get to know someone.
Triathlon or other performance based sports are great for anyone data orientated or analytically inclined. You’ll find a bunch of likeminded people nerding out over gear and numbers.
Dancing is a terrible horrible advice. No woman is looking for or even wants to deal with an awkward dancing noob. Are you anything like a competitive male (non gay) dancer? Then forget about it.
LOL, this obsession people have with dancing. This is horrible advice. Find a club or social scene doing something you like, don't pick up a random hobby you don't like just to "meet people".
Dancing is good advice because you have a good mix of genders and it's something you can grow to love over time. It's also a great community that's fairly welcoming once you start going regularly. Take a class and you automatically have a social group of other beginners.
The problem with nerds finding a social scene for what they already enjoy doing already is that there's a very good chance it's going to be a male-dominated activity. Going to a tech meetup or a board game night is a decent way to make friends, but not so much a mate.
I just share how I successfully meet and connect with women.
Dancing is the language of the body. I don't like small talk and am probably a introvert, but by dancing - connection comes easy and natural to me (at the right place).
Besides, the village dance was the traditional way for couples to hook up. And before that, there was the tribal drum.
I met my wife during climbing. Many girlfriends before due to organizing climbing sessions for various folks. Go climbing. Its just natural movement, sort of like vertical ballet on the wall, feels absolutely great, one does semi-continuously builds massive mental resilience to everything in life, since looking in the face of your death and coming out on top, multiple times an evening, many evenings, builds character like very few other endeavors. People you meet in community are often very inspiring. Its also high intensity interval training for upper body.
And then you try climbing outdoors on rocks big and small and thats it, people quit their careers and do vans/camping for rest of their lives just to do climbing (plus connected sports, there are many).
Can be many other activities, dancing ain't more special than many others. I'll stick with my climbing, you with your dance. Everybody wins.
"As far as village dance blah blah, people absolutely meet at parties, lots of people also dance at parties, correlation is not causation."
Maybe do some more casual science on social history?
But you surely can meet partners however you like and not everyone needs to love dancing, but the "obsession" people have with it simply goes back a looong way.
And aside, I actually do claim anyone who is not physically handycapped, very likely enjoys dancing if introduced to it in a easy way (look at how most children behave if you give them a rhytm), most grownups nowdays just associate it with awkward social situations, which I think is sad. I know some fellow nerds of mine, forever single, forever avoiding all situations where they would meed potential partners.
Lifting weights is a way to show physical dominance. Physically dominant men provide security and safety to women meaning they will be seen as the best mates. Throughout history the most physically dominant men had the most sexual success. Therefore I recommend you don't dance and lift weights instead.
See how fucking annoying and dumb this bro science is. Dancing is nothing special, just happens to be a social activity YOU like and I agree a lot of women like it. But the advice to "learn to like dancing" if you don't is bad.
Not sure how open you are challenging your perspective. Because in some ways, yes lifting weights does work for a certain subset of women.
But if you take the dominance angle, dancing works better here. Because it shows dexterty, moving along with other people .. and self confidence in a social setting. Knowing how to dance through life. Not awkwardly stand aside. And lifting weights (on its own) is just a indicator of muscle mass, not muscles in combination with brain, which is evolutionary much better. Otherwise we all would have evolved as big bulls.
Besides activity, another advice would be mindset.
As in, are you ready to meet your dream partner today and invite him to your home?
No? Not ready? Place is a mess and you are not really comfortable opening up in the first place right now?
Then this would be something one can work on.
Does not mean your place needs to be always perfect and a date does not have to start by inviting someone in. But are you actually ready for it?
What is it, that you really want?
While I was single for a long time, I was neither clear nor prepared for a partner, yet yearning for one. That did not work. I had some growing up to do first.
The ship hasn't sailed at all. You're mid-20s are gone, of course, but don't waste your 30s worrying about your 20s; fully embrace this moment and this phase of life (not that phases are so tightly tied to age), even the sad parts.
