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Hawking Says Humans Must Go Into Space
neutralino writes "The Associated Press reports that astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wants humans to establish colonies in space in order to ensure the survival of the human race. At a news conference in Hong Kong, Hawking said that 'It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species. Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.'"
Do we have to go into space right now? Do I have time to go home and change?
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
We'd just start creating things that can wipe out the galaxy.
I say we all go back to Kobol, and meet up with the other 12 colonies. :)
It looks like they already have some really cool stuff.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
...otherwise, space exploration is a boondoggle.
We're running out of it here.
Although seriously, everyone still living on earth makes for a giant single point of failure. But my ping time is going to suck if I start gaming from the moon.
Talk about avoiding the problem.
Instead of fixing our problems and looking for solutions, lets go into space to get away from it all.
some how this seems like a bad idea, or atleast a bad reason. Why not go into space for some positive reason? like to learn or solve a problem like over population...
Mod others as you would have them mod you.
He later elaborated on the specific humans who should go into space, including several people he went to school with, that one snooty teller at his bank, his obnoxious neighbors with their noisy children, and that little bastard who egged his house last Halloween.
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We have to leave this rock.
Even if we don't destroy ourselves, the Earth is doomed. It will not last forever. Mars and moon will not be the answer either. At some point, we will have to leave the solar system if we want to survive.
But where are we going to go? How many generations will it take to get there?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Any one who's seen a Gundam series knows what'll happen when we make space colonies: melodramatic war between the colonies and earth.
Of course we'll first need massive armored suits and lazer swords, not to mention genetically engineered kids to fight our battles.
Hell, we can barely get a craft into orbit let alone colonize an uninhabitable planetary body... How about we figure out how not to blow up the Earth?
Over sufficiently long timeframes, and sufficiently large impactors, the same applies to continents.
I don't want to suffer, and am not particularly anxious to die.
I don't want the people I care about to suffer or to die either.
(I realize I will be disappointed in all of these wishes sooner or later.)
Beyond that, I couldn't give a rat's ass whether the species survives or not. I say: Give the cockroaches a turn!
Why do people care about this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1602361. stm
Same story, only BBC broke this in 2001.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Why do we have to start with humans in space, isn't it a much better idea to start making colonies with animals?
Those can provide us with a LOT of experience at a lesser risk. If animals die in space (or maybe even bacteria) people will probably make a small fuzz but forget it quickly. If humans die in space it could mean the end of the space project.
Once we establish a solid base, and knowledge about building a new colonie we can send humans...??
My blog: http://www.redcode.nl
Humans and colonies is a whole other ballgame.
The amount of money needed for just the research to attempt to do this is astronomical (bad pun intended). While I do agree with Hawkins, we definitely need to begin research into this, we need to realize the amount of $$$ involved would be BIG.
There should definitely be some group efforts between private companies along with various countries helping out.
Is Hawking hinting at something here?
One old worry is that someone would develop a way to trigger a fusion bomb without a fission bomb. Serious work went into that problem in the 1950s and 1960s, and the designer of the neutron bomb has been quoted as saying that certain lines of research should be discouraged because they might lead to a solution.
If we dont move to space hey will never have a chance to grow up in an orweillian human society.... sacre bleu!
I'm not anti-human or anything (in fact, I'm good friends with a number of them!). But why should an individual care about whether or not the drama of humanity continues? For instance, if we permit let every person who currently lives to live out a natural and good life, and somehow do so without creating any new people, would that be acceptable?
When we bring unquestioned beliefs into space along with our inevitable faith, we'll eventually make space the same species deathtrap as Earth.
--
make install -not war
Unfortunately, a few minutes thought shows that it's far easier to kill off a planet than it is just to kill off the people you don't like on a planet. For the race to be secure you'd have to do more than just colonize Mars -- you'd have to have people on ships moving away in all directions as fast as possible.
We really need to work out our problems here.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Sounds like his solution isn't necessarily based on developing habitats in the solar system (though he did say moon and Mars were the first steps). This seems like an ultra-long term scenario for which the technology doesn't even exist yet. It's almost like he's saying the Earth is screwed, so let's get off this hunk of rock. I think, considering we could be here for a very very long time, the better solution is to develop technology or philosophies dedicated to helping us live where we are. Can't just give up on Earth...we have no other options no matter how many sci-fi shows we watch.
"Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
DRM!
Send robots first. Don't start sending people until you get a space elevator and/or have the robots set up an environment the long term stay. Otherwise we'll spend way too much on resources.
How are we going to take cows into space? We need cows for steaks and dairy (milk, cheese and ice cream).
They have spacesuits for man. Could they make a spacesuit for a cow? A cowsuit?
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
What about that hot nurse of his? Is she coming too?
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
Shotgun Uranus! I call King (its mine now, I called it!)
--Valthan
Would colonizing space really solve the basic problems that could cause mankind to die out on Earth? The disasters listed above seem to originate with man, and most of these because of man's relentless pursuit for power or profit. If our lives are so fragile now, on the planet we are ideally suited to live on, how much more fragile will the human race be on an inhospitable planet somewhere else in the solar system, not to mention the universe. There is a great gulf to cross through space and it seems that we should solve the root causes of our problems at home before we bring them with us to a more delicate and dangerous place.
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This has been my personal belief for years. I thought I was the only one who thought this way.
Oh, you're still down there?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
humanity has a dark self-destructive side
and as weapons become more and more powerful, it will take smaller and smaller groups of people to do more and more damage
until the truly scary it is achieved: it is not inconceivable that at some future date, just one committed nihilistic person could unleash something which could wipe out most of humanity, and at the very least destroy civilization
this could be via genetics or nanotechnology or something weirder and not yet discovered
so indeed, the best way to safeguard from such people is to live in far flung locations, such that a disaster, manmade or not, in one location can lead to recolonization by the other location
hawking is 100% right, it really is in mankind's best interest to take out a survival insurance policy and get our asses into space in a self-sustainable manner
i would give us a century or two to achieve this goal, and with serendity and luck, we will get into space before the statistical inevitability of that one demonic person appearing making their vile mark on the world by killing most of us
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Always mount a scratch planet.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
"or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
What about venturing out in space and meeting up with a powerful angry alien who just found out we killed his son's daughter's husband's mother by terraforming another planet? What do we do then?
As a rule, I never trust dark brown ketchup.
"May the Circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by.
There's a better home a waiting, In teh Sky Lord, in the Sky".
-A.P. Carter
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
For all we know he's an idiot.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
_This_ is what Mr. SuperGenius comes up with? What science fiction reader or even slightly intelligent 12 year old hasn't come to the same obvious conclusion.
In other news, Humans should attempt to cure Cancer and AIDS!
As much respect as I have for Professor Hawking, I have to say that this is rather obvious. Even if we don't kill ourselves or get killed by some sort of natural disaster, eventually, the sun will go super nova and destroy us anyway.
So yeah, if the human race is to live to the end of the universe, we have to colonize space. You don't have to be Hawking to know that!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"My house is dirty. Buy me a new one." -Krusty
We may be good at making things go boom, but galaxies are very big things, and it'll be a very long time before we can make anything that'd have any sort of significant effect on them.
While I agree with the point of your post, it was otherwise stupid as hell.
TFA: "Hawking said that 'It is important for the human race to spread out into space....'"
mmm, I'll bet that long after Steven Hawking is gone, his chair will be still be giving lectures, advice, and making scientific discoveries...
I think it would be better to remain on the Earth to let the Universe survive!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
I'm with Stephen all the way, just as long as we stay away from the Beta Quadrant. Those pesky Klingons are the last thing we need to mess with our space programs right now.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Well, I can't find anything to support this idea in my bible...
I don't think we're really going to space - in any big way.
Mod me as either funny OR insightfull
Or maybe a BCP. So humans can continue their "business" of destroying planets
I've always thought it was kind of goofy to be talking about space colonization at this point in the space age. We're nowhere near capable of sustaining ourselves independent of earth or even proving we can live healthy and sustainable lives away from earth. Hell, we can't even reliable GET humans into space. One step at a time.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
He's thinking of giant space goats. Oddly enough, the first people he wants to go into space aren't scientists, engineers and great artists, but politicians, marketing types, and telephone handset sanitizers.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Stephen Hawkings is an intelligent guy, but isn't this a bit out of his field? He works in astrophysics at the highly theoretical level. Whilst the sentiment is nice, it's not exactly founded from a realistic perspective from working in the industry. It's not like he works at NASA and has a good grip on the realities - and limitations - of space travel. I could say curing cancer is vital to humankind's progression, but it doesn't exactly mean it's a realistic goal.
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling.
...just as we need to accept personal death.
The Noah's Ark story has great appeal, but events capable of destroying the Earth might well destroy nearby colonies in the solar system.
Or perhaps I should say, if we hypothesize that humankind does not have the wisdom to maintain a stable existence on Earth, the same factors that lead to it destroying the Earth and/or human life thereon might well lead to the same outcome in our planetary colonies.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I know we all like to sit around and pretend that there's a solution for everything out there, somewhere, waiting to be found, but humanity is a seriously broken creature. We could have infinite food, power and resources, but people would still kill, rape, maim and hurt one another endlessly.
I view the challenges involved in colonizing mars as far easier than teaching humans to not fight amongst themselves. At least we have a vague notion as to how to solve the former.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
He wants to send _people_ to do it. And when you use people, you end up with the same problems we have here on Earth. Which is exactly why we have the problems we do here on Earth.
It seems that even Hawking believes that any attempt to change Western culture is in vain. Western society bears a remarkable resemblance to cancer. Fly over urban metropolises and you'll see pus and grime coming out of them, a haze of brown tinges their atmosphere. People shuttle to and fro in their daily lives, consuming as much as their salaries will allow. They justify this as acceptable in the "spirit of capitalism". It's "acceptable" to spend all that money on crap you don't need, because everybody else has it, or "it's cool".
They haven't the slightest hint of how to be happy. They're always unsatisfied. They need more and more, and they live for the future.
In these cultures, from the day you are born you are being rushed to some unknown destination. You go to grade school and graduate that, and that's great because then you go on to high school, and you better good grades so that you can graduate and continue on to college. That's great because then you can go on to graduate school and get a job. You continue in hopes of reaching that future success. Then most of these blobs will be told they need to hurry up there too, so that they can meet that quota, and then by the time you're 40, bald, and more or less impotent, you say: "My God! I've arrived!" And you look around and realize that not much changed, and you feel a big let down, you feel deceived, as if there was some hoax played on you. And there was. In their rush to get you to this point they've made you miss everything.
Finally, westerners are incredibly lonely. They feel as if they are isolated egos inside of a bag of skin. Their idea of God is this old "grampa" like figure who's "king of kings" sitting "up there" in heaven and ruling over the cosmos. Well... I could go on about this, but then I'd fill up several pages. If you're interested about what I said here, please know that it was basically all taken from the words of Alan Watts, the 20th century's best and little known-about philosopher and interpreter of Eastern religions. To get a taste of his works read the first two chapters (forgive their design) for free online from his book: "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are".
