Subject: Re: We don't have hundreds of millions of years.
Author:
Posted on: 2009-03-20 21:20:00 UTC
Well, if by human lifespan you mean the lifespan of someone born now and destined to die when the world blows up in absolutely definitely less than two years - then no, we don't have time. Maybe we should hold off on the nukes until today's infants hit school age, that gives us time to get to Mars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7947824.stm
We're all going to die. First Vietnam II, then Great Depression II, and now World War III. Wish I could say it's been nice knowing you all, but I barely knew most of you. Let's all just hope we die in the initial blast, instead of surviving to be killed by the radiation and such. Makes you wonder if there's even a point in writing PPC things, huh? Heh, I guess technically the PPC would survive, they'd just see a sudden stop of recruits coming from World One.
This is the end, beautiful friend, this is the end, my only friend, the end...
Reverse the polarity. Why wouldn't that solve everything?
Did you just cross the streams? You just crossed the streams, didn't you. Way to go. now we really are all dead.
... and get them to assimilate the nukes?
I mean, surely there's a risk that they'd renege, and assimilate not just the nukes but also the terrorists.
Also, they're probably a bit past nukes.
Perhaps better to persuade the Ferengi they're really valuable. That way we profit and can all go for a celebratory pint.
Something to do with a species that was a mutual threat.
Ooh, yes, we could do that. I'm sure the Ferengi would love them.
Not sure how well nukes would work in a bizarre continuum made of fluid.
We will, however, have to steal the shields from the Enterprise forthwith, if we are to stop the Ferengi being sneaky buggers and immediately assuming the role of terrorist.
because a good Planet, Associated Satellites, and Warfleet Shattering Kaboom isn't easy to come by.
Oh, and an entire army of drones who are stronger than anybody else.
For the lulz.
Also, the Borg Queen kicks arse
...We could use her to make the Consoles do as we wish! *GLEE!*
after all, she's kind of an expert. If she can cause it, she can certainly prevent it
We've turned to the Dark Side for help? Why not get Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker in to finish the deal? He can seduce all the humans (female and male, if Anakin/Obi-Wan slash is any indication), and the Queen can take on the computers. As long as they don't get interested in each other (*threatens Ironic Over-Poewr with a hammer*), they're unstoppable!
... Adam Young. The Antichrist. He disappeared a whole nuclear reactor. He can *certainly* help out with this crisis, and, bonus, he's not intrinsically evil! Yay!
How about Dr Horrible? He'd sing all the time, but he's got CHEMISTRY! Literal, not the metaphor version. We could drop sodium in swimming pools!
I'm so in.
But I actually sing well, so it wouldn't kill them. Hmmm.
And would be worse if we poured hydrochloric acid down their throats...
mwahaha
If in crystal form, it'd be so shiny that they'd probably wear it on a necklace, laws of chemisty be damned.
it's white enough to pass for salt. It just has a sort of violent exothermic reaction to being in contact with water.
Goes "boom" with water. Sort of.
For a start, I don't have the equipment or the copper sulphate to start with to make anhydrous copper sulphate.
If I wanted to be really awful, anyway, I wouldn't bother mucking around with copper compounds, I'd just go for the HF.
If anyone here is seriously thinking about that...they need help.
Bleach is easier to find.
You'd be surprised at what I can find :P
In a purely fictional sense, of course, not in an 'I'm going to go postal and dissolve everyone's bones from the inside' way.
We can still make fun in our heads, though. *ponders the delightful mix of hydrochloric acid and George Bush*
The usage of ! was very much intentional.
Even with the internet, sometimes we have to make our own entertainment :P
Dump it in the shampoo of any Sue taking pride in her "raven locks". Then sit back and wait for the sceams... ah....
We are so madly off-topic now. I don't care. :D
Jokes aside, am I the only one making a mental list of "50 Ways to Use Bleach to Make Mary Sue's Life Hell"?
You know that book, "Everybody Poops"? It's kinda like that: everybody dies.
So far, we haven't encountered the government corrupt and insane enough to doom the entire planet to nuclear holocaust. I serious doubt that we ever will. Now, America getting nuked is not beyond the realm of possibility, but we really can't expect to be the top power forever. For better or worse, things simply don't work that way.
