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On June 29 2010 09:58 baller wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:46 drewcifer wrote:
Anyone predicting how the world is going to end is just playing fantasy with themselves. Has nothing to do with science or anything tangible. r u kidding me? when the earth was a lush and fertile planet and had mad dinosaurs roaming, a piece of rock just 6 mile wide changed all that. it hit with the force of 10,000 nukes, made a trillion tons of dirt and rock go into the atmosfere like a suffocating blanket of dust. the sun was powerless to penetrate that shit for a thousand years. it happened before. it will happen again. it's just a question.. of WHEN.
We have usable brains though...Human beings are a pretty hearty species, i'm fairly certain at least a few of our kind would survive something like this.
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I voted "It won't"
Actually destroying the earth would be quite a feat. I don't think we're capable of it, and I really don't know if we ever will be.
Destroying humanity is a different story. Given the frailty of the human body it's not unreasonable to think that it would be possible for ever human to simultaneously die in some catastrophic event.
The evolution of technology will certainly make it easier for us to destroy ourselves, but I hope the human conscious will evolve in kind. Look at it this way, we humans have had nuclear technology for almost a full century, and we've only used two nukes on each other. Both happened pretty much right after the technology was developed. And we've made it through almost a full century without a repeat! That's pretty good in my opinion, but it's pittance compared to how long we'll have to avoid using them if we want to survive more than a brief moment in the scale of the whole universe.
The problem with the belief that technology will destroy us is that technology is developed solely to make human life easier, and more comfortable. Developers of technology would almost never use their technology as weaponry against others. Those decisions are almost always made by the uneducated, those in power of nations and those who wage wars. Every young engineer or scientist in training is well taught in the art of ethical considerations, and I really can't see any of my colleagues ever developing technology with the intent to harm anyone else. In fact, two years ago I met someone in my field who willingly failed his senior project class because his project was being sponsored by a company that makes bombs.
Despite all of that, I really think that even if we enter a nuclear winter or a mass extinction by some other means, I think some small facet of humanity will find a hole big enough to survive in or something. We're a very crafty species.
And as for a meteor collision, I'm pretty sure we're very close to having working technology to deflect meteors. It's not completely out of the question that we'll be able to avoid any future meteor impacts by merely pushing it out of the way with rockets. The main problem, honestly, is whether or not we'll see it in time.
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+ Show Spoiler +On June 29 2010 09:45 Destro wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:37 keNNabis wrote:i really don't think any of this BS will happen in our lifetime  or at least i don't want it to  life is good, i'm enjoying it. however to stay on topic, i'd say nukes before anything else we already have the technology/modern science/ideas of ways to stop an asteroid from hitting us we'll be given' tonnes of time before it hits us, so thats something we'll have time to preprare for, and approach with a proper answer. nukes however, or world war, these things can happen at the drop of a dime, no one will have a clue. you'll be eating a cake. next you'll see a mushroom cloud. next you'll be talking to jesus. dude you have been watching wayyy too much armeggedon if a large astertoid is going to directly hit the earth we are sooooooo fucked.
I think people from the past had a few apocalypse experience (Black Plague, WW1, WW2, Famine somewhere, etc.) but the thing that's deterring war itself are the nukes. But, hell that didn't stop America from owning Iraq's ass (since I think they didn't have nukes).
An asteroid is most likely to cause mayhem and oblivion to the Earth since it happened to the dinosaurs. But I think the ability of Humans to adapt to something a Hell Freeze wouldn't be that much of a problem to the survivors. (except if they are all whiney bitches like in the SC 2 forums LOL) Kidding
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On June 29 2010 09:34 Try wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:33 Piy wrote:
Well the sun will eventually burn out. And then that'll be it.
People will probably be wiped out by increasing temperatures/drug resistant, air transmitted plague. You don't think that if our species survives another 5 BILLION years, we still won't have the technology to get out of this solar system? I guess I should've added the option: entropy, cause inevitably, even if the human species goes on for billions more years, eventually all matter will pull apart.
People actually misinterpret earth's habitability when throwing around that 5 billion years figure.
5 billion years is when the sun will become so big it will almost engulf the earth.
In reality, we've merely got half a billion to one billion years left until the sun's radiation becomes so strong that our oceans start to evaporate.
Not very reassuring is it...
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it will end when the zerg arrive
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It isn't going to end in some huge catastrophe...
It'll end in the slow inexorable decline of civilization as we continue to kill each other, pollute the planet and have far too many children.
We'll wake up one day and realise that the world isn't the same as it used to be, as the masses of cars clog the streets now overgrown with weeds.