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
I think what he means is we should be more dispersed through-out the universe. I whole-heartedly agree...and I'm compiling a list of who should be sent first :)
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
When Stephen Hawking made his guest appearance on Star Trek (TNG), he was given a tour of the set. The cast noticed he was chuckling when he was walked past the "warp core". When asked why, he said : "I'm working on it.".
Well, he'd better hurry up. Without a decent propulsion system, we're going to be pretty well stranded here. Sure, we can lob a chunk of metal up and wait 5-15 years for it to get to some remote destination within our solar system but that is a far step from being able to create any sort of a permanent outpost. The only way we will be able to leave the bounds of the earth let alone our solar system will be with a yet-unknown propulsion system.
Dr. Hawking further elaborated on his suggestion that the space colonies include 10 women for every man:
"Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature."
You know, I used to read a lot of sci-fi, I watched Trek, Firefly, and I have huge respect for Hawking's intellect, yadda yadda, but I'm starting to find these calls to colonize the stars "or else" to be off the mark. The fact of the matter is this, gang: we are fragile critters, sacks of water more or less, and we can only survive in an environment that exists only in very small portions of the universe - so small it's comparitively non-existent. This notion that we're going to piss around in city-sized spaceships, or "terraform" all these supposed M-class planets, just like in Aliens(kewl!), and spread all over the universe like a pock-marked trailer park, is just, well, it's just fantasy. *Fun* fantasy, make no mistake, but we're talking real life here. That means long term effects of living in weightlessness(physically and psychologically, we can't). Exceeding the speed of light(we can't). Terraforming(we're so far away from anything even theoretically possible that it's fantasy).
I'm not suggesting we shouldn't explore. We will, it's in our nature. However, saying we need to get into space real soon cuz' we're on the cusp of nuclear/biological/environmental/terrorist related extinction is like telling a prehistoric cave dweller that they better start working on the theory of flying because that volcano is about to erupt.
DT
Let's see... Instead of leaving the earth (since some replies suggest that it isn't a very good idea and we would just ruin the Galaxy instead of Earth), lets find some other options...
/.ers will all congregate to an Island and let everyone else perish, and we can then create a utopia led by CowboyNeal. Don't Forget that we'll still die from Natural Disasters or something we havn't thought of yet anyways!
Being wiped out by natural disaster
Immediate Risk: Moderate Low
Long Term Risk: High (Global Warming? Sun failure?)
Mitigation Plan: Sorry, Everyone dies (but hey, who cares right? This wont happen in our time! We should all have jobs in Washington D.C.!)
Nuclear War / Engineered Virus
Immediate Risk: Moderate High
Long Term Risk: Moderate High
Mitigation Plan: World Peace? pffttt. Hopefully us
Other dangers we have not yet thought of
Immediate Risk: Unknown
Long Term Risk: Moderate High?
Mitigation Plan: Can't really have one of these for something we havn't thought of yet.
So we are going to eventually die anyways - the bottom line is we either take steps now to ensure the continual survival of our Great^1000 Grandchildren, or we become even more selfish than we already are, steal the last bit of life from this planet, and then just wither away and perish. Of course, if thats the case why wait? Let's engineer that virus or start that Nuclear war now.
Its Deluxe, son. Deluxe!
Maybe she changes his diapers and puts him to beddy-bye every night too?
Freaking limpwristic loser, go hide under a rock while adults secure the freedom of the Western World, whimpy little cry-baby.
There are good reasons, other than colonisation, for expansion into space: some of them potentially helping with the survival of earth. If we can move dirty manuafacturing, mining activities and some food production into space, the pressure on our own ecology will become much less severe.
Ok, not really. But how come Slashdot didn't report it when I said the same thing? ;)
Humans say Hawkings must walk first.
Space? Lets cure cancer, Aids, Psoriasis, Diabetes, Poverty....
Then we space...
You know I got a shitlist of people that I love to see shot off into the vacuum of space.
Oh colonization RTFA first I guess.
ACK
If the earth becomes uninhabitable, it will likely resemble a foreign planet anyways. If we really can survive on an inhospitable planet far away, then we can certainly survive once ours becomes inhospitable. If we leave, it has to be either because our planet is going to be destroyed, or because we've discovered some planet almost exactly like earth. We know that planet will have to be far away, so it seems that we'll either need near-lightspeed travel or the construction of a giant Noah's-ark-like ship. Both of these being far off in the distance, and the effects of spaceflight on man being fairly well-explored, I don't see why we can't do all the research needed either on earth or with unmanned craft.
Previous human migrations were driven by less, ahh, altruistic motivations. Survival, distaste for the status quo, better living, things like that.
And what part of wanting your offspring (or theirs, etc) to actually live and carry on your culture is "altruistic?" For most of us, that's exactly the opposite. It's completely, rationally seflish. We want what we build to last and improve. And you don't build large systems without redundancy, that's all. And the thirst for some adventure and a challenge is hardly "altruism." You want altruism? That would be killing yourself to free up some resources for somebody else so they don't have to work as hard. Except, a fat lot of good that does if a giant meteor smacks into your resources.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Not to be a wet blanket on the whole "Survival of the human race" thing, but are we worth it? It seems that just about every other creature on this planet lives in harmony with each other and nature in general. Humans overpopulate, pave over, and drain natural resources. We're not in the cycle of nature, it seems, and given that, how can we expect to survive long term, unless we either drastically change our way of living and our approach towards nature, or just keep spreading out, like Mr. Smith's analogy of a virus.
Just seems that humans aren't playing by the rules - we grow in population out of proportion to what the environment can withstand. Great for our survival over other species in the short term, but bad for our survival in the long term, as nothing can sustain us for very long.
Go into space? I guess...but to what end? Whose end?
Jesse Helms
We have almost used up earth. So we should quickly find a new place where we can drive our SUVs and be undisturbed by little children begging for food.
While I think that exploring and colonizing space are cool, here are a couple reasons I don't really agree with Hawking:
I'm always sceptical of the idea of superpathogens. I mean, are we claiming suddenly that we can engineer more successful bacteria than millions of years of evolution? I haven't seen any evidence of that. Sure, there will be dangerous pathogens created, by us and by natural selection, over the next millennium. But it's highly unlikely that any of them would wipe out the human race. Rather, they'd decimate us and we would adapt. Not a pretty picture, but not the end of humanity. Besides, I don't see how getting off the planet helps this: we'll bring pathogens with us and who knows how they'll mutate in their new environment.
Moving to space is hard. No, really: we haven't even mastered the technology to live underwater on our own planet for indefinite periods of time. Or to live in a self sustaining way in other harsh environments indefinitely. Like the dessert, tundra, or the top of Mt. Everest. And these are many many orders of magnatude easier than living in space or on another planet. We are so tied to our environment we could almost qualify as parasites. Yet we fancy oursleves as these standalone creatures. But any steps we've taken away from our environment involve some type of major life support tethering us back to our host. Of course with enough time and resources this could be overcome, but I think this would be far more difficult than just addressing the problems Hawking is worried about directly. Escaping the planet is a nice dream, but it's not a practical backup plan.
The stuff he's talking about is all stuff we can adapt to more easily than we could escape from, or in the case of pathogens, can't escape from at all. So while I think humanity should keep it's eyes on the stars, it's not a bad idea to make sure the homestead is running well first.
Cheers.
We can get rid of all the marketing people, ad executives, middle managers, telephone sanitizers......
I don't know much about space and colonization, but I do know that Hawking's nurse is hot.
There's is little point in escapint to space. After all space and time will collapse within 3,000 Zillion years(aprox.) anyway. You're just delaying innevitability. What we really need to plan is an escape from this doomed dimention!
This will sound quite negative of me, but in a sense, you're right. Spreading humanity's seed across the solar system/galaxy is only a priority if you have decided that human existence is instrinsically valuable enough to justify such an upheaval. Objectively viewed, there's nothing particular to recommend humanity as opposed to any other hypothetical sentient life, barring some species-specific traits or subjective societal constructs.
:-)
In simpler terms, it's not poorly thought of to be cognizant of your own mortality. Therefore, isn't it also worthwhile to be willing to accept the mortality of your own species? Do people feel the need to identify so strongly with their species that they'd be unwilling to allow its passing?
Not that I'm philosophically opposed to space travel.
The colony will never get off the ground.
The robots will create the new colony...with blackjack...and hookers! In fact, they'll forget the colony and the blackjack!
Season 1, Episode 4: Infection http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/0 04.html
Reporter: "After all that you've just gone through, I have to ask you the same question a lot of people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back, forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home?"
Sinclair: "No. We have to stay here, and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars."
..."such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of." ...or getting your wheelchair stuck in a pothole in the middle of rush hour traffic.
It's fairly apparent he's just saying things to get noticed at this point. The more sane approach would be to focus on improving humanity. Genetically enhancing intelligence and space adaptations (or harsh environment) are infinitely more plausible and more constructive than throwing around the idea that world governments are competent enough to make stable colonies, without a fundamental shift in human evolution.
Simplified, work on making smart people first. Worry about expansion AFTER that.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
He just wants to get out there to fight all those aliens... Being the Quakemaster and all.
1..2..1..2..1..2..3..Fight!
Didn't Ralph Cramden offer to send his wife to the moon almost every night?
Check out the MSNBC.com version of the story. He and his nurse remind me of the old Benny Hill show. I guess if you're stuck in a wheelchair, you may as well enjoy yourself.
Milton Friedman endorsed this form of taxation as the least distorting. The reason is that it is a tax on economic rent, which is to say, the portion of profit that is unnecessary for bringing a particular asset into its current use.
What happens when you start taxing economic rent instead of economic activity is that marginal assets are brought into production -- the most marginal of assets being at the frontier.
Seastead this.
Give or take a billion... before the sun exhausts its supply of hydrogen and becomes a Red Giant, bringing Earth's temperature to Fahrenheit 2,000 and perhaps even engulfing us. Earth either evaporates, or at best turns into a hot version of Mercury. I'd like to be on Titan or Neptune by that time, thanks.
Given that we've only evolved from bacteria to humans in as much time, I'd say we better start working on the problem, as it's unlikely we'll evolve our way to other planets.
By (repeatedly) suppressing humans' ability to travel in space for the past ~20 years, this has promoted a deep desire to disperse into the cosmos, thus guaranteeing the survival of the race. It was all part of the Golden Path, and now we will enter the Scattering.
USA! USA! USA!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller-Ulam_design
The solution has been around for 50 years.
But why should an individual care about whether or not the drama of humanity continues? For instance, if we permit let every person who currently lives to live out a natural and good life, and somehow do so without creating any new people, would that be acceptable?
Because a hardwired, nihilistic, self-destructive (self, including species as self) outlook wouldn't have allowed us to get this far, genetically. The very traits that allow us to nurture offspring that take years to develop simply require us to look at the big picture, and to cherish the future. And to make that more workable, we develop cultures that are built around generational continuity and hope. Anything less than that is a sort of cultural insanity and requires a truly loony willing suspension of disbelief (see 70-virgins-if-I-blow-myself-up-in-a-Zbarro, childish "rapture" fantasies, and related examples).
