I think Hawking has gone around the bend

[Bowdiddley]

True. Earth will be around at least another 4 billion years' date=' but how much of that time will this planet be livable? [b']I don't hold much hope for my not yet conceived children, much less their children. The future isn't looking too bright[/b].

 

I hope you don't take that to the next step and plan on not having children, one of them might be the person that saves mankind!

 

Don't get me wrong, as an outdoors type of guy who hunts, fishes camps and truly loves the outdoors I know without a doubt that lots of humans need to re-access our ways and stop the pollution etc.

 

But people have been shouting doom and gloom for hundreds of years, I liken it to a preacher screaming fire and brimstone prophecies.

 

I live my life with the assumption that tomorrow is going to be better than today and the next day will be even better. Try it, it makes me much happier.

[ShredAstaire]

Sounds like another Philip K. **** fan' date=' no? Nazis colonizing Mars? [/quote']

 

Nah....in every Sci Fi story there is war....moreso on colonization story. I've actually not read any of ****'s work.

 

Can you recommend anything? I like hard Sci Fi....

 

For the record though - for those giving evol **** about not wanting to have kids....i don't think everyone needs to have kids...its an individuals choice...we are already overcrowding the populated areas of our world.

[Artie Owl]

Nah....in every Sci Fi story there is war....moreso on colonization story. I've actually not read any of ****'s work.

 

Can you recommend anything? I like hard Sci Fi....

 

I don't know if you can call this "hard" sci fi, but here goes

1.) Dune / Frank Herbert (the original not the ones written by his son)

2.) Prey, or Timeline (Crichton) Awesome books, couldn't put them down.

[grampa]

He's just lucky he wasn't born 100 years ago.

 

Good observation.

My feeling is if we can't do it right here, we don't deserve to do it wrong somewhere else. Hawking does live in his own world and can devote his time to such overly abstract thinking that most of us don't have time for.

[TommyK]

Escaping this blue/green orb is not a new idea. Heck it's already happened. People's Temple (Jonestown), Heaven's Gate. They put their money where their mouth was and slipped the surly bonds of earth" to touch the face of God*. (*Feel free to insert your term for an almighty or secular humanist term for 'perfection'.)

 

Since the dawn of time Man has been trying to escape ... man. While most of us would rather 'just get along', there are enough of us out there who want what others have; their cave, their club, their woman, their food; to make all of us have to defend ourselves. One can either stand and fight, or run away. It's that 'fight or flight' instinctive response we all have.

 

I have respect for Hawking, and agree that darker days will come, but darker days are always separated by lighter ones. We as a species have been riding this roller coaster since forever.

 

The flight mentality says, move far enough away from whomever is threatening us so that the thugs can't find us or give up the chase. Ogg did it when Noonit invaded his cave. Ogg, just moved a couple valleys over. Eventually Noonit or Noonit's progeny found Ogg's progeny and the cylcle repeated itself.

 

Remember why the Puritans left Europe, to escape the violence of oppression. Guess what... it followed them here. A different type of violence, but follow them, it did. They also found violence in the New World as well.

 

Take it back a civilization... While there is no written record, but when the first Homo sapiens crossed the land bridge from Asia to North America, ancestors of Native Americans, they were likely escaping violence. Why else would they move? Given the small numbers of humans vs animals at that time, there should be no reason to move. Food should have been in abundance. But move they did. Did they escape violence? Nope. Heck, they brought it with them. Different tribes of Native Americans were blood enemies long before Christopher Columbus was a gleam in his mother's eye.

 

I think Hawking's assumption is that by moving off planet to another planet or moon will help mankind reboot and all will be sweetness and light.

 

On this point Hawking is naive.

[Look! Im guitarest!]

Nothing to be alarmed of, folks! Hawking's communicator malfunctioned.

[Californiaman]

We're doomed!

[EVOL!]

Nah....in every Sci Fi story there is war....moreso on colonization story. I've actually not read any of ****'s work.