~Neshomeh, not about to stress about something she can't control.
That's exactly what would happen. One person launches first, next thing we know everybody's blasting each other into radioactive dust.
It isn't that we wouldn't retaliate--it's just that I'd like to think we're not stupid enough to retaliate in a way that would lead to the destruction of the human race.
Despite what I said earlier, the primary drive of any species is to ensure its own survival. As stupid and crazy as some people can be, we all share that drive. If it came to the point where the entire species was, beyond denial, on the edge of destruction, everything would stop. What we would have left to work with at that point is questionable, I grant you, but we're not going to destroy everything, because if we did, whatever we were fighting for would become null and void.
Frankly, I think anyone who uses nuclear weapons, now that we know what they do, automatically loses as far as principles go. They might pound the opposition into glowing dust, but they won't have any friends left afterward. Not much point to that kind of victory.
If you really must argue with any of that, I have an e-mail address.
~Neshomeh
Please stop trying to bring up this topic or I warn you, we shall taunt you a second time.
Just because Russia is re-arming doesn't mean that World War III will break out. I mean, yeah, things look pretty bad, but if there will be a war we should be looking to the Middle East not to Russia, although Russia will most certainly be involved. Another note is that we are in a recession, not a Great Depression, at least not yet. Humans are a very adaptable resilient species, we'll pull through.
A skeptic's views about 2012:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093
Cheers for that, I needed a giggle.
Really, some of those are priceless. I'd almost forgotten what degree of unintentionally hilarious muppetry still exists. Gonna be laughing for days at that.
Sorry if you're making a joke, but I've been banging my head against tables a lot recently. It's a common misconception; you can take it either way. And... I don't feel like talking about it now. *groans*
Ding! You're right. The Mayans thought that the world came in "cycles," and managing to live to the end of a cycle was a cause for celebration, not cowering in fear of fire or damnation or big mean Russians. Plus, they also recorded dates thousands of years AFTER 2012.
Hmm. I'm going to be one of those people who will sit through Dec. 9, 2012 all day biting my nails and looking at the sky anxiously, and then turning around and laughing at everyone the next morning.
Yeah, the Mayans thought that this was currently the third cycle, and it proves that they were comfortable with the idea of cycles before them and therefore after them.
Sometimes I get the feeling that some people eagerly wait for doomsday. They may fear it, but they also unconsciously hope it will happen soon. That would explain why 2012 is such a big deal.
The whole 2012 doomsday theory is based on the fact that the calendar of a people that did not even use the wheel stops there! You could easily dismiss the fears of the "2012ists" with rational arguments, but they still wouldn't believe you: they WAIT for doomsday, just like those survivalist nuts who have a fallout shelter in their basement. If 2012 passes without a major catastrophe, thousands will be disappointed.
The end times have ALWAYS been imminent, for as far back as you can go in history.
That's why I'm glad we have things like the PPC. So we don't get so bored we have to hope the world will end to make our lives exciting. ;)
What is this 2012 shit? Potted version, please? 'Cause I think I missed something.
...the Mayan calender, which remains incredibly accurate even to this day despite the time and place in which it was created (long ago and far away =P), ends in 2012.
Some people think this means that the world will end then.
Some people think the Mayans were just lazy. =P
I've got a beautiful article on it somewhere, but I don't have time to upload it just now. Very, very, very short version: They calculated everything astronomically and worked out their calendar dates backwards and forwards, everything running in cycles; twenty in all, each twenty times shorter than the last. The first three, I think, were all finished before Buddha and Christ turned up. The current one started in 1987 and will end on December 21st, 2012 - the winter solstice when the milky way is perfectly aligned to our planet.
They do not predict death and disaster. Opinions and interpretations vary, but it's just as likely to be an awakening of spiritual consciousness.
Also, they aren't the only ones. At least one Native American tribe - I forget which - predicts great happenings for that same year; possibly even the same date.
I'll get the details later, promise. Right now, must dash.
... they thought, y'know, several centuries is long enough, surely other people will have learnt to make calendars by then?