We're generally wired to get a warm and fuzzy feeling from passing along our culture and protecting our little broods. Remove that, and you're not going to have people, as a whole, living out a "good" life.
Reaching out to or making other livable environments (as in, off-world) is just as rational as clearing the bear out of the cave you need to shelter your tribe. Just as rational as using that bear's hide to keep your little naked ape-like offspring warm through the ice age. It's silly to ask if we "deserve" to survive... survival is deserved by rationally taking advantage of the fact that we exist at all. There is no meaning in anything, otherwise. Since we make the meaning in our lives, we decide if we're worth surving or not. The universe doesn't give a crap one way or the other.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I don't have a problem with human space colonization, but I do have a problem with the government using my stolen tax dollars to fund it. Perhaps Hawking should start his own space colonization company if he really thinks this is important. Otherwise, please keep your grimy hands out of my wallet!
Not sure whether you intended that to mean :"We'd better learn quickly how to travel to other galaxies", or "We'd better learn how to travel at high velocity to other galaxies". :-)
With all do respect I believe that the universe has enough room for billions of sentient species to expand.
what?
Yes.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The problem with sending animals is that you have to send a functioning biosphere along with whatever creature you send into space. That's a big technical challenge, and for people it's a tradeoff between discomfort and the smartness of the machines against the smartness of the people. For animals, assume that they can't really contribute anything to the (meta) running of the biosphere. If you give them grass they can crap on it and all, but they won't be picking up a wrench to fix a broken water recycling plant or irrigation system. Also, for any significant duration your're talking about an environment where the significant input is energy. No "food enough for three days" but a system that'll continue to provide as long as it receives energy.
I'm guessing that it's more complex to set up an animal-supporting artificial biosphere in space than one to support humans.
Hawking must have just watched Al Gore's movie!
Umm, you accept it all you want. The rest of us would like to carry on as far as we can, thanks.
Seriously, once we as a species accept that, then we all may as well just commit mass suicide and be done with it.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
nothing to see here, move along...
With all due respect, life has been on this planet for millions of years. I can't see that changing any time soon. Have there been deadly viral outbreaks? Yup. Life survived. Have there been dramatic climactic shifts? Yup. The north pole used to be a tropical paradise. But Life survived. Humans aren't as biologically adaptable as other creatures, but I think that given our current state of technology we can survive pretty well even if some big disaster does happen.
And even if we don't - so what? The universe doesn't care if we're here or not and we won't be around to complain about it anyways.
Love sees no species.
He and his daugther are writing a children's book.
The real choice is liberty versus control. -- Bruce Schneier
I've always assumed that if humans do manage to get interplanetary with it, our power needs will increase massively, and our odds of running into another sentient species would eventually occur. Since we'd prolly send our robots first, we should not only investigate areas for potential threats/allies, but also have the first contacting bot set up a swiss army style energy plant, providing many different energy sources, whether electrical, organic, or nano-builders. If we can get other civilizations hooked on our power sources, we'd already have a major diplomatic "in", which would hopefully help us avoid inadvertant destruction of our species, as well as those we contact.
Perhaps it would be more polite if we simply twiddled our thumbs 'til the earth's doomsday, rather than conquer the universe and spoil the fun for other yet to be evolved species. Oh wait, that IS our plan!!!
Has anyone ever run the numbers on how long it would take for humans to conquer and consume all of the resources in our solar system, galaxy, or universe? Such a figure would by no means account for all variables, but it's always fun to misinterpret statistics, so I hope somebody will give it a go, if it's not been done already...
I don't think that preservation of the human species requires colonization of the Moon or Mars. The disasters mentioned (global warming, nuclear war, disease) wouldn't actually destroy the Earth, just the surface ecosystem. It takes a lot more than that to destroy this 13,000 km rock, like a collision with a Moon-sized body or the death of the Sun (about 4 billion years from now).
If you want to preserve a few humans, it would be far easier to make a self-sustained colony at the bottom of the ocean or in mines deep below the surface. Power could be provided by a nuclear reactor or geothermal source. A large cavern within the Earth would likely be more hospitable than a glass dome on the surface of Mars, especially considering the dangers of solar radiation.
How would we decide who to save as the nucleus of mankind? It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross section of necessary skills. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. But ah with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present gross national product within say, twenty years. [1]
Now if your talking about settling an Earth-like planet in another solar system, that's another story. But it'll take a long time to get there, probably too long to happen in my lifetime. Personally, I'd rather spend my years in a well-stocked mine shaft than a cramped spaceship.
AlpineR
People keep saying that the human race is fundamentally evil, is doomed to annihilate itself, all those lovely things, and yet the human race has thrived and advanced so far in such a short amount of time (even just one hundred years ago, things like cathode ray tubes, plastics, and any number of modern-day polymers were unthinkable). The very fact that people are aware of the problems we as a species have created means that humanity, at its very core, is not entirely as bad as some of its members make it out to be. It's inevitable, however, that something will happen someday that will threaten the existence of mankind - It happened with the dinosaurs, unless you're one of those people who believe the Earth is 4,000 years old.
Maybe it isn't feasible to go to space now, but if we, as a species, come together to pool our resources to create interstellar travel or indeed any kind of feasible, long-term space flight, we could just pull it off in a few generations. Things like cancer research, AIDS research, and research into creating more efficient and environmentally-friendly ways of life would all continue on while the project is underway; The world wouldn't stand still for a few centuries while such a project is put in motion. In fact, it could be considered as top priority in the research required for such a thing, since in order for a colony to be sustainable, it must have a higher standard of health than we've ever known, and it must be composed almost entirely of renewable resources. It would require a renewable source of food, a renewable power source, renewable water sources, a renewable source of oxygen, a renewable crew (both robotic and human), military/policing forces, skilled workers, a large surplus of parts and materials to fashion new parts, sufficient fuel to reach its projected destination (preferably with excess), medical services, entertainment services, and so on. It would have to be, in and of itself, capable of functioning as a country on Earth might, with the added disadvantage of the inability to perform trade (and so requiring a mass surplus of supplies).
I think Hawking is one of the greatest people of our time, and I also think that he's dead-on about this particular issue. However, I also think that wider-scale marine colonization would probably be a better place to start this venture than the Moon or Mars. If we can successfully live day-to-day life in an underwater environment for extended periods of time, with high degrees of external pressure, then it's entirely possible to live in space, where the opposite is true. The preparations for such space travel are right here on Earth; We just need to use it, and I'm sure the extra habitable space wouldn't go unused.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Albert Einstein: "God does not gamble"
Stephen Hawking: "Humans must colonize space or be wiped out"
May the ignorant hordes interpret them as they wish.
Because you never know when you're going to have to flag down a ship and hitch yourself a ride when the Vogons come in to make way for that new galactic bypass.
e.g.: A guy who can't get out of a wheelchair telling everyone the we need to go into space.
- - - - -
I'm only kidding. I think Hawking is one of the greatest minds of our time. If he says we need to take valiant steps to colonize then we need to do it.
Kudos! There are those of use here who appreciate what you've said - greatly!
I don't suppose anyone has read this book?
It's fairly hefty on the physics details, but it does go into some interesting details about not only how humans, or at least sentient spacecraft capable of reproducing themselves need to be sent out by the human race pronto, if we want to have any chance of becomming immortal. I haven't read the book in a long time now, so I'm a little light on details but I can see how Hawking could be on the same wavelength (branching out to preserve the human race)
Will program for karma.
...the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through our star system, and our planet is one of those scheduled for demolition! All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in the local planning department on Alpha Centauri for nearly fifty years! For heaven's sake, it's only four light years away you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that's your own lookout.
I'm grabbing my towel and sticking out my thumb.
Yes, we understand these tags always apply: fud, dupe, typo, slashdotted, topic name
Sounds to me he is realy talking about the human civilisation and not so much the human race. Unless there is an accident that destroys the complete earth, some people will survive.
If it is a virus, the people on 'colonies' will also be infected and die, because there will be some interaction between us. If not, then over time there will be two species, humans and colonians.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Who's to say that we didn't colonize earth, from some other planet, XX million years ago?
I actually agree with him, sort of, although the current state of 'reality' will most likely prevent the outcome of such imaginative forward-thinking, as it usually does. =/
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
While the things you describe (consumerism, living for the future, etc) may happen to some in Western cultures, it's by no means universal. Neither I nor most of my friends live this kind of life, and while there are certainly a lot of Americans living the unexamined life, there are certainly plenty who do not.
In any event, most of your vaunted cultures pursuing "Eastern philosophy" have succumbed to the lure of the chance to escape living short lives in dirty hovels with unclean drinking water and no hope of leisure time. Whatever else you may say about Western civ, the technological progress it has enabled has pushed the standard of living higher in much of the world, and stands poised to help out the rest of the world too. Neither technology nor economics is a zero-sum game.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
While I am far from being an astro-bio-physiologist, I'm surprised nobody with an inkling of sci-fi knowledge has mentioned terraforming. I'm certain that biologists have seem more than a few times when a plant has been put somewhere it wasn't and reformed the area chemically, physically, etc. (Consider customs laws) The point being, yes, we should colonate other planets, no, humans probably shouldn't be the first thing to do so, the animal(s) selected would be given their best chances via plantlife and the many effects that they can provide: Oxygen and food are the primaries. The residual effects of breathable Oxygen in the atmosphere lead to a living environment similar to our own, possibly changing the global temperature and bringing out other necessities (Got water?). In other news, there's a company right now using those Bucky molecules we all know and love to try creating the first space elevator. Recently, they achieved a 1500 ft vertical shaft "weighted" up by a balloon.
...welcome our new theoretical physicist overlord.
Well, some of that's exaggerated, and some of it ain't. All those moons -- just like the central planets, they're as close to Earth-That-Was as we could make 'em: atmosphere, gravity and such, but... Once they're terraformed, they'll dump settlers on there with nothing but blankets and hatchets and maybe a herd. Some of them make it, some of them...
Man that sounds like all that frontier struggle for surival old western crap, no thanks. i gotta order a pizza now.
Engineering species changes and evolution, or even starting from scratch (building intelligent machines) is far less time consuming that waiting for random/natural evolution.
All that is left Steve is for you to tell us how
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
We're many decades away from having the technology or resources for self-sustaining colonies. Anything we do anytime soon will just be sending people up in glorified submarines. People can survive for a pretty long time in a submarine but they can't raise a family, run a submarine school, or build a new submarine in one. Massive missions and massive technological advancements are needed before we could have colonies with farms, families, schools, manufacturing etc. Better to just carry on with life and let technology advance rather than waste resources sending people up in little tin cans.
"Western society bears a remarkable resemblance to cancer"? Sorry pal - but you lost me on that first sentence!
That sounds like a remarkably nihlistic line of thought to me. Cancer cells lack any real intelligence, capability for rational thought, or even ability to display "common sense". Is that what you really believe defines Western civilization?
Most of the truly unhappy people I run across are uninspired/unmotivated. They take a "Who cares? We're all going to die eventually anyway!" type of attitude, and they regularly engage in self-destructive behaviors - if they do much of anything at all with their free time. That's a problem, but thankfully - many of us don't follow that "Live only for today." path.