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On June 29 2010 09:58 baller wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:46 drewcifer wrote:
Anyone predicting how the world is going to end is just playing fantasy with themselves. Has nothing to do with science or anything tangible. r u kidding me? when the earth was a lush and fertile planet and had mad dinosaurs roaming, a piece of rock just 6 mile wide changed all that. it hit with the force of 10,000 nukes, made a trillion tons of dirt and rock go into the atmosfere like a suffocating blanket of dust. the sun was powerless to penetrate that shit for a thousand years. it happened before. it will happen again. it's just a question.. of WHEN.
supposedly an even larger global extinction was caused by a massive Super Volcano erupting that wiped out something like 95-99% of all species and life (don't recall the exact numbers)
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On June 29 2010 09:44 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:
To prevent an asteroid from ending life on earth, we would simply need to redirect earth's orbit or the asteriod's trajectory. Both of these tasks are trivial in theory (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trivial); the earth's orbit can and has been redirected several times through the use of cosmological accelerators, and the asteriods's orbit could be redirected through the use of low gravity torque pulsars.
these are theories that are great in science fiction, but we are still screwed.
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Deadly and incurable virus should be an option... Maybe not one of the man eating zombis variant, just a very deadly mutation of the flu and gg
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please make zombies an option...
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On June 29 2010 10:01 LaLuSh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:34 Try wrote:On June 29 2010 09:33 Piy wrote:
Well the sun will eventually burn out. And then that'll be it.
People will probably be wiped out by increasing temperatures/drug resistant, air transmitted plague. You don't think that if our species survives another 5 BILLION years, we still won't have the technology to get out of this solar system? I guess I should've added the option: entropy, cause inevitably, even if the human species goes on for billions more years, eventually all matter will pull apart. People actually misinterpret earth's habitability when throwing around that 5 billion years figure. 5 billion years is when the sun will become so big it will almost engulf the earth. In reality, we've merely got half a billion to one billion years left until the sun's radiation becomes so strong that our oceans start to evaporate. Not very reassuring is it...
While you are correct if we can't figure out space travel within the next 500 million years we deserve to die out.
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On June 29 2010 10:03 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:58 baller wrote:On June 29 2010 09:46 drewcifer wrote:
Anyone predicting how the world is going to end is just playing fantasy with themselves. Has nothing to do with science or anything tangible. r u kidding me? when the earth was a lush and fertile planet and had mad dinosaurs roaming, a piece of rock just 6 mile wide changed all that. it hit with the force of 10,000 nukes, made a trillion tons of dirt and rock go into the atmosfere like a suffocating blanket of dust. the sun was powerless to penetrate that shit for a thousand years. it happened before. it will happen again. it's just a question.. of WHEN. supposedly an even larger global extinction was caused by a massive Super Volcano erupting that wiped out something like 95-99% of all species and life (don't recall the exact numbers)
dude, if an asteroid the size of texas hit the pacific ocean, it'd be a global killer. the end of mankind. doesn't matter where it hit, nothing would survive. not even bacteria. it'll create a tusnami 3 mile high and travel 1000 mph... cover california to denver, wiping out japan and australia. half the world population incinerated by the heat blast, the rest freeze to death from nuclear winter.
u think a puny volcano would be able to top that? we would be able to see a volcano eruption from years away. asteroid, we have no chance. NASA's object collision budget is $1 million. that lets them track 3% of the sky, and no offense sir, but it's a big ass sky.
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nanotechnology. At the moment governments can quite easily protect nukes from crazzzy people. But in the future it may be possible for nukes to be handheld devices. There may be no privacy, nano cameras
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Lack of values imo. God I feel in highschool.
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On June 29 2010 10:00 Jayme wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:58 baller wrote:On June 29 2010 09:46 drewcifer wrote:
Anyone predicting how the world is going to end is just playing fantasy with themselves. Has nothing to do with science or anything tangible. r u kidding me? when the earth was a lush and fertile planet and had mad dinosaurs roaming, a piece of rock just 6 mile wide changed all that. it hit with the force of 10,000 nukes, made a trillion tons of dirt and rock go into the atmosfere like a suffocating blanket of dust. the sun was powerless to penetrate that shit for a thousand years. it happened before. it will happen again. it's just a question.. of WHEN. We have usable brains though...Human beings are a pretty hearty species, i'm fairly certain at least a few of our kind would survive something like this.
survive? no way. we can't let it hit earth...
for the first time in the history of the planet a species has the technology to prevent its own extinction, and ur telling me u just want to survive? i would take this asteroid head on. we humans have a thirst for excellence, for knowledge, every step up the ladder of science, ever reach into space, all our combined modern tech and imagination, even the wars that we fought. this gives us the tools to fight this asteroid.
i believe not only can we beat this asteroid, we'd kick its ass right back into space. bring it on.