The best comment of the day; thank you. For those comments wondering how to do it, the first step is to see, know, and love yourself. Nobody else can know you if you don't; nobody else can love you if you don't. And once you do know and love yourself, you'll find the other people are not threatening - they can't really hurt you; you'll want to know and love them.
And if you think you know yourself, this is silly, it's easy, you don't know even what you're missing. I once thought that. Now I see that nobody really knows themself completely.
There's a point when it feels it's over, there's no point. Some people think more about the end rather than the existence and realise there's no point – as in, there's really no point to any of this. This feeling doesn't necessarily mean the person is heading to the sad outcome. I mean that could have been a relief, at least to the person. But the saddest outcome is that there's really no recovery for some people and evolution keeps them going.
haa... you really don't need others to justify your life you know... it's annoying how that's always the default, and how often i'm pushed to conform to it.
And here we have the true answer. All the other answers are a form of "stop being an introvert" thus denying your nature. Accept yourself, be at peace with yourself, live the life that gives you inner peace and as much happiness as your nature allows.
Don't listen to the people who try to change you, only accept change if it comes from within although it is possible for this to happen because of how others interact with you and how that makes you feel. Don't change just because someone else says you should be more like them. Then you become their puppet, not your own person.
Please don't take up discussion space for something else like that. You can write about that in plenty of other places where it's germane to the topic at hand.
Your comment is far outside the culture here. If you don't like someone's comment, read something else; click the minus sign (collapse thread) if you like. HN pages are not paper; we're not running out of space, and this thread has only 64 comments.
Also, have some empathy. You're talking to a human being.
I think their comment is the most beautiful thing I've seen today; I'm so glad they left it here.
You have a point, that the comment isn't actually about the article. And yet, einrealist also has a point that is worth hearing. It's OT, but it's worth hearing.
I really hate these articles that come out with these deep philosophical questions and then you open it up and it’s something stupid about microbes in a meteor or whatever. I was expecting a much more relatable read.
To answer the question, you should really not “wait” for anything in life anymore past 30. At some point between 35-45 you will likely cross the halfway point of your life and will begin the journey of being on your way out. Life has a cadence, and it’s not fun to be past that point still “waiting” for things you thought you’d have.
Obviously this advice will hit differently for people past a certain age, I’m mostly talking to people in their 20s. They can be saved, but others it may be too late.
You must actualize the person you want to be as early as you can, so you can maximize your time in life being that person. That’s when you will have “arrived” to your life, and can focus on just living instead of constantly chasing who you want to be. If you don’t, you might never get there, and then in the end if you think too much you’ll realize your life will have been a waste. That is a private hell.
At some point, if you wait too long, there may no longer be enough time or resources to actually live the life destined for you, and then it’s all over. Your chance at life expires: dreams unfinished, like cutting off in the middle of sente
Well that was the ambiguity in the title, but if you follow the blog, it was always about space and microbes. I'm not sure care about microbe aliens, but i do enjoy the read.
Man, I broke a lot of nerds' hearts today. Sorry for rug-pulling you with questions on the nature and origin of life, rather than something deep and philosophical!
"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting."
One thing about panspermia math: why assume current travel conditions between the stars?
Today the Sun is very far from other stars, but early in star formation (within nebula) the stars are
1. much closer together
2. have a higher rate of material ejection (mass exchange)
3. likely have more benign radiation environments unless near a star, due to GCR shielding by nebula gas
4. likely have higher equilibrium temperature in interstellar/interplanetary space
Combined, these factors yield orders of magnitude improvement in panspermia efficiency vs the Sun.
This has occurred to people! But if you run the numbers, they are still not good enough in that early (~100 My) window when stars in the parent nebula are close together, you get something like 1 chance in 1000 of possible panspermia events (based on modeling lumps of rock flying back and forth). Not terrible odds, but nothing like the Mars -> Earth odds.
A more extreme version of this is the idea of panspermia in the early universe, when the cosmic microwave background radiation was warm enough to keep water liquid: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/habitable.pdf
I knew I couldn't be the first, but I was more commenting on the lack of discussion I've found in the peer-reviewed literature!
