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What, Me Worry?
Space.com dissects (or see the same story on MSNBC, with handy Torino scale graphic) the asteroid scare that's been in the news for the past week, asking some good questions about the roles of the news media and the scientific community. I suppose my take on it is something like this: given that truly insignificant threats to individuals get hyped all out of proportion routinely, at least in this case it was an insignificant threat to the entire planet.
This is a strange case of sciense using the techniques of religeous belief.
....and now we have "Pay us money, to tell you about asteroids, only we can see or you will burn"
For example, for centuries the church said "Pay us money, to tell you about God, who only we can see properly or you will burn"
Uncanny.
for humanity to have as monumental a task as saving the planet from an asteroid to concentrate their efforts on, rather than all the BS little conflicts and skirmishes we seem to be wasting time and trillions of dollars of taxpayer money on worldwide these days - it might really pull nations together, a sort of space race with everyone on the same side.
we assume newspapers (and other new-outlets) always tell the truth
Not if you read the NY Times, you don't.
Actually, ever since my class in Critical Thinking, I've pretty much assumed whoever wrote the piece has some ax to grind.
It's a fairly safe assumption.
The opposite of progress is congress
Credibility is always questionable; we assume newspapers (and other new-outlets) always tell the truth.
It's not that they're lying, (your statement contradicts itself, by the way), it's that they take a piece of factual news and put a sensationalist spin on it. They're aware that someone who's educated enough can read their articles and deduce the truth; but at first glance, you're going to have people thinking the world's going to end.
My favourite example is any time there's a protest against the WTC, G8, etc. The media immediately labels the protesters as "anarchists" and focus on the tiny portion of them that are inciting violence. In the hours of news coverage that these protests get, I've seen a total of 5 minutes devoted to what the people were protesting. The rest of the time was video footage of police firing tear gas and spraying people with water cannons.
So why doesn't the media want to report on what it is that the protesters are protesting for? Because that doesn't get ratings. Showing someone get tackled by 3 cops does.
> truly insignificant threats to individuals get hyped all out of proportion routinely, at least in this case it was an insignificant threat to the entire planet.
Which happens to be entirely relevant. Suppose activity A poses you with a 1/100 chance of losing a dollar and activity B poses you a 1/100 chance of losing $100,000. Are they equivalent risks? In terms of raw probability, yes. In terms of the expected value of their cost to you, no - B poses a threat five orders of magnitude higher than A.
For planet-buster asteroids we need to look at the expected value of the cost to our species, not at the raw probabilities. I.e., this is much, much less likely than having another solar flare disrupt our communication systems, but if it does happen it will hurt us far, far more than a mere communication disruption.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I think it may be a little out of order, considering:
7: Extreme threat of collision capable of causing a global catastrophe.
9: Collision capable of causing regional devestation.
I hope I'm not the only one who think a global catastrophe should rank higher on the scale than regional devestation.
(There are some other mix ups too, I just felt like posting those two.)
No sig for you.
I'm glad this was reported to the extent it was. If my news has to be filtered so that it won't scare the ignorant masses, then perhaps the ignorant masses should stop reading news. I don't have the time to search out news that's purposefully hidden from the majority of the populace. I heard about this from a couple of sources, and dismissed it as a threat. The interview where the man says that we could paint one side of the asteroid white and change its trajectory enough to avoid a collision with Earth is what convinced me I was safe.
Of course, if the asteroid is as fickle as that, isn't it a tad early to say it's utterly impossible for it to hit Earth? It's 17 years away from us, and all factors can't be predicted. It's also important to remember that a couple of months ago, a meteor (metorite? what's it called when it's still out in space?) passed between the Earth and the moon, and it wasn't caught until afterwards. Three point nine in a million is still not zero.
Finally, I haven't seen many reports on The Killer Asteroid of Death, but I have paid attention to the few I've come across. The Daily Show was the first place I heard mention of the Torino scale. Good job guys.
People are posting that "3.9 in a million" is such a small probablility that even *mentioning* this is pure hype...
But considering how bad the consequences could be, 4 in a million is still worth worrying about.
After all, an asteroid of this size could certainly kill millions of people, and depending on the effect on the climate, maybe hundreds of millions. A "four in a million" chance of killing, say, 10 million people, would mean that the expected (mean) death toll from this asteroid would be about 40 people -- roughly the amount of a major train accident or minor airplane crash. I don't think this story got more play than such an accident would have...
So the low probability and the high death toll kind of cancel each other out: obviously this isn't the story of the century (yet!!!), but it's worthy of mention.