Living "for the future" is a great thing! So is capitalism and the desire to have better and more for yourself! I'd say that practically none of the great inventions would have ever been created if it weren't for individuals who were motivated to put in some hard work and lots of trial and error with the hopes of bettering things for themselves and others. Do you think we'd have electric lighting if Thomas Edison wasn't stubbornly motivated to succeed - trying out thousands of different materials to finally find one that lit up with electric current flowing through it, instead of just burning up? What about the Wright Brothers and their motivation to fly, despite most people around them thinking they were foolishly wasting their time? (They could have just been content to fix people's bicycles instead, since that was their "real job".)
Would it really be so bad if humans were wiped out? It's not like we're essential to the survival of the universe. In fact it's the other way round. Its survival is essential to us. And all we do is destroy everything we come across so maybe it would be better off if we just accepted our tiny selves. Why are we so obsessed with spreading anyway?
Fly over urban metropolises and you'll see pus and grime coming out of them, a haze of brown tinges their atmosphere.
But from my SUV the sun is dimmed to a pleasant orange color.
People shuttle to and fro in their daily lives, consuming as much as their salaries will allow. They justify this as acceptable in the "spirit of capitalism". It's "acceptable" to spend all that money on crap you don't need, because everybody else has it, or "it's cool".
But aren't you free to reject these ideas. People would gravitate to better alternatives. It is hard to beat Nascar on my plasma HD and a six pack of beer
Then most of these blobs will be told they need to hurry up there too, so that they can meet that quota, and then by the time you're 40, bald, and more or less impotent, you say: "My God! I've arrived!" And you look around and realize that not much changed, and you feel a big let down, you feel deceived, as if there was some hoax played on you.
This is a victim's thinking. Are you having a midlife crisis? Try buying a red sports car.
If you're interested about what I said here, please know that it was basically all taken from the words of Alan Watts [wikipedia.org], the 20th century's best and little known-about philosopher and interpreter of Eastern religions.
Sounds kinda creepy to me, like Heaven's Gate. If you haven't noticed a lot of people from the far east are highly motivated by US style consumerism. You can only meditate so much I guess.
an ill wind that blows no good
What if we venture further into space and bump into an alien life form that opens a can of whoop ass on the human race. We may be better off with our heads in the sand. hehehe.
I don't even have enough frequent flier miles to travel overseas.
Both humans and animals are completely too specialized for life on earth. Because of that, it's highly unlikely we'll ever see our universe populated by humans. Our short life spans makes any trip outside the solar system completely unlikely. Even if we do make it to another solar system after a 500 year trip, we require a very specific environment to truely thrive. We need an earth-like environment. We need a good variety of both plants and animals. We need a good variety of bacteria. Hell, to successfully move, we need a noah's ark to take us there.
If we really want to see human progeny or intelligent life expand out into the universe, then we need to get AI working, stuff that into self-sufficient, self-replicating robots, and throw them out into the universe. They will be able to easily travel between stars by simply shutting down for a limited time. Robots can survive in almost every place in the universe that humans cannot, so they're almost guaranteed to thrive regardless of whether their destination has an earth-like planet or not.
What are you talking about?
atleast I won't miss anything cool while I'm dead. What you don't want to happen is for you to the only one who dies. You know you are missing some fun shit for sure.
That's Druish, not Jewish!
Actually might not be as bizarre as you think. If a large asteroid split up into several smaller lumps, the lumps would orbit around the center of gravity/mass of the original rock, and thus would seem like a flock of smaller asteroids, all following each other. Eventually they'd probably be drawn off in different directions by the influences of other bodies, but if one split up on its way into the solar system, it might still be a big ball of fragments by the time it passed by Earth.
It's certainly not totally implausible.
Also, I suppose a really big asteroid might have enough of a gravitational field to attract other objects, or maybe you could even have some semi-stable situation where two asteroids of relatively equal mass orbited around each other, and then their center of mass collectively orbited the Sun (like a binary star system). Again I don't think it would be stable for very long because of all the interfering forces, but it could probably exist for a short while.
Going off on a tangent here for a second: I think the odds of us recognizing the thing that's going to kill us all before it happens is pretty slim. It's not exactly a short list: anything from climate change to asteroids to a virus to some sort of germline genetic engineering gone awry could wipe us out -- and that's only the things we know about or have the capacity to conceive of. There are probably lots of threats out there that we're as ill-equipped to think about as the dinosaurs were of wondering about an asteroid from space. Even if you could put up some type of asteroid shield and control climate change and elimiate industrial pollution and reduce the risk of genetic manipulation, that doesn't mean that we're not living, as a species, in an incredibly precarious situation, all packed together on one planet.
So regardless of what you do to "improve" things here on Earth, Hawking's (and many other people's) point still stands: spreading us out some is an inherent Good Thing from a long-term survival perspective.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
he already has his exoskeleton built.
Maybe if we start looking up and ask "what's out there" we'd be a hell of a lot better off than looking at each other and asking "what can I find objectionable about this person" today.
Maybe what humanity needs is a serious after-school project of space travel. The same way you give a troubled kid a good after-school project to give them focus.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Pssh, Stephen Hawking just wants NASA to build him a home in space because he is scared Chuck Norris will kick his ass again. How do you think he got put in a wheel chair in the first place.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
The human body isn't adapted for such an environment. Solar radiations is already a very big problem for space travel. We need a very specific athmosphere, temperature, pression...It looks like our body is more a burden that an efficient tool. Medicines and/or genetic engineering should evolve drastically before being able to consider that our specy may flourish in the galaxy.
Olivier
All of the recent topics on Slashdot have been tagged as stupid.
For all the invader zim fans: "Do we have to go right now? I want to watch the scary monkey show"
"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them." - Isaac Asimov
One interesting thought about establishing human colonies in space and on other planets is the fact that those are radically different environments. Perhaps science will find an answer, but it would be difficult to replicate Earth's gravity, diurnal and seasonal cycles, and atmosphere.
This all makes me wonder, how many generations before our "space children" would start to diverge from the rest of the human race? How many generations before speciation would occur?
Throws an interesting kink into the idea of saving "humanity" as we know it.
Ask me about my sig!
Space colonization is one of the greatest and most ancient dreams of the humanity. It's probably the ultimate long term goal of all human civilizations, and it's not even surprising that some Sid Meier's games replicate that goal.
The concept of faster than light travel is not that ancient(because we just found it recently), but that's just another thing we expect to figure out anyways, since it's almost required for the dream cited above.
I don't know if we can solve the poverty and war problems in the meantime, but I'm pretty sure the AIDS, Cancer and some other diseases can be. After all, robotic nanotechnology and human genetics advances are another expected dreams.
I think I'll be long gone before all those great things happen, unless cloning and mind transfer breakthroughs happen first, but I'd love to see all that happen, as will the many generations after me.
It's just a matter of time... a lot of time. It's not really a problem unless we are in a hurry.
Disaster today? YES 50% / NO 50%
The risk is not increasing, the universe is not out to get the human race.
The first people to be launched as test subjects should be various leading political figures, and environmental polluters - but for God's sake - keep all the public telephone sanitizers safe and working here on Earth!
If life is truly random (with some doubts about that) then it doesn't matter if or when humans 'go into space'.
Methinks the physics professors should be working on that whole 'FTL' engine problem,
going into space at a snail's pace is of little use, except for A.I. probes and seeder ships that are not hindered by the short life span of space fairing humans...
Hawking has only been saying this for a couple of decades now.
It's strange to me that people revere Hawking as a god and take whatever he says as canonical gospel. Ok, he's a great physicist. But he sucks as a philosopher, and I have no reason to believe he knows, for example, how to run a country or fix a car or make good tea or. . .
'Course, he's probably right about this one.
Why should the perpetuation of the human species be our formost goal anyway? No, seriously, think about it. I want to drive clean vehicles and such because I want my children to be happy and healthy, and their children, and so on. I don't want people to suffer. Fair enough. But why should I care if 200 years from now humanity is wiped out in a blink of an eye?
"When we bring unquestioned beliefs into space along with our inevitable faith, we'll eventually make space the same species deathtrap as Earth."
Uh huh. So what faith was Pol Pot or Stalin?
...sudden global warming, (Caused by us, ignored by us, some actually need to DENY we did this)
nuclear war, (caused by us)
a genetically engineered virus (Caused by us)...
We could be putting effort into being able to help each other and perhaps learn how to do useful things like relieve pressure from volcanoes or adjust the course of asteroids, but instead we waste effort on denying global warming, denying that we caused it, insisting that corporations can safely develop nuclear power and fighting that ever-looming disaster of gay marriage.
As far as I can tell, the human race is the nastiest disease ever created by the universe. A wretched plague that enjoys destroying entire species with no remorse until it starts to effect our income (salmon fishing, forest management).
We reproduce blindly like a cancer with no attempt at stopping ourselves, destroying everything in our path when we have the intelligence to know what we are doing if we cared to look. Cancer can be excused, it knows not what it does, and at least cancer just kills a single body.
If our race was destroyed before ever leaving our system, I figure it's one point for the forces of good.
Well thank you Mr. obvious. How about coming up with an original thought? Sheesh!
Slashdot: the only place on the internet where Stephen Hawking could get the stupid tag.
Not to my knowledge, and he's certainly not a supporter of it. He breaks down the mythology of Hinduism and picks the philosophical ideas that he likes.
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
I suspect that when a (short) nuclear war happens, there will be few humans left and the survivors will have to go back to a fairly primitive existance. Then, after a couple hundred years, the technology level will be roughly as it is today, and everything will repeat...
That is, unless we change enough to stop putting greed and envy above all else. Very unlikely...
Isn't the universe going to end eventually anyway? I mean, even if we assume the universe's expansion is slowing, and will eventually lead to another big bang rather than heat-death... How will we survive *that*? Rather than building up false hope, let's all just drink more rum.
The whole Lunar Revolution, bombardment of Earth, and economic plan was masterminded by a computer network that achieved sentience somehow. So now you know what a beowulf cluster of those would look like.
But more seriously, human nature being what it is, and given that individual people keep gaining the ability to control more destructive power all the time, there is an interesting dilemmna.
Establish independent colonies on other planets/moons/asteroids and
1> You have ensured that the species will not die out from some single plaentary catastrophe (natural or man made).
2> You will greatly increase the probablility that some lunatic or small group of them will find a way to hit Earth with a big rock or bioweapon.
Those unclear on the concept of risk management will assume this means that we should not go into space. They will be wrong.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
He actually said, "Mankind must get me the hell out of this chair"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.
:). Ok, I suppose there are disasters that could wipe out all life on earth, but it would have to be something like Mars crashing into earth. Even that might not destoy all life. It's hard to imagine something the size of Mars crashing into Earth. I also suppose that if the temperatures rose to 400 degrees like on Venus that _might_ wipe out all life. I don't think we've found life that can survive at 400+ degrees. As far as genetically engineered viruses, they are lifeforms themselves. A more accurate statement might be: Human life on earth is at the ever.....