 

Can you recommend anything? I like hard Sci Fi....

 

Not sure if **** is considered hard Sci Fi' date=' but I would start with his most popular [i']Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?[/i] and then try The Man In The High Castle. Man in the high castle is where the Nazis on Mars reference comes from. It is also my favorite of his books. One of the greatest plot twists in print happens about 3/4 of the way in.

 

For the record though - for those giving evol **** about not wanting to have kids....i don't think everyone needs to have kids...its an individuals choice...we are already overcrowding the populated areas of our world.

 

Well, I do plan on pissing in the gene pool sometime soon. I never said I wasn't going to have kids, I just don't think the future looks too bright for them. We have made huge advances as a society in the past one hundred years and I see that progress being stamped out by greed. Example - the new Google/Verizon deal. Kiss net neutrality goodbye. I sent my email to the FCC to take action. A phone call will be next. So, I am active and do speak up, but I have learned not to get my hopes up.

[ShredAstaire]

^ Yeah i think everyone assumed you meant you weren't gonna have kids....

 

I stand by my statement! Not everyone should be a parent!

[S t e v e]

fear not people the world is safe...i am here!!!!

[EVOL!]

I stand by my statement! Not everyone should be a parent!

 

Funny' date=' because I just had lunch with an old friend. She is the proud parent of a seven year old and tough as nails. While waiting outside, in the middle of our conversation she stops and says, "excuse me.". She turns around, yells HEY!, and looks right at this sevenish looking boy, and tells him, "knock it off!" Turns out the boy was chasing and punching this other sevenish year old girl. Looks like he was really hurting her. All I could say was [i']where are the parents?[/i]

 

So, yes, some people should not be parents.

[jaxson50]

My great grand father was a newspaper reporter, in 1910 he was laughed out of town because he wrote an column in which he claimed man would walk on the moon "in our lifetime".. he was called moon man...well he died in 1970 at the age of 99 so he had the last laugh.

There are many forum members who will remember how back in the late 1950s and 1960s we were all scared to death that Russia would launch a nuc. and we would all be vaporized..the weekly air raid warning system test.. we would all get under our desks and cover our eyes...It was about that time that people in the Seattle area started noticing that their windshields were pitting...soon TV reporters from all over the nation were gathering in the Puget Sound area to cover the big story..people were claiming the pitting was caused by nuclear fallout that was being carried by the Jet Stream from Russia to the Pacific North West, some politicians demanded a investigation, it was suggested that the Soviet Union was purposely doing this to poison us with radiation....like everyone else I was scared, while visiting my great grandparents I voiced my fear. But my great grandmother chuckled and produced a huge scrapbook of news articles she had collected over the years. She opened the book to a page from 1901 that was covered with clippings about the inevitable end of the world, how "we were seeing the end of time"..."All of the prophesies have been fulfilled, religious leaders and philosophers concurred, there was no denying, the four horseman of the Apocalypse was upon us"...

She sat down and told me that every generation believes in these truths;

1. They are the smartest generation that ever lived.

2. The end is eminent.

3. They are the only ones who understand

4. They must save us. (spiritually or physically)

Here is what I know. If we had invested the same amount of money looking for solutions to water shortages here on earth as we spend looking for water on Mars and on meteorites we could have saved many more lives and prevented much of the causes of tribal warfare that has ripped Africa apart for the past century.

Even if Mars had water at one time, the atmosphere of Mars has a high level of toxins that we can not live in, the radiation level is so high we can not live there...so why are we wasting time looking for water there? If we are really serious about finding another planet that can support life why are we wasting time on Mars?

What is the larger contribution to the welfare of mankind;

1. The All American Canal System that brought water to the arid California desert and turned a once undesirable, barely livable desert waste land into one of the most productive agricultural centers on earth there by providing millions of people affordable food while also creating millions of jobs for farm workers, distribution centers, markets and all the people involved in exporting those goods?