Having undertaken extensive research involving the calendar Trojie made me, which is currently right next to me on the wall and featuring this month's Slashy Couple of Edmund Pevensie and Caspian X, I can safely say the world WILL END on January 1st 2010.
Or, you know, I'll get her to send me a new calendar. Logic failure's happened somewhere, I think.
We're in agreement then? End-of-the-worlders are silly and we're silly for giving them satisfaction by posting in this thread. Motion to adjourn thread.
Motion to render thread as silly as possible via the application of outrageous doomsday scenarios.
It is possible that the Great Leap Sideways did indeed succeed in ensuring some members of crabkind escaped the meteor, and live on in seclusion, plotting their eventual domination of the world that sought to splatter them across the sand. And they've had a bloody long time. We should FEAR THE CRABS!
They might have got off the planet pre-meteor!
BAR YOUR WINDOWS AND DOORS!
Dammit, woman, you know I have an irrational fear of raptors. Don't make it worse.
Although... maybe they've developed a peaceful and benevolent nature by now, and trim their claws and file their teeth for cosmetic reasons? *hopes and prays*
Raptors with nukes? Damn you, woman.
Probably preaching a message of cosmic peace and harmony, too
With venison and tomato sauce!
It sounds delish!
We must choose between nucklear(sic) doomy dooms of doom and turning to the Sues for help. What is this, Hobson's choice?
Wait, are these the same raptors who stalk and kill people over the internet?
Sues will betray us the moment they realise the raptors are actualyl Handsome Canons under a Terrible Curse
*wails* Me and my big mouth. Ironic Over-Power, I HATE you.
So we're all going to be stuffed into life support pods ala the Matrix instead of killed by nukes?
We find out that Soylent Green is People!
And during the Fifth Great and Bountiful Human Empire...
Brains for the brain eaters! Zombies for the zombie hordes!
Even supposing that you're right about war - which is not a given, even in the event of rearmament - and even assuming you're right about large-scale destruction caused thereby, we are the PPC! We have, at least in theory, access to every point in the multiverse. Any technology that could possibly be imagined by anyone is potentially within our grasp. Any evacuation point at any time on any world is open to us.
So I, for one, say enough of this doom and gloom!
Who cares? When hasn't there been some ominous event? Regardless of what's going to happen, running around shouting about how we're all going to die won't help.
If we're going to die, I say make the most out of the life you're living.
Does the world have it's problems?
Yes. But worrying about them all at once won't do any good.
Okay, that was only once, and it was for a good cause; but I just can't resist saying that. By the way, all hope isn't lost. After all, we can still prepare for the onslaught. Anyone know Survivalism 101, by any chance?
... which is what I do best, I'd like to point out that this is hardly a major perturbation.
Planet's been here for 4.6 billion years. It'll probably manage at least another 4.6 billion years. We've been here less than ten thousand years. Our influence extends maybe three or four miles into the crustal rocks, and up into the atmosphere, maybe the troposphere. And a few bits of space junk. This planet has some FABULOUS feedback systems that mean that, if we were removed, in the blink of a geological eye our influence would dissipate (of course, this doesn't take away from the fact that if we continue doing what we're doing, OTHER fabulous feedback loops will make things considerably worse, but I digress).
Given evolution works how it does, I suspect that another sentient species would arise. Or maybe not. It's not like a planet has to have a sentient species, it took about five hundred million years for us to toddle along, after all :)
Basically, guys, gals and undecided, life goes on. Whatever happens, the sun will keep shining, photosynthesis will keep happening, water will freeze and water will evaporate, sand will move, gravity will hold rocks down ... so why worry? Keep writing, or hey, go outside, look at the sky, see the grass (the most successful organism on the planet, grass), enjoy yourself. You're alive. That's all that matters.
/end serene eccentric scientist warbling.
Just thought I'd put in the ten-million-year perspective here. I find it calming and soothing :D
Sure, that means the planet is better off, but still! We're all DEAD.
That is, unless you're one of the ones that wants the entire human race (at least) to die out entirely. And, since everyone here is human, we will ALL be killed.
... to the continued survival of the human race, which given I'm a member of it isn't really surprising.