The interesting thing is that probably none of these things would threaten life on earth. It would only threaten human life (that may or may not be important to you
The real solution is to let Moon colonies form when they are economically feasible. It's not going to work otherwise. If we do build a space elavator and space travel gets cheaper, the silicon that's found on the Moon will undoubtably become an attractive resource.
No Sigs!
I would be quite interested in seeing what differences would occur over time in humans living off-planet. One of the more obvious things would be the reaction/development of a human body to a greater gravity than that of earth. If humans were able to live and grow under heavier gravities, the assumption would be that they'd grow to be relatively stronger. A weak geek on a high-grav planet could very well be of comparable strengh to an earthbound body-builder. By the same token, somebody growing up on a lower-grav planet might be expected to be relatively weaker in earth-gravity, but also grow to be taller, etc (given the same nutrients etc).
Other factors might include atmospheric conditions (radiation, although I'm assuming early cities would be 'domed' to trap air etc) and such things as the length of a day, etc. All these could have a longterm effect on human physiology, and we could end up having several specialized and distinct branches of our own species over a few centuries.
Bigger problem is how do you harvest space oysters without breaking the seal on the bullsuit?
Perhaps a crotch chamber would suffice.
... We must first go down the stairs so that we can be protected from the Terrible Secret of Space.
We will be protected
at the bottom of the stairs.
I believe some form of robot may be in order.
http://www.chmodoplusr.com/
No matter what happens to earth, it will still be more hospitable to life than any other planet we know of. Even if a "planet killer" comet strikes us while we're already in the middle of a nuclear winter, we'll still have an easier time surviving than we would elsewhere. It's much easier to build a shelter on earth in a cave to withstand just about anything we can think of for a couple hundred years than it is to build a shelter on another planet which will survive for any period of time. On Earth we've got an atomosphere and water which can be cleaned to a usable state if polluted. We can build a nuclear power station to provide energy for any scenario when the sky is blocked much more easily than we could build solar power collectors on another planet. The only real exception is in the very long term, when our sun starts to dim, but we've got some time to figure that one out.
I'm all for space exploration just to expand human knowledge, but we shouldn't lie to ourselves by saying it's a part of our survival strategy as a species.
You don't have to go so far as to blow the galaxy up. You can merely make it unliveable by having too many fast food joints, shitty cable tv, idiot politicians, Wal-Mart as the only remaining employer, and $1000 for a drugfu of gasoline.
They always laugh at those crazy few who think they can fly, or go to the moon, or cure 'uncurable' diseases. For the first and only time in all the millenia we humans have been around, we have instant communication at any place on the planet, have the ability to transport ourselves from one end to the other in a matter of hours, have the ability to transmit incalculable information to any point on the planet...the list is endless. Just as there is reason to believe that the human race will self-destruct, there is equal or greater chance that we will continue to flourish.
Stephen, I always thought your music was more compelling than your science.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
You might also check out Gregory Benford's Galactic Center series.
There is also a 2 book series by Greg Bear, "The Forge of God" and "Anvil of Stars".
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Where your model fails is when the behaviours that you cite as mandatory begin to conflict with other facets of our existence which are mandatory but not nearly as clear cut. Take, for example, your bear-in-the-cave scenario. Yeah, a small group of ancient humans may have once had to do that to ensure their own survival, but now that humans are the dominant animal on the planet and we CONTINUE to evict species from their homes even past the point of extinction to make way for ours, the effect is no longer contributing to our survival. Does it seem rational to imagine a world where only humans exist and we decide what other life is allowed to exist and where? It may to you, but we are still a long way away from understanding the ramifications of the large scale environmental shifts we are causing. The fact is, the universe does "care", in that it has created for us the perfect set of conditions by which we thrive. However if we take the dumb route, which is the path you are suggesting of simple-mindedly favouring growth as the lone survival trait, then we are almost certainly doomed to extinction ourselves.
manned made
Mars and moon are already in a state that is probably much worse for life than what humans can cause to earth.
The environment there already is post-apocalyptic for species that need the conditions found on earth. So why go there?
Why even start an effort to do this? This would cost an huge amount of ressources and thus would probably result in more damage to the eco-systems on earth.
It's much more rational to change our behaviour on this planet.
This post is remarkably informative - it may seem like a bunch of desperately cliched generalisations ("Westerners are lonely", "20th century's best philosopher", "people shuttle to and fro") but in fact it is completely accurate. Cancer is a set of cells that do not understand how to self destruct when they are damaged. The author's perception of reality appears to be damaged. He does not understand how to self destruct, and writes blog entries instead (writing a blog about how awful western civilisation is is like shitting in the street to protest about people's manners).
There are direct parallels between the authors experience of alienation (lack of understanding of other's motivation, lack of pleasure in everyday things, reducing everything to negatives, projecting feelings onto others) and delusional psychosis. Of course, I would say that, because I'm one of "them".
Life and matter are like cancer, if you view them in such a warped and reductionist way (they grow, they are coloured, they reproduce, they rush about, you don't understand them when you're down in the dumps).
On topic - I am ashamed that Hawking is embarassing his field like this. It's very unusual for great physicists to be great economists or great leaders, and once again he has shown that being able to understand one scientific field not give any great insight into other fields, but sadly gives the scientist the self confidence to pronounce on them. Hawking, FYI: the chance of a virus killing it's host species is zero. Virii that are successful need hosts (even scary GM ones). Sudden global warming is a hypothesis unsupported by any evidence, and human beings have shown remarkable ability to live in a range of climes (e.g. iceland, egypt). You say the current human culture is in some way special and must survive. It's not, and it might. If a biologist said the world was going to be swallowed by a black hole, would they receive this sort of airtime on Slashdot?
"We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system," added Hawking, who arrived to a rock star's welcome Monday. Tickets for his lecture planned for Wednesday were sold out.
The thing is, if we DO find someplace as nice as Earth, we're going to need to be prepared to wrest it from its indigenous inhabitants.
That might be easier than MAKING a place as nice as Earth.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
I will start taking arguments like Hawking's seriously when someone can describe to me a plausible scenario that would leave the entire Earth less hospitable to human life than the next most desirable real estate in the solar system.
Until then, such arguments strike me as nothing more than pitifully transparent rationalization for sci-fi fantasies.
Martin
I know exactly what you're talking about. The yellow robots are easy because they don't shoot back. The red robots are a little harder as they DO shoot back but their energy weapon moves so slowly that it's not hard to move out of the way. If the heat gets too intense you can always leave the room anyway.
But....
Should the bouncy smiley face appear...well my friend, the smart money's on the bouncy smiley face.
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
Let's get this straight. You may not agree with something Stephen Hawking says, but applying a 'Stupid' tag to the article is pointless and, well, poorly informed.
For some time now, I've been watching the evolution of the Stupid tag itself. Why do people use it? Apparently, it's always one of a few reasons: because they disagree with the article, they think the contents of the article describe something stupid, or they're confusing it with 'evil', 'wft', or any number of more expressive, less inflamatory terms.
While I can agree with tagging an article 'stupid' if it expresses a patently absurd notion, none of the other excuses qualify as anything other than flamebait.
Knock it off, whoever you are - you're making yourself look really ... well, stupid.
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
Step 1: Identify habitable planets
If any exist, we should start finding them in the next 10-20 years.
Step 2: Build interstellar craft
This is the tough part. Whether FTL remains a pipe dream or new physics turn out to allow it, we'll either need space elevators or a massive new source of energy (cheap fusion, maybe) to get the huge amounts of mass into orbit. (Fusion power would be used to create the massive amounts of fuel, not power craft directly).
Step 3: Seed planet with bioengineered life
We would probably send a very smart AI probe to do this, armed with bioengineered terraforming microbes. The trip would be very very long, but I think it could conceivably leave by 2056.
Step 4: Move in!
Hopefully the AI will also build us some nice beachfront condos to enjoy the purple sunsets and double moons. Either the colonists would be frozen for the trip, or spend the duration awake and wandering around the ship, fornicating and filling themselves with flavored fizzy fermented fruit juices. Arrival would be timed for opening of beachfront condos.
"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species. Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of." so.. according to the "genius" we can't have a nuclear war or a genetically engineered virus in space?
the human race is nothing but a virus.
Look at how a virus adapts and multiplies. They adapt to their surroundings (scientifically considered mutation) but isn't this the same as the Theory of Evolution's Survival of the Fittest?
Also, many a virus are airborne and travel between their hosts (bodies to them, Earth or other planets to us) which would be like space travel for us speaking in relative space/time. Why does the virus feel the need to propogate like this? Is it because it might use up the resources of the host and kill it? How about the fact that we are sucking all the oil out of the ground, polluting the rivers, lakes, oceans, and the air?
Just some food for thought.
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."
...but YANAPTMCI (you are not a physicist, though my cousin is) - he works at Brookhaven, and takes occasional duty on the "big red button", as in, "crap! there's something wrong! push the big red button to shut it down!"
You're afraid of something hundreds of thousands of times less dangerous to your health than a dozen risks you blithely take every day, such as walking down the street, drinking tap water, eating cooked meat, flying on a commercial jet, etc.
Your comment reminded me of my grandmother, who became alarmed when she heard there was an "electron gun" in her television. I mean really, should we listen to you? You can't even spell "dissipate."
...if we're talking about just the mere survival of mankind, a tiny fraction to keep our race in existance, I'll take my chances on a deep subterranean nuke-proof bunker with lots of decontamination chambers, perhaps even a self-sustained eco-system.
Space travel as we know it today is incredibly fragile, and is completely dependent on high-tech from earth. Any disaster of cosmic enough proportions (sorry, mankind would survive global warming, nuclear holocaust and geneticly engineered viruses, if not much of it) like our sun going beserk is quite likely to wipe out any space colony or planetary base. If not, the 250,000 parts of the space shuttle will break down and replacements run out.
The only thing I can concievably think of that would wipe out earth, yet not qipe out any space base (unless we can go interstellar which takes 73000 years with our fastest spacecraft), would be a massive asteriod hitting earth and cracking it like a giant walnut. However, hundreds of millions of years of evidence say that's incredibly unlikely. It killed the dinosaurs, but us mammals survived. So would mankind today.
Not you and me, mind you. "Important" people that would be evacuated to said bunkers. But then again, you and me should worry more about being hit by a car...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I do identify so strongly with my species that I am willing to work to prevent its passing.
I do not advocate careful exploration. We should search for life before we change places. But that concern doesn't stop us from mining the asteroid belt for material to create O'Neill-style space habitat. Use the good real estate first (e.g. L4, L5), while we're still learning how to make them self-sufficient (or, actually, needing only solar input).
If not, then why is his opinion being so widely reported?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
"Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
What, and there aren't any dangers in space??? C'mon man, have you never watched the Sci Fi channel?!
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I didn't know that anyone still reads Saberhagen. In my opinion his writings are kind of dry, no offense. I think the berserkers are similar in concept to the flood in the Xbox Halo game. The flood requires bio-mass to replicate and tries to wipe out all intelligent non-flood life by reusing its bio-material. The flood was stopped only by a galaxy-wide mega-suicide self destruct that only affected intelligent biological material and left lifeless or unintelligent material like bacteria, plants, planets and stars unaffected.
