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Need we really spell out why we'd rather have an alien megastructure than cosmic dust?
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Well, no we don't, but I guess the problem isn't that everybody wouldn't think an alien megastructure wouldn't be absolutely mind-blowing, but that news about them basically amount to sci-fi. While yes, speculation about megastructures can sometimes actually be kind of interesting, but mostly it's tabloid-level horse manure from a science journalism standpoint. Megastructures get more clicks because actual explanations are often seemingly boring
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FirebrandRoaring · 276 days ago · link ·
I agree with you. I was pointing out how stupid the question in the title of the article was. I'm not sure if I want it to be aliens. I know most people think they want it, as long as it has no repercussions on their lives. If there was solid, concrete evidence that there's another intelligent lifeform in the universe and they have grand space-building technology, I'd be forced to rethink a lot about my life. I'm no longer the center of the universe as a human, and there's someone far better at technology than we are — a Kardashev II-level civilization. But do want to see the stars explored.
Why is the Christian Science Monitor of all papers the one that gets science journalism right? Who are these folks as an organization? I'm not American so I haven't run into them much; I just associate the words "Christian Science" with this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science
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user-inactivated · 276 days ago · link ·
You're right to associate the two. The paper originally started because the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, was originally being hounded left and right by churches and other traditional institutions for her offshoot of Christianity. One of the avenues that this happened was through newspapers. This was pretty common at the time and pretty shameful. So she created The Christian Science Monitor as a result, not necessarily to push her religion, but because she wanted some fair press somewhere. The paper itself is secular and has been known to put out some pretty compelling reporting from time to time. It was especially well regarded during the '60s and '70s when our country was going through a rough political time. Edit: I used to read them a lot back in the early 2000s. I don't quite remember why I stopped, it was probably one of those things where I just didn't keep on reading them. I think I might add them back into my news rotation. Edit 2: Apparently even Mark Twain got aboard the anti-Eddy train. Is there anyone in his lifetime he didn't pick a fight with?
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I poked around a bit and it looks the church pulled back from more direct control, maybe. Sounds like the church put a non-journalist church member in charge in the early 2000s and later put professional journalist back in charge later in the decade. I'm not sure what the background of the current leadership is. I remember a bunch sky is falling pieces in the mainstream press when a church member took control back in the day but I can't find much good analysis of weather the quality of the paper has suffered from the changes. Sounds like the Monitor had as much trouble as any other paper adjusting to the new media landscape and that it might be hard to tell what changes are because of changes in the media landscape and which are from leadership changes.
Interesting. Any idea how it ended up being so secular (although apparently it's less so nowadays)? I read a few other articles and I really couldn't tell it's somehow associated with Christian Science; I'd expect a paper originally started by a fairly, well, crank-y offshoot of Christianity to be wildly different.
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user-inactivated · 275 days ago · link ·
So, I've done some poking around and I honestly don't know. Like I said earlier, I really can imagine it going either direction. That said, I poked around the site a bit last night and the articles aren't half bad. I think I'll put it in my weekly news rotation (it doesn't seem to update often enough for me to check it daily). I'm sorry I don't have a concrete answer.
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