The key was to change "nebula" (returning results for "stellar nebula") to "star forming region."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2005.5.497
Yes indeed, I've thought panspermia in the Sun's natal cluster is an interesting idea. What could make it even more interesting is that small bodies in our Solar System (and likely its sister systems) were warm enough for liquid water to exist for some millions of years then, so there would be an enormous volume of material in which Origin of Life might have occurred (and, if it did, to then spread after the parent body froze and then fragmented.)
It would make a fine science fictional scenario that could get around the Fermi problem: those 10,000 or so systems could have life, but the rest of the universe not have life.
I was thinking bigger: if panspermia gets dramatically more viable, then nebula could switch over in their probability distribution from "default sterile" to default teeming.
In this scenario, we could find (related!) life essentially everywhere, and caused by panspermia no less, despite numbers still saying panspermia is wildly improbable for mature stars.
"Default teaming" really isn't viable due to the Fermi problem.
But if OoL is extremely unlikely, the cluster panspermia idea still allows extraterrestrial life to reasonably exist and be reachable, because that life didn't require a separate highly unlikely OoL event.
I think SETI should focus on stars that look like the Sun's siblings.
"Teaming" (social) organisms are also fun, sure. ;)
The Fermi paradox assumes we'd be good at observing aliens, and that aliens will leave evidence that's conspicuous to us. These two statements are roughly equivalent, basically saying there can't be too much "impedance mismatch" between the two.
But again, even besides that, the nebula can still "teem" even though we never see any here on Earth, because the Sun vs nebula math is just so different for interstellar travel too. Many civilizations, seeded from common dirty chemistry, then permanently separated by vast distance as the star migrates out of the nebula.
TL;DR nebula parameter differences solve Fermi even in a teeming universe, but I doubt we'd see the aliens even if they were here. ;)
The Fermi paradox doesn't require we're good at observing aliens. It asks why didn't aliens colonize everything, including the Solar System, billions of years ago, in which case we wouldn't even exist.
Forgive my ignorance here, but at such an early period in the solar system, wouldn't there have been few if any rocks with sufficient gravity for life to form on?
I mean we as humans have a way to approach light speed (with nuclear explosions) today, with our primitive technology. Anything even 500 years more advanced than us can probably travel very long distances.
> But if 2-9-3 really had been isolated from its relative for a quarter billion years, enough random mutations in the rDNA should have accumulated for there to be a difference of at least 50 base pairs
Occams razor definitely points to this just being a sterilization problem. But it would be funny if the bacteria was just way more stable than people expect.
Ribosomal DNA is extremely highly conserved and normal random mutation models do not predict it's changes well at all.
The model I cite in the article is calibrated to rDNA specifically.
"Some of the problem is cultural. Geologists, petrologists, and microbiologists come from different scientific tribes that don’t typically read one another’s papers, or buy one another beers. Even the various subfields can often talk past each other, and many researchers have yet to absorb the full implications of modern sequencing techniques on their field."
I would love to see this problem addressed at scale, across all fields. In my experience, the funding models and institutional norms that predominate go out of their way to discourage crosstalk. If I could snap my fingers and make that go away, I suspect there would be a ton of new low-hanging fruit that would be realized, just in casual conversation between new colleagues.
Based on the article, there is solid proof that microbes can remain viable for up to 100,000 years.
I would have liked to find life in mars/the moon. At this point I think we should be tying to spread life everywhere.
I think if we do not first figure out how to cooperate on this planet, the division will only grow. IMO the Expanse is more or less what I would expect if we began colonizing the solar system right now.
We’re going to be able to potentially make “perfect” humans through genetic engineering less than a 100 years from now, we are not stuck with our current state forever. It is something I never see sci-fi tackle, probably because it would take away most things in a story humans find interesting.
We're absolutely not going to agree on a definition of "perfect human" in the next 100 years. If that level of genetic engineering becomes available anytime soon, which template to use will just become another thing to fight about.
Perfect for any given situation or atleast highly optimized.
Or we could build specialised robots, which are way easier, cheaper, and easily controlled.
