never forget that one time i went to a con in a hufflepuff shirt and a bunch of people were talking about hogwarts houses and someone said “i love hufflepuffs because i feel like they just eat all the time, like i bet hufflepuffs carry around bags of nachos wherever they go” and i went “well actually” and pulled out a half eaten bag of nachos and the entire room absolutely LOST IT.
People think we can make contact with aliens, but we fail to realise that we can’t even communicate with any other species here on earth
1) fuck you
2) humans are fucking spectacular at communicating with other species on earth when we try to meet them on their level
3) seriously don’t dismiss the passionate, loving work that hundreds of thousands of biologists, zoologists, ecologists, and nature enthusiasts have put into talking with this planet because you want to make some snide little quip about how complacently stupid people are.
4) you’re not listening. you don’t care. you can’t communicate. meanwhile other people dance with free whales and study slime molds and raise orphan elephants and chart the regional accents of wolves and rearrange the dna of fruit flies.
5) you can listen to any part of this world and learn to speak to it in its own language if you spend enough time trying. one day, hopefully, maybe, we’ll have spent enough time listening to space, and we will hear someone out there saying ‘hello’.
Actually, can you imagine that? Like, aliens being absolutely amazed with just how hard we try to understand? And how well we manage?
“…Why is that human making sounds at that bird? Don’t they get that they’re different species?”
“Well, looks like the bird isn’t getting it either, it’s responding…”
Or, stretch that out a little further:
“So, we’ve got about 50 years worth of recorded human dialogues, and… well, either human language is complicated to the absurd, or we’re looking at multiple languages here.”
“…Have you been hanging out in the bar again? They’re obviously all one species, they should all be speaking the same language like any reasonable species would!”
Then imagine Humans introducing the aliens to the delightful world of linguistics, and all the aliens have their collective minds blown. Not only do we have more languages than you can shake a stick at, we work and improve on them every day. And some of us learn new languages for fun.
My parents think that everyone knows right away when they’re little, or their parents know or something. I need to know for myself what others experience.
