Slashdot Mirror
Stephen Hawking: We Might Have 1,000 Years Left on Earth (usatoday.com)
Stephen Hawking says the only way humankind can escape mass extinction is to find another planet. And the clock is ticking. From a report on USA Today:During a speech at Britain's Oxford University Union, Hawking detailed the history of man's understanding of the universe and reiterated that the future of humankind lies in space. "We must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity," he said. "I don't think we will survive another 1000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet."
Stephen Hawking is a brilliant man and solid scientist. His abilities as a futurist leave something to be desired.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
In the span of 1000 years, I can certainly see humans being able to travel and inhabit other nearby planets but do we really think we'll be at a point where we can move large groups of humans >25 trillion miles away? Or does he see this more as we'll be putting civilization into space for centuries-long travel toward those other systems?
Barring entirely any entirely unforeseen and wholly unprecedented breakthroughs in physics and technology, based on the historical (and exponential) rate of humanity's technological progress, I had once heard that we could reasonably expect humanity to be interstellar by about the year 3000.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In 1000 years, Earth won't exist because we will have consumed it for resources. Converted to computronium and fusile material storage containers. Humans will live on in the virtual universes we create inside the computronium.
What is the real need to ensure the human race's continuation and why should I care?
The only thing of importance is that those who live get to live well.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
"Battlefield: Earth" by L. Ron Hubbard was set a thousand years into the future, where humans were almost extinct due to aliens killing off humanity to strip mine the planet. Great minds think alike... Meh.
All scientists know we only have 998 years left.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
... says the man who has outlived his own predicted life expectancy by more than 3x.
---
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Serious question: why should we be worried about human extinction? Is that actually a problem? Lots of species become extinct. Why shouldn't we?
Disaster may hit the planet, but we've had hundreds of millions of years of multicellular life, and humans are likely the most adaptable variety yet. I don't think there's any reason to suppose humans will be completely wiped out by any global-scale disaster that doesn't wipe out essentially all land-based life. We haven't had one of those kind of disasters yet, so I don't see it happening any time in the next 1000 years.
Yes, there will likely be a disaster of global proportions, and I sure don't want to be around for it. I seriously doubt, though, that it could be an extinction level event for humanity.
the end is nigh! So all those crazy guys with signs were right?
We're overrunning the planet. Trying to get Humans to curb their hardwired instinctual drive to reproduce is almost completely futile for various reasons ranging from religions frowning upon any sort of birth control methods, to people too poor to afford birth control, to people who just won't stop having kids -- and since geriatric medicine is getting better, people are living longer. Meanwhile it's harder and harder every decade to feed everyone, and the world seems to be increasingly full of agitators and aggressors making life more difficult and dangerous for everyone else. We do need to make a way to get off this planet to relieve the ever-growing population pressure -- and to give the restless types something to conquer that doesn't involve attacking someone else. Personally I'm big on the idea of a permanent colony on the Moon for starters. Give it 50 years to build infrastructure and industry, and you've got a great jumping-off point for the rest of the solar system. Then, maybe, Mars? The Asteroid belt?
This critical issue deserves a more subtle discussion that guesses about when humans will go extinct on earth. Without human foolishness (nuclear weapons, pollution, etc) we would expect we have millions of years. But humans are foolish, so we really don't know. I am suspicious of claims that the human future is in space. Both because there is no plausible way for sustainable human settlements off planet to be manufactured with current technology and because it enables a short sighted approach that treats this planet as a disposable stepping stone to better things. More likely, intelligent machines we make will colonize space before we do since it is much easier to design them to tolerate the harsh environment than it is to modify biology to survive off planet. Maybe we will teach them to build habitats for us, but in that case, it will really be the machines that are doing the colonizing. And this is much further off than many people suspect.