How is that human expansion? It offers no rewards of a human actually going out there or potentially being able to start a new colony.
Humans would build and control the robots that go out, collect resources and bring them back without risking human life's. They can also do experiments, since we do not know nearly enough to keep people safe.
I would love to risk my one wild and precious life doing microbiology in a lab off-world
I'm sure lots of people would. I just think it is more likely at this point that we spread and it just exacerbates our existing issues by shifting them to a much larger scale.
This isn’t about just resources. It’s about humans spreading through the galaxy.
For what purpose? So we can oppress and kill each other on a far grander scale?
If that’s all humanity is to you then this conversation is pointless.
That's not what I said. However, I do believe that colonizing other planets at our current level of cultural development will exacerbate the negative aspects of our current reality a thousand fold while providing little to no benefit to anyone who doesn't own a company making money off it.
In their defence, dyauspitr is imagining that cultural development will be solved within 100 years. At least I'm pretty sure that's in scope for '"perfect" humans'. That said, I could hardly ask for a better subthread to prove my point about the infeasibility of defining a perfect human.
And so, you see, the debate rages on.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Eugenics_Wars
Without knowing anything about the problem, I wonder if the contamination problem could be addressed by looking inside things from a distance, like we do with the scrolls of Herculanum?
Surely if a rock or salt crystal stays whole, then contamination is, if not downright impossible, at least extremely unlikely?
The problem is getting a DNA sequence through non-invasive imaging. We don't have technology that can do that; DNA in its natural state is incredibly tangled and wrapped around various helper proteins and structural supports.
The most promising technique is one I mention in the article, where you look for microbes visually and extract them with sterile tools. But it's hard to amplify the whole genome with current technology because salt interferes with the process, and the inclusion is concentrated brine.
An article like this that makes no mention of Tardigrades?
"They are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive severe conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other forms of life. They have survived exposure to outer space." [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade
life did not evolve from a Tardigrade, which makes them rather uninteresting from the lithopanspermia perspective.
Life on Earth, yes. Life elsewhere could have evolved from Tardigrades, however.
what would they eat?
> Temperature is a bigger factory
Since the author is here: stray 'y' there, probably. Fun read, though, especially mere hours after finishing Project Hail Mary.
Thank you!
The article discussed how a piece of rock could be ejected from Mars and land on Earth without ever getting hot, but I’m wondering whether living cells or even spores could survive the acceleration involved.
They can, the experiments have been done! Melosh (the guy I cite in the article) fired B. subtilis and D. Radiococcus spores from a rifle(!) and established that the acceleration and jerk aren't a problem, at levels far higher than the panspermia mechanism needs.
https://repository.geologyscience.ru/items/4b405174-0734-474...
That sounds like the fun kind of science :)
Tangent, but why does Ceglowski keep using Tanpopo as a synonym for Japanese? Am I missing a subtlety here or what?
For a brief moment there, seeing just the headline, I thought this was going to be about Pinboard.
Use Pinboard
This article buries what should be the lede. We can say with some confidence that there IS life on Mars, because we put it there.
For you, life cannot wait. Please go out and make contacts. Be welcoming to people. Fall in love.
I wonder how my life would have turned out differently. I am a nerd. I am an introvert. I am single. Mostly, I am enjoying it. Sometimes - and increasingly more often - I am questioning it. I have baggage. Was visiting my (younger) sister's grave today. She had baggage with a sad outcome. I am thinking more about my existence.
I wish this world would be a more kind place. And I am praising anyone who is contributing to that. Try to be a contributor.
Did we read the same article? This was about microbes and space exploration.
Maybe OP didn’t read the article, but often the title of the article is more interesting to HN than the article itself, which may be the case in this instance given it’s (currently) the top-voted comment.
(As a side note, I wish titles were more fitting to the article, vs. trying to bait clicks with catchy titles that often suggest a different topic.)
Perhaps a good solution in this case would be to add something to the HN title, say (to borrow a suggestion from the author): "How long can life wait? (microbe survival times in salt, permafrost, and open space)".
