The Fermi Paradox is defined as the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations. In other words, in a universe as big, and as old as ours seems to be, the fact that we have yet to be contacted by a civilization advanced enough to reach us seems pretty improbable. It has been speculated previously that there must be some sort of Great Filter which prevents such life from arising, or reaching the technological level necessary to achieve interstellar communications. A recent article by Nick Bostrom in the Technology Review explores the possibility that this Great Filter is technology itself: that all civilizations eventually seal their own doom by way of technology, nuclear war, bioterrorism, or the Unabomber’s favorite, Gray Goo. To this list, Tim O’Reilly (aka the guy who coined the term Web 2.0) has added a far more tangible possibility: Peak Oil:

I’ve been thinking of Fermi’s Paradox since I saw the documentary film A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, with its dire predictions of the wars and disruptions that could occur on the downward slope of the Hubbert curve. While I remain an optimist about the power of human ingenuity to surmount enormous challenges, I have enough sense of history to know that catastrophes do happen, that societies fail to make the right choices, and that civilizations fail. What if the answer to Fermi’s paradox is not the absence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but merely the absence of high technology? The movie makes the case that the extraordinary flowering of our society has been driven by our profligate use of oil as an incredibly cheap energy resource — and one that won’t last. With haunting images of once vibrant oil fields that are now ghost towns, the movie is a thought-provoking counterpoint to An Inconvenient Truth. If the movie’s contentions are correct, we’re truly caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Either global warming or peak oil will lead to an urgent transformation of civilization as we know it, or our failure to transform quickly enough might well lead to the end of civilization as we know it. And if indeed cheap oil is a prerequisite to the first flowering of technological civilization, might a Roman-Empire-style collapse due to some future disaster make it difficult to rebuild to spaceflight-capable levels due to lack of said resource the next time around? Many of the large scale energy technologies that we imagine replacing oil are energy intensive to build. They are, in a sense, themselves dependent on oil.

Those longing desperately to find prove of ancient civilizations on planets like Mars might want to think twice, since, as O’Reilly puts it “once we find evidence of primitive life elsewhere, we’ve narrowed the likelihood that the Great Filter is behind us, and increased the likelihood that it is still ahead of us, in some unknown disaster to come.” FUCKKKKKKKK

Remember that one time I posted a video of a flying humanoid figure that a “leading Mexican UFO researcher” had proclaimed to totally, unquestionably “real”? Well apparently, if you listen to the version of the video without the creepy X-Files music, you can hear a woman looking through binoculars tell the assembled crowd that it’s just a bunch of balloons. I don’t know though, I’m still holding out for proof that it’s an alien on a jetpack or a Carlos Castaneda-type Don Juan character on some gait of power shit…

It’s been 5 days since GTA IV came out and Rockstar has already sold 6 million copies of the game, beating out Halo 3’s launch week. 4 million people bought it the day it came out, which happened to be the 16th anniversary of the LA Riots. The game has generated $390 million. Violent video games are AWESOME!!!!11

These are some of the sharpest UFO photos ever taken, from one of my particular favorites. The sighting, which occurred near Zdany, Poland in 2006, shut down two passing cars. The photographer did not seek fame and disregarded public attention. Read about the incident here.

Turns out, people ate other people back in the day!

Scientists from England, Australia, and Papua New Guinea say that cannibalism is the most likely explanation for their discovery that genes protecting against brain diseases that can be contracted by eating contaminated flesh have long been spread throughout the world.

A growing body of evidence, such as piles of human bones with clear signs of human butchery, suggests cannibalism was widespread among ancient cultures. The discovery of this genetic resistance, which shows signs of having spread as a result of natural selection, supports the physical evidence for cannibalism, say the scientists.

“We don’t in fact know that all populations did select. The selection may have occurred during the evolution of modern humans before they spread around the world,” said Simon Mead, a co-author of the study from the Medical Research Center with University College, London.

Click here for the full report. If you had to eat a human, which ethnicity would you think tastes the best? I think I’d want to eat the flesh of someone from Latin descent. I bet that would be the tastiest meat.

A UFO spotted, and videotaped, above Mexico is according to investigators some sort of flying humanoid figure:

The mysterious woman-like figure was caught on camera as it hovered above mountains in Nuevo Leon city. UFO watchers said the figure appeared to be wearing a cape leading to claims that it was a witch or wizard when it was first seen in 2006. Now Mexico’s leading Ufologist Anna Luisa Cid says the sightings were true after carrying out her own investigations.

Looks like a dude on a jetpack to me, but maybe I’m just not thinking out of the box.