2. The effort to find water on other planets and celestial bodies in this solar system?

Until a few years ago we believed that there were canal systems on Mars..we were taught that in school. now we have spent a lot of money to prove there never were canals on Mars...we could have spent that money building more canal systems on this planet...

Which would be the better investment in humanity?

[zigzag]

Touching story.

 

Fortunately for mankind, no one was stupid enough to launch nuclear attacks in the cold war. Hopefully, Iran and North Korea are not stupid enough to do that once they have the capability.

 

In my area of the country, we are fighting over who gets water from local rivers. We have droughts in some areas while others are getting flooding. There appears to be more severe weather worldwide and many attribute that to global warming, which is in fact, ocurring. (Whether, and how much, mankind is contributing is debateable.) The world is in recession. Infrastrucure is crumbling. Mankind is polluting his environment. People are living longer.

 

Your grandmother was worried about a Biblical apocalypse. Most everyone today is concerned about an apocalypse brought on by overpopulation, greed, technology, war, pollution, depletion of natural resources, and scientists talking of pole reversals, widening fault lines, and asteroids from outer space.

 

We definitely have more to be concerned about in our modern world than we did in 1910, real or imagined.

[duane v]

I would dare to state that just in our own solar system with exception of the planet Earth, all other planets are in of state of arrested development. The only rule that we know for sure, is the current conditions the Earth provides, are suitable for intelligent life with a certain level of technological adolescence.

 

IMO, a meteor or comet will be the event that will end mankind as we know it. Certainly if we manage to escape that, our sun (in 4 billion years) will fry us.... The forces of the universe will decide our fate, not mankind.

[milod]

Duane kinda hit how I look at it.

 

Regardless of what may may or may not do, an end of the earth as a place where our species as it is today can survive is absolutely inevitable. It could happen in a year or two with a comet or some other sort of "natural" disaster.

 

My personal opinion is that the real ecological problem on earth is overpopulation, but that's not currently politically correct to state since the current perspective is to go back to living somehow like cro magnons which is impossible at current population levels. In fact, I'm surprised we haven't already had a pandemic caused by populations unsustainable by a 14th century sort of lifestyle and transportation system. Even in those days...

 

Hawking elsewhere has made it obvious that he is convinced the earth will at some point for some reason become uninhabitable by our species. I think that's obvious to most folks. So colonies elsewhere are a backup plan to maintain the species. That also seems to make sense. Mars likely would work at least for a while for a technological culture not much beyond where we are now. Farther out is perhaps a different game. As for FTL travel... we can't do it now; may never be able to, but I doubt those of us alive today will ever see it.

 

But as Duane said, the solar system with a place habitable by humans eventually will be gone. The question is whether some biological - or even machine - entity will be around to write about it.

 

m

[EVOL!]

I by no means think the end is near. I do think things are going to get progressively worse for all living things on this planet and that near the end of my life (unless I die of a heart attack like my father and his father) I will see a population crash brought on by the side effects of global climate change.

[duane v]

I think what troubles me most about these geniuses like Hawking, is they feel the only solution for mankind's extended survival is beyond Earth, and are only looking for the next big breakthrough to attach their name to. I do tons of traveling around the world, and if you look out the window of the plane you are flying on, there's so much land mass that is untouched in places like Utah, New Mexico and Nevada to name a few, that I just don't by the over-population theories.

 

If these great minds would put their thoughts to the more obtainable goals concerning on improving life on earth, rather than some theory like "dark matter" that nobody can see, feel or touch. Wouldn't you think it would be easier to make a desert that's located on earth more livable??? We took a lonely hot place in Nevada (Las Vegas) and made it a place were humans can live and be productive...... Screw Mars, and the vast nothingness that planet has to offer:-k

 

Certainly it's easy to point out all mankind's flaws, but let us take a look at just some of our accomplishments....

 

1. Women giving birth was a very dicey 200 years ago, today modern medicine has made it very safe.

2. Same thing with a cold, one could easily die from just a common cold 150 years ago

3. Could you imagine living in a society that didn't have a sewage system? Well for most of mankind that was the case 2000 years ago.