I'm not thrilled with this kind of clickbait-y title, but when you're subscribed to the blog, you know what it's likely to be about and ignore that, and the problem only appears here when this context is lost.
HN mods remove edits and commentary and return it to the original title.
What would a better title have been, on a substack that is exclusively about space exploration?
"Hey lonely HN nerds, wipe the tear from your eye and come read about microbe survival times in salt, permafrost, and open space"? Something else? I'm open to suggestions.
>Hey lonely HN nerds,
Har, har, har...
I'm something of the opposite. Very introverted, moved to a very extroverted American city (which one isn't) in my 20s for work and excitement. I pushed myself - dates, meetups, social stuff. Never cold approaches but now if you'd met me you'd think me an extrovert. I'm not, because people stress and exhaust me, but I hide it.
In my 20s and early 30s whenever I left the city sometimes on the weekends, I'd feel this FOMO like I'm missing something fun.
Something changed as I got older. I think around the pandemic. When I was in the city on a beautiful day, I felt this sad feeling like I should be in nature instead.
I eventually got a place in the country. Now that I'm not single, I couldn't give two craps about going out, meeting people, and I hate crowds and noise. There's no greater pleasure than sitting and listening to water sounds outside, reading and studying.
People are overrated, but you need them sometimes. Don't feel bad about being an introvert.
I suppose the equation is different for someone who is perpetually single. That one person makes a big difference.
If you're single and you don't want to be, you kind of have to learn extroversion cargo-cult behavior (being a bit more outgoing, interesting and interested in conversation and people, make first moves socially, etc.). Then you hopefully find a partner that's a bit introverted and you get out of there! I speak entirely subjectively as someone who lived in a city a long time and found it dreadful as an introvert.
I wish there were a handbook for single introverts in their 30s who feel like that ship sailed a long time ago.
Here's a handbook excerpt...
Time seems to go faster, the older you are. When 5, a day lasts enormously, a month forever away.
When 30, a day is still noticeable. When 50, a day flies past. When 70? A week vanishes so very quickly.
A bitter truth of age, is the older you get, the less time you have left? Well, the faster that time seems to move to you. It's as if the more you try to hold on, the faster it goes away.
There are ways to improve this. New experience is one. Doing the same thing every day, with no challenge or change, just makes life fly by.
You can be an introvert and still experience loads of new and of change. Trust me on this. And as a geeky introvert, you have a mind to learn daily, and more importantly, learn different things, not just tech.
But I guess what I'm saying is, do indeed "live more", but do it as you. Don't let these weirdo extroverts make you dance to their tune.
To use the language of relativity, each person's internal "clock" seems to slow down as they get older.
Everyday is a new day. Start today. Thank your previous self for getting you here. For making you question past decisions. Change. Take a risk.
I believe there are millions of them?
But not sure how helpful they are.
My advice is, go dancing. Learn to enjoy your body and how to move it freely for fun, then you will find a likeminded body to enjoy together. But depending where you life, finding a good place to dance with nice people and not just drunk idiots can be a bit harder unfortunately.
Triathlon clubs are another great place to meet people. My club has has 8 weddings this year from people who met training. Turns out chatting over an 80 mile bike ride is a great way to get to know someone.
Triathlon or other performance based sports are great for anyone data orientated or analytically inclined. You’ll find a bunch of likeminded people nerding out over gear and numbers.
Dancing is a terrible horrible advice. No woman is looking for or even wants to deal with an awkward dancing noob. Are you anything like a competitive male (non gay) dancer? Then forget about it.
LOL, this obsession people have with dancing. This is horrible advice. Find a club or social scene doing something you like, don't pick up a random hobby you don't like just to "meet people".
Dancing is good advice because you have a good mix of genders and it's something you can grow to love over time. It's also a great community that's fairly welcoming once you start going regularly. Take a class and you automatically have a social group of other beginners.
The problem with nerds finding a social scene for what they already enjoy doing already is that there's a very good chance it's going to be a male-dominated activity. Going to a tech meetup or a board game night is a decent way to make friends, but not so much a mate.