But my point is, if we nuke ourselves to death, we have only ourselves to blame. And if we do, well, it's not exactly the end of the world, in a literal sense, is it?
Basically I think that worrying about it is a useless exercise and so you might as well enjoy what you've got and stop worrying about something you can't control.
Russian rearmament is fairly inevitable - their economy tanked in the 80s and continued going down when the Iron Curtain fell, so military spending dropped fairly significantly. A resurgence is only to be expected, especially with ex-Soviet states starting to have border squabbles. Also, considering the last seven years of American foreign policy, I wouldn't be surprised to see Russia taking a more aggressive hand in international politics.
If it does come to nukes, though, you're probably fine. Soviet-era nuclear doctrine consisted of atomic strikes on nuclear military installations (B-52 bases, sub pens, ICBM silos) and runways long enough to serve nuclear bombers (>11,000 feet, IIRC) in tactically important places. If you live more than ten miles from any of the above, you're not going to be killed by blast effects. While initial fallout will be major (and should be avoided if possible), it's mostly very hot, short-lived particles. In 10 days, radiation levels will drop to 1/10th of the initial, and after another 10 days, it'll be down to 1%. After a month, you're down to background radiation levels except for a couple square miles at each epicenter.
Seen pictures of downtown Hiroshima? It's a thriving city, and grass grows around the ruins of the nuclear war memorial. Admittedly that was a small nuke, but the physics is the same, it's just on a larger scale.
Okay, so what, they're increasing militarization. How does that spell the end of the world, again?
That's not funny.
Unless you're from the Dr. Strangelove 'verse.
Do not fear, my friends! For in that sentence lies our great strength! Nothing is more powerful than friendship! It's the most powerful force in all the universes and beyon--
-gets shot-
Yeah, we're experiencing the warning signs again, aren't we? And history always comes with that irritating tendency to repeat itself. *headwalls* But you know, I don't mean to sound corny or anything, but we, the next generation, are the only ones who can really help at this point. I'm a teenager, adulthood is just beyond my reach, but it's still coming and I can't do a thing to stop it. The previous generation kinda effed things up for us, and it falls on the next set of adults of the world to set things right. In the end, it's all up to us. We humans ended up on this earth, a fact which we can all agree on, no matter what religion we follow or whether we follow one at all, and this earth is the only one we have. We have to take care of it, and we haven't been doing a very good job of it lately. When it all comes down to it, the fate of the world really does rest in our hands. WE decide whether or not we're dead.
Sure, we've only got one Earth now. Plenty of other places even in the solar system though - how about some cash spent on working out successful ways to get a few colonies started? Then if it all goes tits up here, there's still some of us left to repopulate.
Not that I'd necessarily be in favour of repopulation, because I'm with Trojie on this one, but for those of you who actively don't want to see us all go kaput and have very little faith in our resiliency, it might be something to look into.
So with that in mind, there's no way we'd ever be able to make a colony. Especially since we'd have to terraform entire planets, which also isn't possible, to do so.
We've chucked car-sized spacecraft so hard that they've exceeded not just Earth's escape velocity but also the Sun's. We've landed more than two metric tons of scientific equipment on Mars, and gotten enough data back to assemble fairly comprehensive geologic maps of the planet. We've landed spacecraft on Venus. We've nailed comets with bullets fired years earlier. We put people on the moon when the most powerful computers on the planet were less powerful than the average modern graphing calculator, and all within 100 years of the first powered flight in history. I would not be so quick to denounce human potential.
And no, we wouldn't have to terraform entire planets for colonization. Large-scale tent cities are feasible on Mars, at least, where low pressure and gravity make holding up tents with internal pressure possible.
(And I disagree on the possibility of terraforming planets. In the last few thousand million years, Earth has been everything from a volcanic lava planet straight out of the dreams of Lucas to a ball covered in green oceans under a carbon dioxide atmosphere to a smoldering impact wasteland. Terraforming is quite possible, although it'll probably take geological time, rather than a more human scale, to complete. Mars will be harder than some worlds, as it's small and has no magnetic field.)
