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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
 Posted - 03/19/2002 : 19:24:44 [Permalink]
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[quote]
In Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" (the book, not the fascist movie version), Buenos Aires gets clobbered by an alien attack... nuclear, maybe, or was it an asteroid?[/quote]
Actually, in both versions Buenos Aires gets wipped off the face of the planet. In fact, IIRC, Buenos Aires being destroyed was what made Rico decide to "reenlist" after he started heading down the "Walk of Shame".
In the movie Buenoe Aires is destroyed by (an?) asteroid(s?).
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." -Buddha
Edited by - James on 03/19/2002 19:27:05 |
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Zandermann
Skeptic Friend
USA
431 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2002 : 19:59:46 [Permalink]
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wonder what Jared Diamond (<u>Guns, Germs and Steel</u>) would have to say about this?
"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead." |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2002 : 13:05:21 [Permalink]
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My theory is that the world will wink out of existence when @tomic adds "just one more will make it perfect" bell & whistle to the site.
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It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment.
----Eusebius of Nicomedia,
The Preparation of the Gospel |
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Mr. Spock
Skeptic Friend
USA
99 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2002 : 14:35:02 [Permalink]
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I said "in a whimper," hoping that I'm wrong. The history of human civilization seems to be that of small-scale excellence and greatness amidst rampant stupidity, especially when it comes to long-term thinking. I'm almost certain (again, I hope that I'm wrong) that our collective myopia will culminate in a gradual attrition of human civilization, long before the sun explodes and wipes out the solar system. (This is not to say that we shouldn't do whatever we can to prevent this from happening).
Some have speculated, often jokingly (I know that Carlin has a bit about this) that the earth has a mechanism for eliminating "troublesome" species, such as homo sapiens, once they have served their purpose in terms of the biological or geological evolution of the planet as a whole. I suppose that this would presuppose a certain evolutionary teleology, which I think that evolutionary theorists such as Gould have suceeded in dispelling. Any feedback?
"The world will not end in fire and ice, but in paperwork and nostalgia." --Frank Zappa
"Great things are not accomplished by those who yeild to trends and fads and popular opinion." --Charles Kuralt |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2002 : 15:17:32 [Permalink]
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[quote]
Some have speculated, often jokingly (I know that Carlin has a bit about this) that the earth has a mechanism for eliminating "troublesome" species, such as homo sapiens, once they have served their purpose in terms of the biological or geological evolution of the planet as a whole. I suppose that this would presuppose a certain evolutionary teleology, which I think that evolutionary theorists such as Gould have suceeded in dispelling. Any feedback?
[/quote]
I don't think there ever was any serious theory that involved evolution having an aim. This is mostly thought by people who have misundertood the idea like crationists.
You don't have to belive in gaia or any other theory of aimed response by nature to our presence to fear, that our environment might get rid of us, if we cause to much trouble.
I don't think that any organism has any special purpose in advancing the whole sytem to a ceratain goal. I like to think of our environment as a creafully balanced mobile. Sure it is a dynamic balance that is never quite in rest and always changing. The problem is that we are still a part of it.
There won't be any counscious response to our upsetting the system. Just like a boat won't dunk you on purpose into the water for rocking it.
A system doesn't has to be aimed or controled to be selfregulating.
We might get ourself klled and 'nature' will find a new more stable balance after we are gone, but not because anyone thought to solve a problem by eleminating us.
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NottyImp
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
143 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2002 : 04:50:47 [Permalink]
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The world is going to end?
Why didn't someone tell me?!
"Be realistic, demand the impossible" - graffiti from Paris, May 1968. |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2002 : 05:28:08 [Permalink]
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Hmmmm, How should the world end? Rather badly, I should think.
"The Constitution ..., is a marvelous document for self-government by Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society." P. Robertson |
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2002 : 05:57:57 [Permalink]
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quote:
The world is going to end?
Why didn't someone tell me?!
What's really going to cook your goose is when you realize the world has already ended and you just missed it.
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
-Niels Bohr
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2002 : 12:45:13 [Permalink]
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I think that at the rate we are going, civilization, if not the world, will end in a devestating burst of flatulece punctuated by official demands to find out, "WHO SHIT!?!?"