>Dancing is good advice because you have a good mix of genders
Yoga, if you are interested in only one particular gender.
I just share how I successfully meet and connect with women.
Dancing is the language of the body. I don't like small talk and am probably a introvert, but by dancing - connection comes easy and natural to me (at the right place).
Besides, the village dance was the traditional way for couples to hook up. And before that, there was the tribal drum.
I met my wife during climbing. Many girlfriends before due to organizing climbing sessions for various folks. Go climbing. Its just natural movement, sort of like vertical ballet on the wall, feels absolutely great, one does semi-continuously builds massive mental resilience to everything in life, since looking in the face of your death and coming out on top, multiple times an evening, many evenings, builds character like very few other endeavors. People you meet in community are often very inspiring. Its also high intensity interval training for upper body.
And then you try climbing outdoors on rocks big and small and thats it, people quit their careers and do vans/camping for rest of their lives just to do climbing (plus connected sports, there are many).
Can be many other activities, dancing ain't more special than many others. I'll stick with my climbing, you with your dance. Everybody wins.
Oh, dancing with rocks is advisable as well and I also enjoy it very much.
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That's great, I met my partner at the gym, doing something I like and consequently became good at.
Sounds like you like dancing. Congratulations and I'm happy you met someone doing something you like. That's a good strategy.
As far as village dance blah blah, people absolutely meet at parties, lots of people also dance at parties, correlation is not causation.
"As far as village dance blah blah, people absolutely meet at parties, lots of people also dance at parties, correlation is not causation."
Maybe do some more casual science on social history?
But you surely can meet partners however you like and not everyone needs to love dancing, but the "obsession" people have with it simply goes back a looong way.
And aside, I actually do claim anyone who is not physically handycapped, very likely enjoys dancing if introduced to it in a easy way (look at how most children behave if you give them a rhytm), most grownups nowdays just associate it with awkward social situations, which I think is sad. I know some fellow nerds of mine, forever single, forever avoiding all situations where they would meed potential partners.
Lifting weights is a way to show physical dominance. Physically dominant men provide security and safety to women meaning they will be seen as the best mates. Throughout history the most physically dominant men had the most sexual success. Therefore I recommend you don't dance and lift weights instead.
See how fucking annoying and dumb this bro science is. Dancing is nothing special, just happens to be a social activity YOU like and I agree a lot of women like it. But the advice to "learn to like dancing" if you don't is bad.
Not sure how open you are challenging your perspective. Because in some ways, yes lifting weights does work for a certain subset of women.
But if you take the dominance angle, dancing works better here. Because it shows dexterty, moving along with other people .. and self confidence in a social setting. Knowing how to dance through life. Not awkwardly stand aside. And lifting weights (on its own) is just a indicator of muscle mass, not muscles in combination with brain, which is evolutionary much better. Otherwise we all would have evolved as big bulls.
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Perhaps they are. But personal attacks are against site rules. Don't post like that here.
You've been on HN long enough to know this.
I recommend being entombed in salt
Besides activity, another advice would be mindset.
As in, are you ready to meet your dream partner today and invite him to your home?
No? Not ready? Place is a mess and you are not really comfortable opening up in the first place right now?
Then this would be something one can work on.
Does not mean your place needs to be always perfect and a date does not have to start by inviting someone in. But are you actually ready for it?
What is it, that you really want?
While I was single for a long time, I was neither clear nor prepared for a partner, yet yearning for one. That did not work. I had some growing up to do first.
Here's the most important thing (if I may say so myself :) ):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50408802
The ship hasn't sailed at all. You're mid-20s are gone, of course, but don't waste your 30s worrying about your 20s; fully embrace this moment and this phase of life (not that phases are so tightly tied to age), even the sad parts.
In all ernest honesty, ChatGPT's not the worst at that.
handbook for single introverts in their 30s who feel like that ship sailed a long time ago.
https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6aefa63600608191ba730f78533db177
The best comment of the day; thank you. For those comments wondering how to do it, the first step is to see, know, and love yourself. Nobody else can know you if you don't; nobody else can love you if you don't. And once you do know and love yourself, you'll find the other people are not threatening - they can't really hurt you; you'll want to know and love them.
