To the casual HN reader - my recommendation to you is to neithet laugh at nor dismiss out of hand analyses such as this (even as logic intrinsic to them merits as much picking apart as any other analysis one sees everyday on HN). Robin Hanson's description of long-lived stars (usually strongest in infrared - i.e. the 3 stars our eyes lack the spectral response to see for every 1 star that we do see when looking into the night sky) significantly updated my priors on the likelihood of intelligent, non-human life roaming about the cosmos. ▶ this video (timestamped) tl;dr: Red-dwarf stars have been around -- with all that goes with that.. -- for much, much longer than our sun.
in “The most powerful cosmic ray since the Oh-My-God particle puzzles scientists” · View on HN