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On June 29 2010 10:09 baller wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 10:03 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On June 29 2010 09:58 baller wrote:On June 29 2010 09:46 drewcifer wrote:
Anyone predicting how the world is going to end is just playing fantasy with themselves. Has nothing to do with science or anything tangible. r u kidding me? when the earth was a lush and fertile planet and had mad dinosaurs roaming, a piece of rock just 6 mile wide changed all that. it hit with the force of 10,000 nukes, made a trillion tons of dirt and rock go into the atmosfere like a suffocating blanket of dust. the sun was powerless to penetrate that shit for a thousand years. it happened before. it will happen again. it's just a question.. of WHEN. supposedly an even larger global extinction was caused by a massive Super Volcano erupting that wiped out something like 95-99% of all species and life (don't recall the exact numbers) dude, if an asteroid the size of texas hit the pacific ocean, it'd be a global killer. the end of mankind. doesn't matter where it hit, nothing would survive. not even bacteria. it'll create a tusnami 3 mile high and travel 1000 mph... cover california to denver, wiping out japan and australia. half the world population incinerated by the heat blast, the rest freeze to death from nuclear winter. u think a puny volcano would be able to top that? we would be able to see a volcano eruption from years away. asteroid, we have no chance. NASA's object collision budget is $1 million. that lets them track 3% of the sky, and no offense sir, but it's a big ass sky.
$1 million lets them track 3% of the sky. So by your logic 33 million would let us track 100% of the sky... The GDP of U.S. >> 10 trillion. I'd ask you to do the math, but you're clearly not capable, you little troll, you.
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I don't think any nation wants a nuclear doomsday. As such it will be unlikely that anyone will use more than a few in the coming years.
Some catastrophic disasters happen at regular intervals. For example we are overdue for supervolcanic eruptions and large asteroids, however since they happen so infrequently, it is not likely that they will happen soon.
Therefore if doomsday does occur, it will probably be human generated. I don't think nanotechnology would really be used to kill everyone, unless it were designed to eat stuff and replicate like in that Justice League Episode and many other sci fi shows! :D
In addition, we always hear about how superbugs could be catastrophic. However we are not really that familiar with how likely contagious, deadly, latent superbugs are to develop. Since it has not happened yet, I will assume it is not too likely.
Therefore I believe if mankind ends, it will probably be due to a robotic transformation, like the technological singularity those maniacs are always driveling about. I don't know what would happen in the brief moments where humanity makes its next big leap in evolution.
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I think to completely destroy humanity, it'll need to be something that completely wipes out higher organisms on earth. mostly something on a huge scale (asteroid, gamma ray burst). don't think nukes will do it unless people just go totally apeshit with em
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On June 29 2010 10:13 love1another wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 10:09 baller wrote:On June 29 2010 10:03 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On June 29 2010 09:58 baller wrote:On June 29 2010 09:46 drewcifer wrote:
Anyone predicting how the world is going to end is just playing fantasy with themselves. Has nothing to do with science or anything tangible. r u kidding me? when the earth was a lush and fertile planet and had mad dinosaurs roaming, a piece of rock just 6 mile wide changed all that. it hit with the force of 10,000 nukes, made a trillion tons of dirt and rock go into the atmosfere like a suffocating blanket of dust. the sun was powerless to penetrate that shit for a thousand years. it happened before. it will happen again. it's just a question.. of WHEN. supposedly an even larger global extinction was caused by a massive Super Volcano erupting that wiped out something like 95-99% of all species and life (don't recall the exact numbers) dude, if an asteroid the size of texas hit the pacific ocean, it'd be a global killer. the end of mankind. doesn't matter where it hit, nothing would survive. not even bacteria. it'll create a tusnami 3 mile high and travel 1000 mph... cover california to denver, wiping out japan and australia. half the world population incinerated by the heat blast, the rest freeze to death from nuclear winter. u think a puny volcano would be able to top that? we would be able to see a volcano eruption from years away. asteroid, we have no chance. NASA's object collision budget is $1 million. that lets them track 3% of the sky, and no offense sir, but it's a big ass sky. $1 million lets them track 3% of the sky. So by your logic 33 million would let us track 100% of the sky... The GDP of U.S. >> 10 trillion. I'd ask you to do the math, but you're clearly not capable, you little troll, you.
it obviously doesn't scale linearly, have ever read a nasa field manual? at nasa, they don't take chances. they double up on everything. obviously, we'd rely on a network of observatories around the world. whoever spots the asteroid first would report it (and get to name it).
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EPT