There is no reason whatsoever to think that a civilization of hunter gatherers cannot continue to survive on Earth for a long, long time to come. Even if the oceans rise several feet there will still be arable land somewhere. The people who say we are destroying the planet are full of sh*t. The only thing we can do is make it inhospitable for humans to exist. The *Earth* will continue and some kind of life will survive and even thrive. It just may not include homo sapiens.
What is Hawking's justification for the 1000 year number? A gut-feel, or does he have specific indicators?
It is easy to forget how adaptable humans are. Our species survived super-volcano eruptions in the past. If we can find a way to survive that, we can find a way to survive global warming, nuclear war, etc.
So, what is it he thinks we can't survive?
So he cites three scenarios: Nuclear war, global warming, and genetically-engineered viruses. Then says we should have more planets to ensure a single incident doesn't destroy us. Given how much he and others have been spewing "AI is our DOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!" I'm surprised that's not on his list too. That aside his entire talk comes down to saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Thanks man.
The technology we would need to survive on any other planet besides Earth would also make surviving any catastrophe that could b fall Earth -- including catastrophic climate change, nuclear winter, or a giant meteor -- trivially easy in comparison.
The worst thing that could conceivably happen to Earth, at least until the sun becomes a red giant billions of years in the future, is something like the above catastrophes would render it a barren wasteland utterly inhospitable to life. But every other planet is already a barren wasteland utterly inhospitable to life. If we could survive at all on any other planet, we could also survive anything that happens to Earth.
Call me when self-sustaining cities on the seafloor, Antarctica, or in the middle of the Sahara are normal things, and then we can talk about living on another planet just because it's there.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The more sustainable we become as an economy, the longer we can stay. The less sustainable we are the less likely are we able to leave. Presently, we are not able to leave. To be able to leave, we need a machine which is sustainable in all aspects. In case it is not, we run out of material we can transform and entropy will destroy the machine and subsequently all inhabitants of it (yes a space ship/ark is a machine). However, in case we achieve the goal to be sustainable in the context of such space ship, we are also able to apply that on Earth.
Fun fact, we have 34 years to get CO2 neutral (this is being sustainable with the atmosphere) or else we are fucked up. Unfortunately, the US will not go in this direction for the next 4 years. So dear US citizens, 30 years left and the clock is ticking.
Beside the CO2 problem, we have also sustainability problems in electronics, food, water, cement, fishing/oceans, ecosystem-diversity etc. All of them have a point of no return and many of them are linked to others. Therefore, we should get on with it. Now is the time. Not tomorrow. NOW.
Hawking is moving from science to speculative fiction now? Though his contribution is warmly welcome, he is far from the first to speculate about future of earth or mankind. Can anyone tell me what makes this new or relevant others than his name?
It's incredibly probable that human civilization as an emergent phenomenon is short-lived and temporary, or we'd have had one tens of thousands of years ago.
I don't think anyone [even Stephen Hawking] can say anything meaningful about where we'll be 1000 years from now. Did anyone in the year 1016 A.D. foresee conditions today?
At present growth rates, it looks more like ~400 years before we boil off the oceans. The planet's surface area is fixed and can only dissipate so much heat. On the slightly bigger scale we have a little more than 2400 years before we consume all the energy generated by the entire galaxy
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Well, so far Homo sapiens has survived on the order of a million years on this "fragile" planet. Obviously the current exponential growth in population and consumption of material resources cannot continue for even 1000 years, but all that means is that our lifestyle WILL change markedly one way or another, and very probably our quality of life will be greatly reduced. But even if there is a mass die-off of 99-99.9% of the population, the species will continue. That goes even for the case of a catastrophic nuclear exchange or a catastrophic asteroid impact. Possibly the surviving form of Homo sapiens would be all but unrecognizable to us.
None of which is to be construed as an argument that we SHOULDN'T colonize extraterrestrial places. This, however, would not be effective analogs of lifeboats. That would be utterly impossible due to the scale. It would simply be a seeding.
But -100 for taking a bit too long a view.
