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A comment on Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri to find out. Parent comment

Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by bena on Thursday August 23, 2018 @09:42AM (#17827149)
I mean, the biggest failure of prediction is that women seem to laugh at salad rather than champagne.

It always seems as if we're just 50 - 100 years from "the future".

Lost in Space takes place in 1997 when we were about to colonize space. Or as we know it, 21 years ago.

The original Blade Runner takes place next year. When we'll have space colonies and humanoid androids to work them.

And according to Star Trek, we've weathered the Eugenics War and have 31 years before World War III and the post-atomic horror. But in just 45 years, Zefram Cochrane will invent the warp drive.

Not to mention the countless flying cars we'll have as we go eat all of our meals in pill form.

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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by brightball on Thursday August 23, 2018 @10:05AM (#17827322)
The 80s Transformers movie takes place in β€œIt is the year 2005”
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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by mnw21cam on Thursday August 23, 2018 @11:06AM (#17827840)
The Flight of the Conchords' song "The Humans are Dead" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1BdQcJ2ZYY starts with "It is the distant future, the year 2000". It was released in 2008. I mean, yeah it's a piss-take, but there was always this big thing about the year 2000 being the distant future when robots would be ruling the Earth.
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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by perl4ever on Thursday August 23, 2018 @01:26PM (#17829026)
2000 seemed sort of like an event horizon, back in the day, until we shot past it. "Strange Days" was a film made in 1994-95, set in 1999, and yet somehow 1999 was still the far future, full of cyberpunk stuff.
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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by thedorkknight on Thursday August 23, 2018 @04:35PM (#17830478)
Or metal gear solid.

"It was the distant future, 2005..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAioZzuhOQg

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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by T4NG on Thursday August 23, 2018 @12:25PM (#17828552)
I'm very curious to know why you were downvoted
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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by SubiculumCode on Thursday August 23, 2018 @01:14PM (#17828932)
It may have been the comment about women laughing at salad instead of champagne, which sounds vaguely sexist....well, I do not comprehend its intent but I suspect it is some cultural reference of which I am not aware, and not actually sexist. The rest of the comment is interesting so I upvoted.
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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by tromboknee on Thursday August 23, 2018 @04:16PM (#17830361)
"Women laughing alone with salad" is a meme. If you look through magazines targeted at women, they're full of images of a woman holding a salad in one hand and a fork in the other and laughing at something the viewer has to guess at. There's an entire blog devoted to it[0].

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/women-laughing-alone-with-sal...

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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by craigsmansion on Thursday August 23, 2018 @01:53PM (#17829266)
I'd venture to say you are right:

GP:"the women sipping from glasses of champagne and laughing"

OP:"[instead] women seem to laugh at salad rather than champagne."

i.e. in actual modern life the ultimate debonaire lifestyle, as depicted by the likes of instagram, doesn't focus on smiling over exclusive alcohol as much as it does on smiling over exotic salads.

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Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by bena on Thursday August 23, 2018 @02:41PM (#17829628)
Kind of, "women laughing at salad" is a very odd (possibly unintentional) category of stock photography. https://www.thehairpin.com/2011/01/women-laughing-alone-with...

So when he mentioned women sipping champagne and laughing, it brought the image to my mind.

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