Space exploration and colonization is a matter of time and will, not possibility.
but there's nothing to prevent it developing. Not even that far away, time-wise. I mean, if you fancy squirting an enormous aerosol of the right kind of cyanobacteria at a planetary surface and sitting around for a hundred million years or so, bingo, oxygen-rich atmosphere. Now all we got to do is work out a way to speed it up :)
Not that long ago, don't forget, talking to someone half a world away was impossible. Dating rocks was impossible. Cloning was impossible. Sequencing a genome was impossible.
All things are impossible, right up until *someone works out how to do them*.
*sings 'Don't Worry, Be Happy'*
We might not even have two years. So yeah, it's completely impossible. We barely have the technology to reach another planet within a human lifetime, let alone terraform it so it's actually inhabitable.
Well, if by human lifespan you mean the lifespan of someone born now and destined to die when the world blows up in absolutely definitely less than two years - then no, we don't have time. Maybe we should hold off on the nukes until today's infants hit school age, that gives us time to get to Mars.
So calm down! Trust in ingenuity! Have a nice day, because sitting there stressing is going to do you a big fat load of no good.
Doom is never as inevitable as you think. Just breathe, bucko.
Even if a few humans did survive, civilisation would never recover.
Different civilisations would develop. Not the same ones. Because that would be freakish.
If anyone were even alive, post-nuclear-apocalypse it'd be impossible to rebuild a society.
Nah. I'll build my shack next to someone else's, and we're already halfway there.
And then that someone kills everyone else around for resources, and nobody has any education or anything, and we're back at square one.
So... resources + education = civilisation? This may be a YMMV situation. And if all the rest of the world's dead it'll be a fair while before we need to squabble over resources.
Well, not exactly, but the education would be needed after a while. Otherwise we'd never be able to become anything better than savages.
This is getting dangerously close to lizard people territory. How d'you think we worked stuff out the first time round? It's not because some previous brand of people left schools behind. We figured stuff out ourselves. No reason that ability would change.
Maybe it won't be the same, but it'll do it. Honestly, ye of little faith :)
This is if, of course, the prophesyed doom ever comes to pass, which I think you'll find most people here don't believe will happen.
If they want to naively deny the fact that they're about to die horribly in a nuclear apocalypse, whatever. Ignorance is bliss.
Happiness is what we all strive for, after all; everything we do is in pursuit of joy - lots of people get bogged down in money or power as a means of being happy and forget to be happy in the progress, but it's still the truth. Bomb-builders are the same; they're convinced the only way they can be happy is to get rid of apparent threats to their happiness, which apparently includes the rest of the world.
So it's human nature. That said, I'm going to be very human and watch the cat play with her fluff-ball. If the world ends tomorrow, then that's the memory I want to keep. :)
Sure thing. Because I'd much rather have bliss than spend an uncertain amount of time stressing about the possibly-or-possibly-not impending apocalypse :D
a post, from you, saying you didn't like reading my posts because I was always whining about something. Pot, meet kettle. Quit being such a doom and gloom merchant, kay? The world's not going to end just because the Russians decided to beef up their military. If you think it is, then go and hide under your own little rock and stop crying to the rest of us, because we'd like to get on with our not doing impressions of Chicken Little.
Leave the snarky comments for the suethors.
I think we're at a fist bump moment.
Yay for the unholy power of Science!
Many things are impossible. This does not mean they cannot be done. This means we need to change our way of thinking to incorporate how they may be done.
If we look at things and measure things and make testable hypotheses, we can do ANYTHING, eventually!
I mean, how's this for a minor miracle? I'm currently sitting in a building that contains a machine that can date the oldest rocks in the known universe, or tell me exactly how old a mollusc shell is, or the sea temperature thirty million years ago, or the atmospheric makeup over the South Pole four thousand years ago. None of that was possible even twenty years ago. Also, it has a great big shiny laser in it. Hells yeah.
If doom comes, we are prepared!
And set it to be aimed at the secret underground lair of the Big Bad Paki-Russo-Chino-Commie terorists of doom? Huzzah! For we are saved through the power of Science!
