Abandon Earth or Face Extinction, Stephen Hawking Warns -- Again

On Aug 11, 4:32*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

(poor Hit Girl; now she's too tall to fit into her costume for
Halloween:http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf...etz-is-too-big...
...which is a pity, as she owned that character the way Peter Sellers
owned Inspector Clouseau.)

Well, it's better than _not_ growing up.

Being too *fat* would have been a disaster. Being too tall... well,
like growing old, it's better than the alternative.

This, of course, reminds me of the regrettable situation in Burma.

Thanks to the mediation of "Sandra & Woo", a webcomic.

John Savard

On Aug 11, 3:14*pm, David Spain wrote:

And if that kid is a boy?

Hey, he can save it for _his_ daughter, if _he_ has one. Of course, by
then, the movie "Hit Girl" may be too obscure to be a suitable subject
for Halloween costumes.

John Savard

this doomsday thinking is what motivates rw'ers (partially).
they deduct their age from their life-expectancy and subtract that
from one million years or whatever and say...

"what? me worry?"

john.whine wrote:

this doomsday thinking is what motivates ....

Anyone who understands the concept of "To fail to plan is to plan to
fail".

On Aug 18, 12:59*pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:

Anyone who understands the concept of "To fail to plan is to plan to
fail".

I'm still puzzled why doomsday thinking motivates conservatives, if
conservatives think that a doomsday that won't happen in their
lifetimes is unimportant. Thus, the post was so incomprehensible to me
that I could not think of a proper way to reply.

But at least you correctly noted that a proper approach to things is
to not forget prudence and caution.

John Savard

On Aug 10, 5:24*pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 11/08/2010 2:26 AM, wrote:



"It's time to abandon Earth, warned the world's most
famous theoretical physicist.

In an interview with website Big Think, Stephen
Hawking warned that the long-term future of the
planet is in outer space.

"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on
planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone
the next thousand, or million. The human race
shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on
one planet," he said."

See:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/...-face-extincti...

It doesn't really matter if the human race becomes extinct - after all,
who would be there to care?

The real problem is that in the process there likely be considerable
suffering. But it's not clear that migrating into space would avoid that
- it's not as if we can contemplate sending a significant proportion of
the world's population into space to save them from whatever disaster
might otherwise befall them.

Sylvia.

True. The way we're literally burning through and otherwise consuming
resources that are not unlimited or robust enough to be considered
truly renewable, added to the certain over-population and/or the
multiple global wars that are almost certain to happen, we'll be lucky
to get ourselves past the next couple thousand years unless something
worse happens between now and then.

~ BG

wrote in message
...
"It's time to abandon Earth, warned the world's most
famous theoretical physicist.

In an interview with website Big Think, Stephen
Hawking warned that the long-term future of the
planet is in outer space.


The logic behind that statement is incredibly bad.
It's embarrassing to assume we can somehow
create a sustainable future in the cold dark and
very expensive reaches of space, when we can't
figure out how to sustain ourselves in a relative Eden
the size of the flippin' Earth. Where every resource
imaginable just seems to be lying about all over
available for pennies per ton. Or at the touch
of a phone.



"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on
planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone
the next thousand, or million. The human race
shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on
one planet," he said."


So let's spend all our scientific resources to...run
from the problem, instead of fixing it?

There is no such thing as the human race without the
Earth. The next nearest oasis is light years away.
And in contrast to sci-fi hopes, faster than light
travel will always be a pipe-dream.

Faster than light suggests the egg shell can be
put back together again. That doesn't make any sense.

The universe makes sense, we're proof of that.


Jonathan


s







See:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/...ephen-hawking/

On Aug 19, 6:52*pm, "John M" wrote:

So let's spend all our scientific resources to...run
from the problem, instead of fixing it?

No.

But we live on an Earth with *other people* on it. Some of whom we
can't control. There are countries like Russia and China with nuclear
weapons that can't be counted upon to work together with the United
States for the good of everyone.

The major part of our resources should be spent on fixing the problem,
for the good of the largest portion of humanity.

However, it's stupid to blindly believe that we're 100% guaranteed to
fix all the problems. Just one problem not fixed is enough to kill us
all.

Having space colonies within the solar system is not an impossibility.
And it can even be a way to help fix the problem on Earth.

If the off-Earth population grows, then...

It can deflect asteroids that might hit Earth.

It can provide energy or other resources to Earth.

By showing that freedom will survive, even should some tyrant conquer
the whole Earth, it will help limit the ambitions of tyrants, by
showing that they can never win in their goal of exterminating human
freedom everywhere.

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Anyone who understands the concept of "To fail to plan is to plan to
fail".

I'm still puzzled why doomsday thinking motivates conservatives, if
conservatives think that a doomsday that won't happen in their
lifetimes is unimportant. Thus, the post was so incomprehensible to me
that I could not think of a proper way to reply.

I have no idea what you think the word conservative means and I've long
ago concluded that the words conservative are mostly meanless labels two
political sides hurl at each other for lack of actual policy to discuss.

But your protrayal of whoever it is you mean is so political and
insulting that it tells me quite enough. You think some side in
politics does not care apparantly because you disagree with them in a
way that doesn't bother with policy. I don't need to care about
liberals or conservatives or even know what you mean by them to figure
that out.

But at least you correctly noted that a proper approach to things is
to not forget prudence and caution.

Earth will eventually die. Whether humans go exinct before that or our
descendents evolve beyond recognition before that, ignoring that makes
all of the options disappear. Expanding gives future options. Staying
eventually destroys. It's that simple. A man's reach should exceed his
grasp is the smallest of the ways to express it.

On Aug 20, 11:08*am, Doug Freyburger wrote:

But your protrayal of whoever it is you mean is so political and
insulting that it tells me quite enough.

Apparently my post was unclear. The only person I meant to insult was
the poster to whom you had been replying, claiming that
"conservatives" both didn't worry about doomsday, and yet were
motivated by the prospect of it.

That made the post so weird that I couldn't answer it.

I have no issue with your statements that we need to avoid failing to
plan, and we need to expand to keep our options.

John Savard