Technically there's no reason we can't actually populate other planets or solar systems in 1000 years if we decide to. On the other hand there's no reason we can't sustain human culture on this planet for another billion years if we decide to.
So sure, by all means lets investigate technologies to more efficiently explore our surroundings but let's spend a bit more effort on sustainability in the balance. For starters we could stop spending the vast majority of our energy arguing over issues that don't matter one bit (where to go to the bathroom, sexual preference of the person 4 doors down).
If we can't figure out how to solve sustainability problems moving to another planet is just a change of scenery.
This guy got famous for saying nothing leaves black holes and then walking it back.
What about cosmology/physics could make him worth listening to on this subject?
Sure, make a prediction that no one will be around to check.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The worst thing that could conceivably happen to Earth, at least until the sun becomes a red giant billions of years in the future, is something like the above catastrophes would render it a barren wasteland utterly inhospitable to life.
Wrong.
The worst thing that could conceivably happen to earth is a meteor blasting it and all the things on it to chunky kibbles. Phaeton style.
And that could happen in 3 months if destiny wanted it so.
It could even happen without us ever knowing what hit us. Literally.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Also you'd better go see a proctologist about that massive chronic butthurt you've got, it might be CANCER.
..or maybe you ARE cancer. What's the matter Anon, some over 6' tall theoretical physicist steal your girl? LOL manlets, when will they learn?
I doubt we have 1000 years left on earth. The current max lifespan seems to be about 115. Even with modern advancements in science I doubt we'll make it to having 1000 years left on earth.
Now, our descendants might be here in 1000 years, but we won't be- at least not in one piece any more.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
1000 is an awfully high estimate when the longest anyone's lived isn't even close to 200 years.
... that he got that horrible disease. What are the odds? How many people get it overall? And why him specifically? Even to me, as a non-religious person, it appears like a punishment of some sort.
I think Hawking's disease is getting the better of his mind. He has been making some really bad predictions lately.
I think our planet has shown itself to be quite resiliant considering all of the meddling we've done.
Humans have only until 2030 unless we make a drastic intervention in our carbon pollution economy. Why? Methane releases from the Arctic sea floor and from Siberian and Canadian permafrost melting.
With nanotech and other technologies, it's likely that the human form will be extensively redesigned in coming decades, with all kinds of replacement forms possible. Why be stuck with flimsy, fragile biology? Some of the new designs might live in space and have no need for Earth. There may be a few human hold-outs around living on land set aside for them.
We all love movies where the earth is getting invaded, some species comes to invade our planet to obtain our resources, we defeat them, they leave.
Well, any planet out in space that is nice enough to live on and sustain life likely already has life. That would make us the invading aliens seeking to plunder that planets resources.
How about we stick to our own fair share?
A lot of geologists think we'll have a pretty decent culling of the human population when the poles flip. That could happen in our lifetime or thousands of years from now. The main contention is the parts of the Earth surface are going to get fried with radiation when that happens. Stock up on sun block and lead lined suits.
This makes about as much sense as Pope Benedict VIII speculating on global conditions today.
Hawking really needs to start shutting the fuck up. He's embarrassing himself.
Hawking used to be a good physicist. Maybe he still is, unclear. But now that he has gotten really full of himself and studied how Einstein tried to control nuclear war, he has clearly become yet another idiot. Since his bandwidth is surely less than dialup, this might even be nonsense from one of his "assistants."
Neither candidate was any good. We chose the psychopath over the sociopath.
Once more, a "No shit, Sherlock!" moment! Thanks, guy, nobody else would have ever guessed . . . .
fucktards
Here's an obligatory Matrix clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM1-DQ2Wo_w
If we're a disease, let's hope we can face up to our responsibility and quarantine ourselves to this solar system.