4. Food preservation has come a long way

5. We are all living longer and productive lives.

6. Transportation.

7. At no time in our history that people of different culture are more connected with each other than ever before... (This is a great thing).

 

Truth be told, we are still a very young species, and we still have even to begin to touch upon what the earth can provide in terms of mankind's extended stay here on Earth.... How Mars, a planet that has no sign of life, limited atmosphere, little water and gravity to sustain our fragile anatomy, and having humans colonizing it, seems more like science fiction to me, and serves no purpose for the more important issues concerning humans current struggles with planet earth.

 

I think once we except the fact that we are very rare, we will move to the next step.

[milod]

Duane...

 

For the most part I don't argue against what you said except...

 

I think Hawking is looking more to Mars or whatever more as a backup plan than anything. E.g., drop a big asteroid on earth and we're all gone. There are some other potential nasties. A Mars colony is far enough that probably it would survive such a natural disaster otherwise wiping out the species. But that may not be enough to maintain the species even then. If there are potentials to expand the species elsewhere...

 

In effect, that's a paradigm many creatures have followed for maintenance of the species - just not necessarily with the degree of understanding that we have now. But then... they were jumping oceans or land masses, not "space."

 

m

[Blackie]

...............I thought the world already did end................

[rocketman]

IMO' date=' a meteor or comet will be the event that will end mankind as we know it. Certainly if we manage to escape that, our sun (in 4 billion years) will fry us.... The forces of the universe will decide our fate, not mankind.[/quote']

 

A meteor or comet can be easily deflected using a solar sail or even a gravitational tractor. I think that he is really pointing to the fact that we've abandoned the manned space program. I don't what to really get into this debate because I have some very strong opinions. However, one thing for sure, he knows how to stir the pot. We've got three pages of discussion on a guitar forum already!!! Maybe starting discussions is his real goal...

[duane v]

A meteor or comet can be easily deflected using a solar sail or even a gravitational tractor.

 

...LOL!!!

[rocketman]

I see you got my joke. The theory is there though and the technology will catch up to it eventually....

[jaxson50]

Touching story.

 

Fortunately for mankind' date=' no one was stupid enough to launch nuclear attacks in the cold war. Hopefully, Iran and North Korea are not stupid enough to do that once they have the capability.

 

In my area of the country, we are fighting over who gets water from local rivers. We have droughts in some areas while others are getting flooding. There appears to be more severe weather worldwide and many attribute that to global warming, which is in fact, ocurring. (Whether, and how much, mankind is contributing is debateable.) The world is in recession. Infrastrucure is crumbling. Mankind is polluting his environment. People are living longer.

 

Your grandmother was worried about a Biblical apocalypse. Most everyone today is concerned about an apocalypse brought on by overpopulation, greed, technology, war, pollution, depletion of natural resources, and scientists talking of pole reversals, widening fault lines, and asteroids from outer space.

 

We definitely have more to be concerned about in our modern world than we did in 1910, real or imagined.[/quote']

 

You make my point- at the turn of the last century- 1890 to 1910 there was no reason to believe that places like Central or Southern California could possible grow produce, it was as barren as the moon...but men with foresight designed and built a canal system, one of the largest in history and created a agricultural center. In 1920 property in the Imperial and Coachella Valley was worthless. Being sold for 10 to 25 cents per acre, nothing but sand dunes. But irrigation changed it into a thriving farming center. These are regional systems, transporting water over hundreds of miles were built during the 1930' during the Great Depression when this nation was broke, they are mostly forgotten and taken for granted today, but they turned worthless sand into a breadbasket.

There is no reason why we can't do these kinds of project today.

[GIANTRobOT420]

[YOUTUBE]

[/YOUTUBE]

[dbreslauer]

GIANTRobOT420, you beat me to it! I am watching these right now and laughing out loud!

 

search YouTube for this: "George Carlin - Saving the Planet" the language is too strong to link, i think.