And if you think you know yourself, this is silly, it's easy, you don't know even what you're missing. I once thought that. Now I see that nobody really knows themself completely.
There's a point when it feels it's over, there's no point. Some people think more about the end rather than the existence and realise there's no point – as in, there's really no point to any of this. This feeling doesn't necessarily mean the person is heading to the sad outcome. I mean that could have been a relief, at least to the person. But the saddest outcome is that there's really no recovery for some people and evolution keeps them going.
haa... you really don't need others to justify your life you know... it's annoying how that's always the default, and how often i'm pushed to conform to it.
And here we have the true answer. All the other answers are a form of "stop being an introvert" thus denying your nature. Accept yourself, be at peace with yourself, live the life that gives you inner peace and as much happiness as your nature allows.
Don't listen to the people who try to change you, only accept change if it comes from within although it is possible for this to happen because of how others interact with you and how that makes you feel. Don't change just because someone else says you should be more like them. Then you become their puppet, not your own person.
Also, don't be a dick.
Did you read the article?
Yes, but I took advantage of the article. My sister would have been a year older today.
Please don't take up discussion space for something else like that. You can write about that in plenty of other places where it's germane to the topic at hand.
Your comment is far outside the culture here. If you don't like someone's comment, read something else; click the minus sign (collapse thread) if you like. HN pages are not paper; we're not running out of space, and this thread has only 64 comments.
Also, have some empathy. You're talking to a human being.
I think their comment is the most beautiful thing I've seen today; I'm so glad they left it here.
Dont gatekeep, you can start your own thread and if people still want to engage, that can be your validation
you are also taking up discussion space here, no? or do you think youre special?
This feels very “I notice you’re not tolerating the intolerant, very intolerant of you don’t you think?”
It is not the gotcha you think it is.
You have a point, that the comment isn't actually about the article. And yet, einrealist also has a point that is worth hearing. It's OT, but it's worth hearing.
I thought this was going to be about my poor work-life balance from the title!?
Me too, and my heart sank. I guess I don’t need an article to know what to do.
It's a great metaphor though, suspended animation.
Same
Maybe you can be salty and bitter, as if you too were trapped in potassium chloride for millions of years...
The exhortation carpe diem (seize the day) is very old. So it should be well known that life will not wait.
Life doesn’t wait.
I really hate these articles that come out with these deep philosophical questions and then you open it up and it’s something stupid about microbes in a meteor or whatever. I was expecting a much more relatable read.
To answer the question, you should really not “wait” for anything in life anymore past 30. At some point between 35-45 you will likely cross the halfway point of your life and will begin the journey of being on your way out. Life has a cadence, and it’s not fun to be past that point still “waiting” for things you thought you’d have.
Obviously this advice will hit differently for people past a certain age, I’m mostly talking to people in their 20s. They can be saved, but others it may be too late.
You must actualize the person you want to be as early as you can, so you can maximize your time in life being that person. That’s when you will have “arrived” to your life, and can focus on just living instead of constantly chasing who you want to be. If you don’t, you might never get there, and then in the end if you think too much you’ll realize your life will have been a waste. That is a private hell.
At some point, if you wait too long, there may no longer be enough time or resources to actually live the life destined for you, and then it’s all over. Your chance at life expires: dreams unfinished, like cutting off in the middle of sente
Well that was the ambiguity in the title, but if you follow the blog, it was always about space and microbes. I'm not sure care about microbe aliens, but i do enjoy the read.
Man, I broke a lot of nerds' hearts today. Sorry for rug-pulling you with questions on the nature and origin of life, rather than something deep and philosophical!
The industry is going through something like a midlife crisis, so not entirely surprising.
Personally, the older I get the less time I can just 'sit around' without feeling the onset of the inevitable.
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"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting."
> Any author who uses such a website strategy gets insta-perma-banned by me.
can we make this into a copypasta? lol