The planet will recover just fine after we're gone, no matter what cataclysmic event leads to our extinction.
but now he is just a whacko predicting the end of the world like all those religious nut jobs. No one has a crystal ball. An asteroid could hit tomorrow and wipe us out. Or it could be a million years before we are ended. Either way, I'm not losing sleep over it.
Who cares about what's in 1000 years? Seriously, we will see that much change until then. Maybe technology, maybe back to the stone age ... but nothing will be like today.
And possibly we will all live in a computer and nobody cares about earth climate and similiar stuff.
SHOULD humanity survive?
captcha: enforcer
I think Hawking's a fucking optimist.
Once we kill the ocean, & release the arctic methane deposits and that warming releasing the methane hydrates in the ocean; we're looking at another Permian–Triassic extinction event. I'm just hoping we last another hundred-fifty years of humanity--because macroscopic life on this planet will be ended rightly.
Let's just lay down and die instead.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
He's giving it approximately 996 years more than I would.
Doom and gloom.
First AI will kill us, now we only have another millenia.
Stephen sounds like he has a case of Age Related Grumpiness (Arg)
Lighten up Stephen, humanity has always managed to muddle through somehow.
Given history, the task is to figure out how do it with style instead of another dark ages.
Climate change and the doomsday clock are not new threats.
Being a product of biology, I'd bet on something to do with bio-engineering as a first threat.
Hopefully humanity is just as lucky as Hawkin's and outlives its extintion-expectancy by X10 and counting
How many would you evacuate? 1 million tops? I'm willing to bet that a million would survive on Earth anyway, and even a wrecked planet will be more hospitable than the alternatives. Maybe we could send all the telephone hygienists first though.
It seems to be that whatever difficulties exist in making human civilization sustainable on Earth, they pale in comparison to the difficulties of colonizing a planet many light years away.
Me too, but since we cannot predict all future threats, we should hedge our bets by taking multiple preservation approaches. The more backups and spares we make, the more likely at least one will survive chaos and wars. (Remember the days when floppy disks were very unreliable? One backup was not enough.)
As far as the bot-versus-human debate, it's possible the future is both: human minds will be scanned and then digitally emulated. That way our "personality" can travel among the stars without the expensive life support of biological bodies. ("Death" scans may be easier than scanning living brains because at first it may require slicing or other harmful techniques to get a good scan.)
But scan-and-emulate may be a ways off such that a biological Noah's Ark(s) would be a first step.
Table-ized A.I.
Depopulate Central and South America
Depopulate Africa.
Depopulate Europe.
Depopulate India.
Depopulate Asia.
Depopulate Russia.
Depopulate the Middle East. (TWICE...just to be sure).
After that, it's all gravy...
Hawking is an optimist. I give humankind 100 years at most.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
We've been going extinct for a long time.....yet here we are.
Not saying it's impossible, but our species seems to find a way.
There are only two things in infinite supply: the universe and human stupidity... and I'm not so sure about the universe.
Human kind in general? It will require the death of all life on Earth, and even then, there might be some bunkers in places that will be designed for sustainability in the next 1000 years. Generational bunkers might sound bad, but it's a lot better than generational spaceships. At least you'll have gravity and geothermal, and you're *at* your destination, so no worries about landing.
"I don't think we will survive another 1000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet." What...? escape to a stable non-threatening environment like Mars, Europa or an Asteroid ? I think the Earth (which has gone through ice ages as recently as 50,000 years ago) and was very much warmer for most of its 4 billion year of existence... is much less fragile than you think.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Algore said we'd all be dead by 2016? You mean we are to believe THIS theory?
You would stagnate our capitalist economy!
Anyway it is probably self limiting. You're assuming growth based on historical data, which assumes no self limiting systems inherently in place. Conflict for example, and other things like famine and sickness. As growth continues it will outstrip resources (baring some sort of magic technology). As resources become more scarce, they become more valuable. As they become more valuable they will become more desired. As they become more desired, well you probably get the point. Most conflict is about resources, this really just takes it to the next level. Arable land, water, power, fossil fuels, mineral, etc...
