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The NYT Imagines Life After Earth
An anonymous reader writes to mention a New York Times article entitled Life After Earth. The article looks at 'bio-vaults,' be they in the frozen north or on the moon, which might allow the human race to continue on after a globally catastrophic event. From the article: "The trouble with doomsday, Dr. Shapiro argues, is that it is almost always rendered in popular culture as grandiose, though in reality, many minor incidents present substantial everyday threats. In 1918, an influenza strain killed some 30 million people; a possible new bird flu strain spurs contemporary panic. In January 2003, a computer virus shut down airlines, banks and governments. That same year, a tree fell on power lines outside Cleveland, resulting in a blackout for much of the Northeast. Doomsday can be understated."
Earth imagines life after "The New York Times" and its annoying pointless login.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"Doomsday can be understated."
Of course not! He killed Superman!
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
"...This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper."
-TS Eliot, The Hollow Men, 1925
Everything that doomsdayers say is evil is part of the market giving us better lives -- engines, industrialization replacing human labor, commoditization of common goods and needs, etc.
Erm, yeah.. If global warming were the only conceivable doomsdayscenario..
Nuclear weaponry isn't quite enhancing my life, nor are worldwide influenza pandemics, direct meteor hits, global overexposure to radiation as a result of a freakishly excessive sunspot or near-by exploding supernova, or even, in fact, global alien invasion bent on genocide.
As for wanting to live in a bubble city; no-one's stopping you. You can just move into the basement and hook up the airco. I for one like having some forrest on hand to walk about in, with fresh air too.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
of the whole "genetic seed bank" concept is that the two most suggested locations are near one of earth's poles or somewhere in space/on the moon. Brilliant! Because as we all know, when a doomsday scenario kills off a huge percentage of the population, the specialized skillsets required to retrieve those samples are possesed by all, right?
Survivor 1: "Wow, that asteroid destroyed 95% of life here on Earth, but now that the dust has settled we can open the genetic vault and start anew! Now just where did we stick those samples?"
Survivor 2: "Uh, on the moon I think."
Survivor 1: "Oh, how convenient." [cries]
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: 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.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
It wasn't government that cut pollutions, it was industries striving to reduce waste and increase efficiency that did it.
Untrue, or at least highly selective. Much (most?) pollution is not a consequence of inefficiency, and industry has no inherent incentive to reduce it. This is the standard example given to illustrate negative externalities.
Government is the only instrument I'm aware of by which people can push these externalized costs back onto the polluters. And claiming that it hasn't done so is flat wrong. All the way back to Edward I in 1361 banning the burning of sea-coal to reduce London smog.