If it might be actually possible to wipe out all intelligent biological life in the galaxy by constructing one of those halo things, then I say we should not go into space to prevent halos from being constructed by ourselves. Or at least stay out of space so we do not learn about Halos that do exist. That way we can peacefully exist until the galaxy is destroyed and not even have to worry about saving it.
On the other hand, I think that "space laser" needs more funding in case alien invaders do show up. That way we would have something to at least try to shoot'em with as they glide slowly side-to-side towards earth, dropping their poo that also happens to be biological weapons of mass destruction. Where will you be then? I bet you would have wished you colonized moon and mars earlier!
This is somewhat similar to statements that he made to The Telegraph in October of 2001:
e ws/2001/10/16/nhawk16.xml
"The human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus before the Millennium is out, unless we set up colonies in space, Prof Stephen Hawking warns today."
See the article at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
Hypothetical? Yeah, if I'm allowed to think of perfect, selfless hypothetical life then we wouldn't stack up. I doubt that's how it works in reality. Obviously we are the only species on Earth capable of space travel, technologically, but I would also argue we are the most capable morally. Out of the billions of species to exist on Earth, we get along with other species like nothing ever has. Maybe intelligence does this, but maybe not. Theres no real reason to care for other species beyond maintaining food.
I am not a human you insensitive clod!
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
Find new space-age delicacies ... like popplers!
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
Wars and plagues will not obliterate humanity. Not even an asteroid hit now that we have taken certain steps to prepare. Civilization could be destroyed and populations devastated, certainly, but our race will live on and eventually rebuild new cultures and civilizations. This cycle could continue on endlessly except for the second law of thermodynamics!
The Earth's ecosystem is not a closed system. We continually get energy input from the sun. One day the sun will run out of hydrogen to fuse and it will go nova. The sun will continue to grow and nova until it destroys itself in a supernova. The Earth will be burnt, boiled, pulverized, swallowed, and/or blown out of orbit. These we cannot survive.
So yes, we have time, but we do need to get off the planet and into space. Not because of what we do to ourselves, but because of what the universe will do to us!
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
Live in space? And miss out on the Big Disaster!? I've waited all my life to see a real life two-headed brahmin cow and chill with the mutants! I'm going to build a Water Chip and make millions and millions of... whatever the currency of the post-apocalypse is. (Pints of drinking water?)
Frog blast the vent core.
Will the space elevator be wheelchair accessible?
I've thought of this before but again, Hawkings beat me to the press.
I've thought about the establishment of colonies in space myself. And we can do it now, it's currently possible to build on the moon. However stays in space for extended periods is dangerous to your health. Cosmic rays will bombard a person with radiation much more than would be healthy over an extended period outside of the ionosphere. The earth's ionosphere protects life from most cosmic radiation. Outside the ionosphere however there isn't any protection, and we don't currently have the capability to build a shield strong enough to stop most cosmic rays. Two or three months back I read an article in a science mag, perhaps Sciam, that reported a study done by a group of scientists at NASA that said there was a good possibility that if a group of people made the trip to Mars right now that one in four of them would get cancer by the tyme they reached Mars. Or some such, I don't know where the magazine is right now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Professor to Fry: " I am beginning to fear there will be no forced mating at all."
Someone from Earth will nuke one of the space colonies... and then the colonies will send 5 Gundams to fight against evil...
You've seen it once, you've seen it a hundred times.
Offtopic... yeah, right. A discussion about the potential dangers to civilization, and historical and fictional discussions of such, is off-topic on a discussion about some guy saying we need to get off of Earth to increase our survivability in the case of various dangers to civilization.
Stephen Hawking: Great. The entire universe was destroyed.
Fry: Destroyed? Then where are we now?
Al Gore: I don't know. But I can darn well tell you where we're not: The universe.
Nichelle Nichols: (groans) Eternity with nerds. It's the Pasadena Star Trek convention all over again.
He also began beating the crap out of his right arm which refused to cooperate in general and had a propensity to give the hitler salute at the worst possible moments.
Too many people seem to be completely misinterpreting what I have said. Please understand that when I say "Western Society" and "Western Culture", I'm not referring to a geographical location, or an ethnic group, but rather a cultural mindset that anybody on any part of the globe can have (including those living in the East). I'm a big supporter of technology (programmer by profession), and so support many of the advances in technology that many of you enjoy as well. I'm simply critiquing a certain mindset, and had I been more careful in my word choice I think there would have been less of an uproar over that post. Unfortunately I don't plan on writing another essay on the subject, so if you're confused and interested in understanding what it was exactly that I said, please check out the links to Alan Watts in my original post, he's a much better writer and speaker than I am.
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
A "spacesuit" is, by definition, a suit to wear in space. It follows from that, then, that a "cowsuit" would be a suit to wear in a cow.
Simply preposterous.
If, however, you are proposing a spacesuit that looks like a cow then I say you may have something there; the simple addition of large, irregularly-shaped black spots to existing space suits would achieve much of that effect (and by adding a long tail...well, let's just hope we all live to see such a day.)
I, for one, welcome our spacegoing bovine overlords.
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Look, the Federation may have been a military dicatorship, but it worked for some people...
All I'm saying is that if humans need to spread out into the galaxy to ensure the survival of the species, Will Shatner and I are ready to go out and sleep with all the alien babes it'll take to make that happen. We'll take one for the team - that's just the sort of guys we are.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
I think the human race has made it clear it has no intentions of preventing its own extiction. We can't even get people the believe in evolution no less black holes, supernovas, climate change, neutron star explosions, the ever increasing risk of meteor strike, earth's core stopping.
If they can't see it from their backyard then the people of the world for the most part don't care and by the time they can see it from their backyard humanity may be a moot point.
Steven Hawkins should help us by tell humanity how to perpare for the most likely senarios and realizing that we simply don't have the technology to escape many cosmic fates. We can be perpared for climate change, energy crisis, viral pandemic and a few others, but sustaining life on other planets is pretty much science fiction. Even if we had a colony on Mars if an event was so devistating to whipe out all life on earth the colony would have little to no chance of survival.
If the event was not so devistating then things like bunkers and fallout shelters are far cheaper, and would save far more people.
The Sun will not go nova. It does not have enough mass to create the gravitional force required for carbon fusion. Though, it will become a red giant with a radius of about 1 AU in about 5 billion years. It will then shed its outer layers and become a white dwarf. A supernova requires a star of about 8 times the mass of our Sun. After the supernova explosion (fusion of elements heavier than iron), if the core is still about 3 or more times the mass of out Sun, it will become a black hole, otherwise a neutron star.
"I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside." - Calvin
The humans must be protected, they must go to outer space.
If we ever get there, a few specimens such as these would be indispensable.
How are to ensure we have enough biodiversity in space? We simply can't just take 2 of each species and hope for the best.
What we should be doing is ensuring the survival while on Earth. We can't control external elements such as asteroids and comets slamming into us. Seems the odds are stacked against those events happening when compared odds that we sucumb to the damage we are causing to ourselves now.
Live forever, or die trying.
Thnx Southpark. Now everyone thinks the most important item that anyone or thing in the galaxy could possibly carry, other than the guide, is a retarded character that gets high all the time.
"Aww man why is everybody riding me today?"
The problem is, what they're really saying is "humanity sucks, except for me".
Maybe a lot of people are, but not everyone.
I think most of humanity sucks. But I think I suck too. Doesn't mean I think either myself or humanity deserves to be destroyed just now. We've all got our good points along with our bad. The question is whether the good outweighs the bad, and that is a question left for history to decide.
If I'm really such a horrible person I'll wind up suffering the consequences of that sooner or later. If I'm bad enough I might end up dead because of it. I know at the least that I'm not perfect and will die eventually. But considering just within normal human limits, if there are no bad consequences of my behavior and everything turns out OK, then I'm either not as horrible as I thought I was, or I am but it's tolerable levels of badness, only possible by virtue of the good of others around me mitigating those consequences.
Same deal with humanity. If we blow ourselves up - either Earth, the galaxy, or whatever - well then in hindsight, we deserved it. Maybe not each of us as individuals, but as a society or species, yeah. Doesn't mean we *ought* to blow ourselves up now. We ought to try to be as good and successful a society/species as we possibly can in order to avoid such a fate. Maybe we'll fail to do so. Maybe we *would* fail to do so if not for some benevolent alien race out there who will save our asses from our own dysfunction. Who knows. History will tell. All we can do is try.
When I was younger I used to have a saying, one that I wish I could bring myself to apply in my life today:
"Plan for the worst. Strive for the best. Expect nothing."
.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
In addition to the scientific reasons, the command to "be fruitful and multiply" dictates that we colonize space if the result is to be anything other than misery.
We need to set up a raid0
We would colonize the universe like any lifeform. If you have negative connotations towards the brutal realities of life, please refrain from using them to sabotage the survival of our species. Where does this hatred of humanity come from? Experiences in youth that have embittered you? If you just accept reality, live within the framework of LIFE, and not be hateful because your childhood fairytales were brutally smashed during your youth, you'll be alot better off. Nobody trusts or cares about the misanthrope, it would be foolish to, be contructive and not hatefully destructive.
The only reason you are here today is from a brutal chain of evolution, this misanthropic pseudo-humanism is a deathcult. Incidentally, it's a very fertile recruiting ground for some political agendas, don't let yourselves be weaponized against your own community out of bitterness from a few bad memories slashdotters, care about yourselves, your families, and your neighbors, embrace life again.
Sorry for the rant, not sorry for the painful prodding of infected nerves.
Well who would decide who stays up and who goes down?
It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross section of necessary skills. Of course it would be absolutely vital that slashdot readers be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. But ah with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present gross national product within say, twenty years.
Ever since farming, humans have been mostly centered around intra-individual and intra-group competition, the environment is (right now) too easy to beat and is a negligable factor in comparison to this competition. And with the advent of multi-cultural societies, and the subsequent ramping up further of ruthless competitition in society, I don't see how people CAN get together to do something this grand and group centered. It's outside the framework of our current social and power structures, the Chinese may be the only ones who can pull this off. Heck, even IF the species itself were in imminent risk, the ones who make it to safety would probably stab the rest of us in the back along the way.
Maybe I'm just a cynical social darwinist, or maybe I'm just free of engendered fantasy and illusions. I didn't mean to imply negative connotation to this reality either, I can accept it just fine.
Hawking is an alien, and he's trying to get rid of us to make way for the rest of his species to settle our planet. Fortunately for us, they're all confined to wheelchairs and will be easy to defeat, especialy if we refuse to build special hyperspace ramps for the handicapped.
All we have to do is keep talking.
Actually, rumor has it that Pink Floyd has an interstellar overdrive with the controls set to the heart of the sun. Hawking could just use his Floyd connection to go into psychadelic space. Wish you were here, and all that.
Years ago Mr. Hawking required an interpreter to imprecisely "...judge what he was saying" - and then generate the so-called "computerized speech" - that was some sort of interpreted facsimile of what Hawking was actually saying. So...by now, I figure Hawking is a total vegetable - a virtual meat puppet in his own macabre "World Tour"
Go Meatpuppet!