So yeah it will hit a point where shall we say significant decline is inevitable. Should we not reach that point without doing some pretty bad damage to the Earth, could prompt an even further decline. Will we reach I point where Earth is less habitable than some other planet in our solar system? I think on the planetary/geologic scale that is pretty unlikely. Even were humans intentionally trying to mess up the planet, it will still be better than some barren rock in space.
If the idea is that we better find a way to move our civilization to another planet in the next 1000 years, then we better just give up now because we're all doomed.
The example you should use is China. They have a significant issue in the next couple of decades. Due to their reproduction policies whole generations had artificially reduced birthrates, so their demographics are all top heavy basically. They've stopped the policy, but I'd imagine that for the period for however long it was in place they will basically have too many old people and too few young people to support them.
All of this ( and other comments about the end ) are pure bullshit. If the (rate of change ability of humans cope with it ) we are fine, at least from a species point of view. Life my become very different, but we'll survive.
So we went from NO SELF-POWERED VEHICLES AT ALL about 120 years ago to LANDING ON THE DAMN MOON about 75 years later, and he doesn't think we'll be able to figure out ANY way to keep ourselves living over the course of the next THOUSAND? He thinks we're totally done thinking, innovating, and solving problems, so we're just totally fucked with what we've done to the Earth as of right now?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
It will be easier to colonize whatever happens to be left of Earth than to go anywhere else.
if we don't stop breeding like rats.
I said this very thing back in 2015. I bet 10, no... $20US that we Terraform Mars in the next thousand years or so. We need to spread our wings and get of this rock, and leap-frog to the next rock.
I'm not saying Hawkings is wrong or right because only time will tell. What he is really getting at is that we need a plan to continue the human species and I agree with him on that. I don't even care about the human species but continue life in general. I propose we shoot bacterium into the different planets(venus, mars, etc) and the moons. If we perish in the next 5000 years, at least life will continue to exist. Even if we don't perish, it would be good to see how the surviving bacterium has evolved.
Hawking's quote and the article's headline do not have identical meanings. He said we won't have another 1000, meaning we'll have less than that number and probably implying much less than that, whereas the article headline says we might get a full 1000. Bad journalism isn't the worst thing in the world, but to constantly have news headlines doing this just serves to further homogenise the English language to the point where those of us who actually know how to speak English, with all it's infinite(hyperbole, of course) variety of meanings, are having our speech dumbed down by proxy.
Let's see how much Trump and his Nutcase Republicans in House & Senate can drive that number down in the next 4 years ...
Jacque Cousteau says the future of mankind is deep under the ocean.
The good news is some of us will still be alive to see if he was correct or not: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/...
We've been around between 10,000 and maybe 1,000,000 years. A large asteroid couldn't even kill off our forbearers. So unless he's watching something specific, like gamma ray burster pointed at us, I think he's losing it. Or maybe he knows something we don't know.
This video makes the round in intergalactic circles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And now it happens, this awful species is on the point to spread out and infect other worlds.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
There are models for earthquakes, floods, meteors, etc. There are even models for mass extinction events. They are all based on historic data and you can take these models and adjust the parameters to work out your own predictions. You may scoff at the involvement of statistics, but it is science.
There's nothing on Mars that can help us, though. Living there is pure hardship, very needy hardship. The true key is: Enlightenment. People need to snap into consciousness that we are doing harm to the world everywhere humans live! We have to STOP doing harm, that's all. (Can we do that? i doubt it)
The cited article, 2016/11/17, gives no further references. The Daily Express citation doesn't even contain the word "1000". The Independent, Tuesday 15 November 2016, cites USA Today as a source....
Google finds a VOA News of April 11, 2013 2:07 PM, mentioning the same 1000 years theory three years ago. The phrase is ascribed to a 2008 ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the NASA. So perhaps it should be 992.
Hawking's original reckoning is missing.