The problem is that many of the protesters are just young teenagers trying to get out of school. If they went up to the average protester and said "Why are you protesting?", I'm sure the response would be along the lines of:
"Well dude, there's like, this world bank, and it's just wrong man, it's so wrong!"
There are dumb folks on both sides, but the media at least is shooting for higher ratings, which prevents tripe like that from making it on the air.
The FIRST time this asteroid story was listed on /., most Score:5's explained the likelyhood and how it was being blown out of proportion.
Now, we are on the third story, and no one is relaxing, because we all relaxed after a few intelligent astronomy geeks pointed it out the first story. The slashback that pointed out that the astronomy geeks were right is a nice touch, but a THIRD story about the SAME THING that we ALREADY FIGURED OUT, in my opinion, is -1 redundant.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I suppose my take on it is something like this: given that truly insignificant threats to individuals get hyped all out of proportion routinely...
Yes, but consider what hype can do. A man can learn to skillfully place a leather ball into a metal hoop and become a millionaire legend. A talented group of teenagers can cut a couple of albums and fill a stadium with frenzied prepubescent teenagers. Hype can overthrow governments. It can dictate the norms of a culture. Every fad has its day because of it. I don't like hype, because it distorts reality. But then again, if engineers sold software, I'd probably be looking for a job.
My point is that, although I admit my idealism twinges in pain at the misuse of hype, I can see that it has a role to play. The "hype" of a large rock blowing away half of the world's population, which could fuel an intense public demand for more funding for the thirsty desert of scientific research and discovery.
Amen! I feel the same way about conspiracy theorists. Ever notice that the same people that think the government can't do anything right also think that the government can successfully keep these bizzare secrets for years and years?
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
I used to be really good at Atari Asteroids. The trick is to take out all the little debris bits before blasting another large one, otherwise you end up fighting off a swarm of tiny ones.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
So why doesn't the media want to report on what it is that the protesters are protesting for? Because that doesn't get ratings.
That's certainly true, but it's also because it's not actually news. There are probably several dozen medium-to-large protests about something each year. The definition of "news" is something that's out of the ordinary, which means that only the violent, or extrememly large, protests really qualify.
I've seen a total of 5 minutes devoted to what the people were protesting.
Just because someone is protesting, that doesn't make their cause newsworthy.
1- The opinions of any surviving witnesses on the ground may not matter, if sufficient damage is done to impair communications for a significant time. And, FWIW, it might take less time to target, fuel and launch an ICBM than to repair the comm network.
/just/ about the US; worry about every power with WMDs, especially ones with aging systems and weak space programs.
/well in advance/ and widely, to everybody that would possibly have retalliatory powers and might hear of such an incident. You wouldn't want to have a SSBN captain miss the word, suddenly lose contact with a major city or two, and jump to conclusions.
2- Don't worry
3- Any warning would have to be distributed
4- Not everybody might believe such a warning. Hopefully, everybody that matters would... but not necessarily. Imagine if, by bizarre coincidence (and, perhaps, some OT-style poetic justice/collective punishment...) a stellar object smacked into and obliterated much of Jerusalem (both Jewish and Muslim neighborhoods in it, that is). It wouldn't surprise me if a fair number of Palestinians might believe that it were an Israeli nuclear strike to destroy the Islamic holy shrines there, while radical Israelis might see it as a sign from God to do whatever the hell they were already thinking of doing, but just looking for an excuse to do.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I hear your frustration and I agree that the message of these protestors is getting lost in the carnage. But I don't think you can blame the media entirely (or even at all). The media does not exist to provide a free forum for special interest groups. The protestors realized they could get widespread publicity by inciting violence. And they have. However, all they've managed to do is get their pictures on TV. Their message has still not come through. These anti-globalization protestors need to go back to the drawing board and figure out a GOOD way of getting their message across. They've had a couple of years now to see that the violence approach doesn't work. It's time for them to quit the nonsense and figure out something that does. It's their fault now and not the media's. And the leaders of these protest groups need to demonstrate a bit of leadership skills here and make sure everyone "under their command" understands that they're not going to do the "violence thing" anymore.
The problem is not unlike Yasser Arafat and the suicide bombers. Blowing up Israeli citizens is turning into a PR nightmare for Arafat but all he does is give an occasional (and usually coerced) condemnation. He needs to really crack down on the troublemakers, else the world will view the PLO as a gang of terrorists. This is obviously a larger and more serious problem that the globalization protestors but I think the idea is still the same. The responsible protestors need to crack down on the idiots who giving the whole group a bad name.
GMD
watch this