Then what exactly are we protecting? Until I see proof otherwise, I'm for space exploration. Until we discover something else out there why not rape and pillage the universe?
nosebreaker.com
All living creatures are self-replicating machines. What would make these "berserkers" less living than the life formes it could replace?
In other words, I don't think they can wipe out life since they are life.
Dr. Hawking further elaborated on his suggestion that the space colonies include 10 women for every man:
"Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature."
The Sun probably does not have enough mass to supernova. The most likely scenario for the Sun is conversion into a red giant. The Sun will most likely slough off its outer layers creating a planetary nebula. After a long, long cooling period, the Sun may eventually compress into a white dwarf.
One might wonder why we wish the survival of a species that has destroyed its own habitat. Are there greener pastures to destroy in outer space?
"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program" -- Larry Niven
We're at the bottom of a hole.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Yip. Instead of having to blow people up a few dozen at a time, Islamic militants can just blow up one (or a fwe) of O2 tanks/generators, and take out an entire colony...
Geez. Maybe I've read too many cheap Sci-Fi books, and watched too much of the nightly news.
Why should I care about the human race? In 100 years nobody I care about will be alive anyway. If something wipes out the Earth I don't see it as a big loss to the rest of the universe. There is probably some other race out there more deserving of survival beyond their world.
At 1 AU, which by definition is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, the Sun would then swallow the Earth.
Sure, the sun probably won't supernova by creating the heavy elements, but I don't understand how it avoids going nova. When the hydrogen runs out, the sun will collapse under its own gravity. A shockwave has to occur, and that is a nova.
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
Score +10 Eh!
I've never quite understood the obsession with "continuing" the human race. While I am certainly concerned with the long-term impacts of what humans do,thus a concern for environmental impacts, population control, and the conditions under which my fellow people exist under, I one could care less if humanity survived for a million more years or not. I'm not going to be there, and I have little concern about whether or not our "civilization" still exists. It's this ridiculous sentimental attachment to a non-existant overarching concept, in whatever forms it takes (racial prejudice, nationalism, religious fervor) that leads to the stupid wars and completely preventable human created disasters. As far the ones outside of our control, well, sitting around worrying about a meteorite striking seems like a lot of paranoia.
Any offworld presence we could establish would be so infinitescimally small (did I spell that right), that we might as well just jar a bunch of our DNA with some instructions, secure them well in a five foot thick lead time capsule, with a "reconstitute when your alien technology allows."
(Okay, okay, my ex-wife has me in a bit of a cynical mood today, I'll admit.)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
And on another day I might have posted something very similar to what you have just wrote.
So this means that if I do mess in my house, I don't clean the floor, wash things and don;t fix what is broken the solution is to leave it as it is and buy a new one? I agree with space exploration an living in other planets but is that the ultimate solution to it all? I think scientists should reconsider this idea about science as a saver. Smells like the bad side of religion.
http://www.quasarcr.com/
You are correct, the Sun will swallow the Earth when it becomes a Red Giant. The hydrogen won't completely run out. There will still exist a hydrogen/helium shell surrounding a carbon/oxygen core. The carbon/oxygen core of the Sun will be much more compressable then say the iron core of a star going nova. Instead of a complete gravitational collapse (and subsequent shockwave), the compressed core will increase in temperature and ignite the hydrogen/helium shell which will cause it to slowly expand and cool. The electron degenerency pressure of the core will prevent its collapse and transfer energy from gravitional compression back to the surrounding shell as heat. The Sun will lose its outer layers, but very slowly. The core will be all that is left (a white dwarf).
"I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside." - Calvin
Kinda like the planet Krypton. Meanwhile while the top scientists are trying to get people off the planet, the elected elders will just simply say "The planet is just shifting it's orbit. Do not leave or you will be jailed."
So since by that time, space travel will be privatized, there will be space kids ejected in homemade space ships out to other planets because of the bureaucracy .
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Yeah but what's interesting about this is that what is "selfish" depends upon what you consider to be within your "self". Are individual genes acting for their own interest (Dawkins), are we acting for ourselves as organisms, or as you imply for our family and culture? What seems to be happening is that as we become more obviously interconnected through technology we are expanding the sphere of our self-interest, at this point including "humanity" or "the planet". There certainly is a lot of selfishness at the cultural level at this point in history, which seems to be in conflict with the more global view of selfishness.
You mean one guy like that jerk off eugenecist humanity-hating texas professor? The guy with the stuffed ebola doll? I forget his name right this second, but remember the article here about him a few months back now? He sort of reminds of someone like you are suggesting, someone so full of themselves and their paranoid delusions of grandeur with some "grand vision manifesto" that they would create and launch such a virus.
No, it isn't. The Federation is run by the Vulcan shadow government.
Think about the situation at the time the Vulcans first contacted Earth. They've had their schism with the Romulans and have fought wars with them, and had the worse of it; and now there are Klingons prowling the dark places of the galaxy. Now the Vulcans contact a planet that's just developed warp technology. A planet full of creatures with a horrific record of murder and mayhem, who are capable of justifying the same to themselves in terms of 'pro patria mori' and similar bullshit, who could easily be a terror on the galaxy to make even the Klingons fear... but who are at a very impressionable stage...
Bingo! The Vulcans, in a paternal, imperialist sort of way, take Earth under their wing. They help humans build better starships, they advise and guide. In time, they join with Earth to form the United Federation of Planets. Coincidentally, the enemies of the Earth are the same as the enemies of the Vulcans... How did something like that happen?
So now the Romulans and the Klingons are kept off the Vulcans' backs by Starfleet. By the mighty space navy of the United Federation of Planets. A fleet of ships built at Mars, crewed almost entirely by humans from Earth, now guards a planet of decadent philosophers who are free to pursue their ideals of pure logic and reason. Humans fight and die in huge numbers for the protection of Vulcan. And every Starfleet ship we've ever seen has a single Vulcan, as a highly-ranked officer but not as captain... remember how Soviet ships used to have a 'political officer' to make sure the captain didn't do anything ideologically unsound? Yeah.
And whenever we see Starfleet command, the concentration of pointy ears is so much higher, don't you notice? Oh yes. It's all humans on the front line, but back at base it's all green-blooded bastards.
The entire Federation is a sham, concocted and perpetuated by the Vulcans for their own cowardly ends. Deal with it.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
So when do the Arc ships depart "Earth That Was?" I'm looking to buy a beat up old Firefly and hire a few Companions to keep me company.
-buf
(That's how my RSS reader truncated the title of the story - it made me jump!)
Are we sure he didn't mean myspace?
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
It is very *very* western for 'white man' to wander off on a pilgrimage 'to the east' and bring back a passel of ideas and set up a smorgasboard philosophy based on them.
In fact, that form of 'veneration of the East' is patently racist. It's like admiring a comic book mythisized version of the 'American Indian religion' made up by a new age guru. And it's very VERY patronizing to people who live their real lives in said system.
It has great appeal for people with a moderate but not deep world experience, it gives them an 'other' to admire in their shallow way.
But it's based, sadly, in ignorance of the whole truth. Think a little more about the grandparent commenter's query and what he was getting at.
I'm just talking about modern life. Not specific current American politics. This should have been obvious when I said that I don't have to worry about it. I don't know what you think has happend in history, but throughout human history, there has been a whole lot of raping, pillaging, and plundering...
...because the atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with no oxygen, so it would really be impractical.
So to the point: Are the achievements of man serving no purpose NOW? Is medicine not curing people NOW? Is technology not making this conversation happen NOW? Is art not inspiring humankind NOW?
Perhaps the mere *thought* of extinction scares us simply because it means we are not the gods we imagine ourselves to be.
*As soon as my time machine is finished, I'm going to go back to 1936 and write a science fiction epic around that term.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Hawking's suggestion has the virtue that we actually have the technology necessary to pursue it. I think there is an even more interesting strategy for human survival that requires a few fundamental breakthroughs (which may not actually be possible) but the result would be more dramatic. It's been known since the sixties that a ramscoop fusion engine has the potential to provide constant 1g accelerated space travel. That is, the acceleration would be the amount needed to provide the equivalent of Earth's gravitational field. Analyzing this motion with the appropriate special relativity framework we get remarkable, almost unbelievable, consequences. You can find the analysis in Misner, Thorne and Wheeler's big blue bible Gravitation in chapter six. Because of time dilation and lorentz contraction such a ship could travel to any point in the visible universe with the shipboard time elapsed being less than the number of years a person could expect to live including the return trip.
The amount of time that would correspondingly elapse on Earth during such a round trip is an example of the twin paradox on steroids. There is a list of cases at this web address. The provocative extreme cases involve billions of years. So even though evolution and geological events would have moved far past the era of man we could send teams to the future which could have the potential to renew our species no matter what events might occur. So you could leave in the 21st century and you (not some distant descendant) could return to Earth hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of years in the future. Damn, that theory of relativity implies some unbelievable possibilities due to the geometry of how the universe is put together.
I wish I had mod points. I don't know if I agree with all your points, but that's a very intersting take on the subject.
...if we as humans are likely to wipe out life on earth sooner or later, then why is it so important that our species be pereserved?...
TWR
read a little john ringo-- alldenta..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
No matter how BAD the earth gets. Even with run away globl warmming and unbreathable air it will still be easier and cheaper to build an enclosed living space on Earth then to build it on, say, the moon. Even if all the air on earth were is disapear and the Earth were to be in hard vacuum it would still be cheaper to live inside a presure tank here then inside a presure tank on the moon because. Even if you share the gaol of moving people off the Earth, now may not be the right time. If you start today it might take 150 years to build a sutainable industry in space, one that can operate without support from Earth. But if we start in 50 years it might take only 110 years to do the same thing. To be free of Earth you need things like a stell and aluminum industral and plants that make basic metals and machine tools. How long until there is a factory of the moon that makes digial camera and childred's toys. Not this century.
Moderation -1
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No one expects the 700 Club Inquisition!
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make install -not war
Oh, dear God, I'd forgotten about "TEH TERRORUSTS".
Listen up, and by: "Listen up", I only peripherally mean YOU. I really direct this to the people who use "TEH TERRORUST!" as a way of trying to make it sound like we have some major concern here in our tough, tough, post-9/11 world.
Let me direct you to a simpler time of life, a time when Reagan's and Kennedy's walked the earth.
A simpler time when people lived with the idea the upwards of 50% of the USA, USSR, and chunks of Europe's populations could be dead in under an hour's time. Yeah, right. Ooooh, scary terrorists.
Hell, I'll take terrorists any day of the week over continuing to live with that. Hell, I'll take terrorists over living with the fear that my village was going to be raided and a member of my family killed. I think my odds are STILL better with the terrorists.*
*Note: Offer not valid in Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, Most of the Middle East, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Indonesia, Iraq, Chechnya, Sudan, Iraq, and Tennessee.
To hell with mankind.
Have you seen how this species treats one another?
If he can barely survive on a *planet*, how long can he survive on the fragile, technology controlled capsule?