On a possibly marginally less facetious note, you'll be fine come the Bomb. Not only are you at the arse end of nowhere, but you also kow how to hide under a table, and have enough Biology knowledge to breed the Ubermenschen in the vacuum left by the destruction of the western world. See, being second world has its benefits.
Yes, hiding under tables is special secret knowledge they tell you when you study seismology (actually, that's true - this stuff about standing under the doorway is bullcrap - get under the nearest heavy piece of furniture and face AWAY from any glass).
Scientists in general will survive and we will rebuild the world sensibly! I think entomologists will rise to power first, actually, using secrets gleaned from cockroaches.
You know, I'm fairly sure it's not. It's kind of like going to the moon, except it takes, say, three years for Mars.
Once you're there, you don't have to terraform the whole planet. You build a vast covered structure and live inside it.
You're just determined to revel in the destruction of everything, aren't you? Have a little faith in human ingenuity. It's got us this far, after all.
...set it in a stable orbit, and then rotate it to produce centrifugal gravity. Also, what about boarding the International Space Station, turn the current occupants to clam chowder, and modify it to last a thousand years.
Oh wait, the thread's adjourned. see ya later!
But we need to save the sum total of all human knowlegde first. What should we salvage first, Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica?
I mean, unless these hypothetical nukes are somehow going to take out the entire internet, there's no problem.
I think whoever wants to start something might target the Internet first. After all, according to Popular Science magazine, our precious intrawebz are just a bunch of fiber-optic cords at the bottom of the ocean. Remove some, and there's no connectivity in a certain part of the world.
So if there is going to be a nuclear holocaust, I predict that the intrawebz are going to get cut first and thusly cut off communications from the rest of the world. After all those virus and hacker stuff, a physical attack on the Internet is likely to be on a terrorist's list of things to do before nuking the planet.
(*taps foot* Where are the spaceships and battlestars when you need them?)
However, computers are essential to the functioning of a space colony; and may have to hold tons of information. And books, even heavy ones, can be carried by hand.
PS: I'm only semi-serious about this. Can we find somplace to continue this disscusion on this thread umm...gets swamped by an influx of new ones?
...my pidgin is very handy for that. Addresses are:
birgit dot fishwife at gmail dot com
johnny underscore rat at msn dot com
And on AOL my username is AgentPads.
I use Yahoo Mail. Any problems with that?
I could really do with the distraction from the Old Norse grammar...
Also, I don't have Chat tools or Chat anything. Quick exchange of Emails?
Use the gmail one.
I guess I'm stuck with the declensions for the next couple of hours. Buggeration.
My internet died due to some technobabble thingy. This will be also on the gmail post.
My internet died due to some technobabble thingy.
They have the atomic bomb, and there are many fanatics with nothing to lose standing mere inches from power. And the situation with India, another country with weapons of mass destruction, is quite tense.
What worries me about Russia is not the new weapons they plan to get, but how they will dispose of the old ones. A few million dollars in the right pockets could put something very dangerous in the hands of a terrorist.
Pakistan, India, Iran, Korea, Russia, and the US all launching their nukes would leave nothing left. And the US and Russia alone have enough nukes to reduce the Earth to glowing green rock. Imagine what happens if all the other nuke-happy fellows join in when the big boys start throwing nuclear punches?
I would like to think that the world's sanity quotient is higher than that. Pretty much all of the current crop of leaders were born during the Cold War, they know what the specter of nuclear terror looks like. They have no reason to want to resurrect such a nasty ghost.
Pretty much everyone who's got nukes is waiting for an excuse to use 'em, and most of them are about to get that excuse, especially with the next Great Depression and Russia going all USSR again. Even if we don't get nuked into oblivion, we'll see a more conventional WW3.
Fine, entertain your doomsday. Even if I did agree with the idea, I can't very well do jack about it, being as I am a poor college student. So I will ignore it and focus on what I can do.
Namely, readin' and writin'.
Just... just please stop, okay? Please. I don't need to hear this. You sound like a doomsayer sitting on a rock in Israel.
Things will be fine. All right? Things will be fine. Remember that. They have been MUCH worse, and we have been MUCH closer to nuclear armageddon before than now. And the world isn't glowing yet.