Seriously, if he can't get along with his fellow man on a country or continental size land mass, where the environment nurtures him with free, unlimited oxygen, easy water and food, how can he survive space?
In outer space, I give him 3 generations, max, before being swallowed forever by the hostile, unforgiving eternal void.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
For those of you that haven't seen it, the quote is from Dr. Strangelove.
Which COMPLETELY coincidentally, is the movie I just finished watching for the first time not even an hour ago. Wacky.
Karma: NaN
I won't bother to debunk the rest, but you get what I'm saying. The fact the parent is modded +5 insightful shows just how powerful false analogy can be.
Sony ha
n/t.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
There certainly is a lot of selfishness at the cultural level at this point in history, which seems to be in conflict with the more global view of selfishness.
Well, it all comes down to education. And some cultures have such disdain for education (about reality) on some subjects that it will be a long time before that all gets evened out. A long time. Especially when we've got so many backwards-leaning medieval-minded thugocracies still sitting (or trying to) on the energy reserves that we're still depending on.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
dude. going to space is bad for health!!! I dont wanna go there..
"Hawking Says Humans Must Go Into Space"
...sorry, I REALLY couldn't help it folks...
Holy crap...they've cured ALS?!?!?
One day soon, someone will dump your lifeless corpse in a hole.
You will be terrified when your time comes to die.
To merely describe and explain normative social values does not respond to the question "why should an individual care?"
I do like your proof by induction, on the other hand.
You will soon die, at your own hands or otherwise.
Spot on. Yes, you couldn't have said that any better.
" Trying to understand the intricacies of federation politics from watching Star Trek episodes would be like an alien trying to understand the US government by watching "JAG". "
Or, its like trying to understand the intricacies of the US police force by watching Scooby Doo.
I've been saying EXACTLY THAT for over 20 years. When you consider the positive and negative effects of ZPE and MNT, there is no doubt that things are going to get scary and we should all hedge our bets by having someone out in the distance somewhere "safe". Particularly with enough genetic material to sustain a distant ecosystem.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Great post!
And we are all part of this evolved grey goo, which have eyes evolved to discern the subtle differences in colour of this grey-goo. Therefore making it look beautifully coloured. I'm sure if you look at all the life on earth including ourselves at some other frequencies, we may look a monotonously boring grey.
All the grey-goo life on earth is still fighting the competitive evolutionary battle.
i agree because i'm 21 and when i was growing up i was a big sci-fi fan, still am, but i'm getting tired of all the stuff like Earth 2 and Star Trek: Enterprise because I don't think we're close. Zef Cochrane isn't alive in this generation. I see SeaQuest as more realistic. Yes, we could build self-sustaining underwater colonies. It would teach us a lot about what's down there and give many people independence. It would ignite entrepreneurship and the studies of these colonies would help the space program greatly as they already do. There's already an underwater hotel! Personally that makes me nausous but if I didn't have a fear of sea creatures I'd be doing more than watching a TV show about that future. Space is expensive. The ocean is right here. We have precise maps of it. We have many choices. Anything can be done underwater. There's no zero g to worry about. The known risk of decompression is not as big of a problem as the danger of repeating another shuttle mistake that makes the craft explode. It's easier to rescue a submarine than a stranded moon colony. Will underwater residents survive in a nuclear war? No. No one will. Everything will be poison.
because it is possible.
people think our space shuttles are synthetic creations and therefore unnatural but I think the act of humans flying into outerspace is perfectly natural. and infact inevitable. if you look at the earth from a distance. ships continually try to make it out of orbit some succeed and some fail. but one will make it all the way in this way the act is quite similar to the insemenation of a human child. However once the one makes it through many more will follow. The only way to do this is to MAKE It happen, plan on it happening, continuiing missions and creating settlements in places out in space where we are not dependant on Earth. I agree with Hawking 100%.
We need to do this for our species. We need to think of the herd. The fact is that we aren't simply looking out for HUMAN life, but EARTH life and LIFE in general considering we have found no evidence of life elsewhere.
Support space travel and space colonies.
Just like Leto's Golden Path (from God Emperor of Dune, for you heretics) it's a way of not putting all of humanity's eggs in one basket. Obviously we'd still try to preserve Earth.
Day to day living tends to distract govenrments and individuals from - - holy crap - - Check out Hawking's Nurse: Yowwwzzaa!
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
...the ransack attack of the human space diaspora fraction gone militaristic, technologically advanced and greedy. At first, I thought: "Well, a virus can traverse to colonies, as people will travel to visit relatives or do business", when it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps it is actually ment to be a "never look back" voyage for space emigrants. Here on Earth, thruout history, the groups of humans, of the same specie, were constantly THE ultimate threat to each other, just because they were separated for a while and hence developed distinct group identities. It IS going to happen on the large scale if we colonize the space across large distances. The space aliens will be us.
Colonies are an expansion into unused resources of water, arable land, animal, plant, and economically recoverable mineral resources. There is no water, no arable land, no animal life, and no plant life on mars. No minerals will ever be economically recoverable from Mars. We know these things. There isn't even air to breath. With all due respect to Mr. Hawkings, his opinion about leaving the Earth to form "colonies" on Mars is just one more indication of the mindless support that narrowly educated and experienced scientists give to the scientific-industrial-complex and the massively expensive programs they propose to foist on the public. Mr. Hawkings is trying to scare mankind into death, misery, and suffering in space for the profit of industry and the expansion of "science" whether he is consciously aware of it or not.
Let me tell you the common sense truth of it: as far as the Universe is concerned, we humans are microbes living in a thin scum on the surface of a pebble rotating around a rather mediocre sun. We are not Masters of the Universe. We never will be Masters of the Universe. We will live our species-life and die when our time comes like every other life form in the Universe.
The struggle of mankind since before Galileo has been to suppress our childish egotism to perceive realities. We have made great progress. We no longer think we are the center of the Universe and the Sun revolves around us. But we apparently still have a way to go to see our true place.
E Proelio Veritas.
I'm surprised the Moonraker references (look it up on Google/IMDB/wherever) haven't cropped up yet...
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
I think of Davros
The original posting was:
/has/ changed (where societies /have/ advanced), it is due to luck.
"Yes, well, I hope you recognize that for most people on this earth, nothing has changed. Lucky us."
This implies that nothing has changed (with regards to advancement of civilized societies) for most people on this earth, and for those that it
I am questioning the role of luck in the advancement of civilized societies, not the role of luck as to where people are born.
Yes, you may be lucky to be born into a civilized society. It was not luck, however, that lead to the civilized society.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
http://www.newpath4.com/index.html#The4ManmadeArma geddons1EarthbutstillFluid2Water3WindPeopleLeaders andthefourObjectives4FirestormFloodofRadiation_Arm ageddonlinksonnewpath4homepage .
Methinks SlashDot wants a Stephen Hawkings in a wheelchair but when the real article comes along, SlashDot goes into SILENCE RILEY MODE. Too bad. Riley has analyzed the Bible Ezekiel chariot and designed the engine that would make it run. But you'll never hear about it on Slash. Perhaps Riley should whip out the walker he hobbled around on in 1989 after he was very nearly killed March 27, 1989 accident on his job. WOULD THAT HELP YOU YAHOOS WAKE UP & SEE THE PLAGIARISM THREAT, THE ONGOING PATENT THREATS? Is that what you need in order to listen to someone, be able to look down on them?
Read Riley's accounts sometime, read how he wasn't in cannonball run, he was projected like a human cannonball then being vectored into the ground with his chest slamming the ground at the speed of a ROCKET SLED as the thousand pounds of freight fell across his legs, anchoring him to the ground as his torso had been shot forward >
http://www.newpath4.com/fraudinauschwitzvirginia_w oodrowriley1989.htm &
http://www.newpath4.com/fraudinauschwitzvirginia_w oodrowriley1989_1975%2B2005_update7142005.htm#Doct orsin2005StillPunchingthe2006ClockonWoodrowRileySt illPunchingtheClockonAllofAmericaDoctorsLawyersHos pitalsfromHellPracticinginRoanokeVirginiagettingaw aywithitMyStoryofSurvivalselfdiagnosticselfmedical treatmentfromonlinehealthfoodstoresLinktothisPage_ http_www_newpath4_com_fraudinauschwitzvirgi
>No, that's not luck. It's exploitation.
/successful struggle/ of those in the midst of turmoil that causes the advancement. In the case of exploitation, it is not the exploitation that causes advancement, for there are probably many exploited socities that do not or did not advance. Rather, it is the the people struggling under the burden of the exploitation who summon up physical, moral, spiritual or intellectual fortitude to overcome who advance their societies.
Well as we change the subject, I'll thank you for your tacit acknowlegement that in fact, luck is not what gave rise to advancements in civilized societies. Thank you.
So your hypothesis is now, then, that exploitation is what gives rise to advancements in civilization. I would say that that is only part of the story.
In my opinion, societies generally advance as they struggle through turmoil. Sometimes that turmoil is exploitation. Sometimes the turmoil is persecution. Sometimes it is natural disaster. Sometimes it is simply the development of new ways of thinking that displace old ways of thinking. Whatever the catalyst, however, it is not the catalyst that causes the advancement, because no doubt many societies have faced turmoil and failed to overcome it. Rather it is the
In short, hard work, dedication, and talent are some, but certainly not all, of the virtues that cause advancements in civilization in the face of adversities. Societies that lack the necessary virtues won't advance regardless of what adversities they struggle under.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
> (Saberhagen even had some berserkers that masqueraded as humans at some points, and used time travel, which Stargate hasn't gotten around to, mercifully, though I couldn't tell you why.)
:)
Er, the Replicators have in fact done both.
SG-1 attempted to stop the human form replicators with a time-distortion weapon that the replicators had previously mastered and turned to their own ends (the evolution of the human-form replicators, for one). (Not time-travel, I suppose, but we've already crossed the line into needlessly pedantic here.
science is a religion
Moderation -1
100% Flamebait
OK, I did expect the 700 Club Inquisition. That makes my post TrollModBait, not flamebait. The ChrisTaliban are the flamers, except where redefined by Constitutional amendment.
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make install -not war
"Altruism" was the wrong word. How about "fanciful, and laced with typical left-wing boogeymen"?
"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
In cased you missed it, he didn't suggest a natural disaster like a meteor smashing into the Earth. Every doomsday scenario suggested had a human-causation. (Except maybe "sudden global warming", whatever that's supposed to be.) The problem of humans being assholes is not something that is fixed by rocketships to new planets.
It's pretty funny, though. Hawking is undoubtably a firm believer in evolution. If the human species bites it, eventually something like us will come along again, given time. So what's the big deal? If you want to do something for the human race, encourage Hawking to get a vasectomy. Poison genes are much more likely to cause harm than a fancied asteroid of doom.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
It is not impossible: an emotional appeal, for instance, might rouse his heart to new feeling.
See here.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Respectfully...
I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! ...
I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves? ... You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl?
I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!
[ My apologies to Bill Shatner and SNL. ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This is actually funny if you read ... er ... between the lines.
Mod parent up!