With neither a bang nor a whimper, but a puuttTTTTT!
f
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2002 : 20:12:40 [Permalink]
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The sun is going to end up as a red giant star later to become a white dwarf star and eventually to become a black dwarf star. Humans will not live to see any of this, because in the process of becoming a red giant star, all possibility of life in the Solar System will end. White dwarf stars cannot sustain life. And black dwarf stars are mere dark bodies at temperatures approaching absolute zero. Other star systems would meet the same end, so, even if it were possible to do so, mankind would need to jump from star system to star system to keep going. Eventually, the galaxy will come to an end and that would be that. There would be absolutely no possibility of travel from one galaxy to another. In a few billion years, the Andromeda galaxy is expected to merge with the Milky Way which might cause a lot of new star formation.
The idea of interstellar travel is just a dream which cannot happen except in movies and television programs. The many centuries it would take to get to the nearest star system would prevent this. Nothing with mass can travel anywhere near the speed of light (299,792,458 meters per second [m/s]). The ability to sustain life on a space ship over very, very long periods of time would be impossible. Sheer boredom would be one result of space travel. One would have to carry everything one would ever need for many centuries on board the spaceship which would make the spaceship so massive that it would not be able to accelerate.
Personally, I think that humans will find a way to do away with each other (and everything else here on Earth) long before we could get the capability for space travel even to the nearest star (which would take centuries).
ljbrs (a/k/a Killjoy)
"Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error." Goethe |
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Mespo_man
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2002 : 05:54:44 [Permalink]
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quote:
"The sun is going to end up as a red giant star later to become a white dwarf star and eventually to become a black dwarf star. Humans will not live to see any of this, because in the process of becoming a red giant star, all possibility of life in the Solar System will end...In a few billion years, the Andromeda galaxy is expected to merge with the Milky Way which might cause a lot of new star formation."
I'm afraid, ljbrs, the current status quo of the Sun will reign supreme. You overlook the litigious nature of Western society. Native Americans will petition against the Sun becoming a "red giant" as it will cast them in the role as being anti-Earth, belligerent and aggressive. The Association of Little People will take issue with the Sun becoming a white dwarf. They're still smarting from their shabby portrayal in Snow White. The NAACP will also come down hard on attempts to convert the Sun to a black dwarf. A black hole has equally bad connotations. Finally, the Insurance Institute will demand punitive damages be awarded if the Andromeda Galaxy, with millions of years of advanced warning, still manages to careen into the Milky Way. Such blatant disregard for inter-galactic rules of the road would lead to unprecedented class action suits.
(:raig
Edited by - mespo_man on 04/26/2002 07:21:51 |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2002 : 13:56:28 [Permalink]
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Hi ljbrs,
I'm going to be Mr. Insane Optimist here - just for fun.
Chippewa
=========
ljbrs:
The sun is going to end up as a red giant star later to become a white dwarf star and eventually to become a black dwarf star. Humans will not live to see any of this, because in the process of becoming a red giant star, all possibility of life in the Solar System will end.
Chip:
Possibly. There is one theory (based on the hypothetical unobserved process of red giant expansion,) that proposes the swelling sun will gravitationally push some planets, including Earth, into larger orbits and perhaps maintain surface temperature equilibrium. It's hardly written in stone - just one theoretical model. (Sorry, don't remember who said it.)
ljbrs:
White dwarf stars cannot sustain life. And black dwarf stars are mere dark bodies at temperatures approaching absolute zero.
Chip:
You're probably right. Except if somebody was able to establish a colony or artificial "world" around a white dwarf after said white dwarf settled down to a stable star. The location of the "world" would be within the star's narrow "life zone" temperature. Since white dwarfs are incredibly stable (if left alone with no binary companion to draw plasma and create dangerous periodic bursts,) they could provide a long term solution.
"Black dwarf" - do you mean black hole? (Which the Sun is not destined to be.) Or like a darker brown dwarf?
ljbrs:
Other star systems would meet the same end, so, even if it were possible to do so, mankind would need to jump from star system to star system to keep going. Eventually, the galaxy will come to an end and that would be that.
Chip:
My, what a cheerful fellow you are today. How's this? Mankind (soft, two sexes, bipeds in assorted shapes and colors,) would be long gone, but perhaps transcend and meld with what were called in their dim past "machines" and are actually just part of a long term natural selection within evolution. They will become various "life forms" far beyond the simplistic TV alien models.
ljbrs:
There would be absolutely no possibility of travel from one galaxy to another.
Chip:
Absolutely true. (For human beings living in the early 21st century.) For some sort of far-flung "living light" self-aware, sentient galactic consciousness that evolved from our primitive beginnings -- a consciousness where time is zero at "c" and everything is instantaneous....maybe not.
ljbrs:
In a few billion years, the Andromeda galaxy is expected to merge with the Milky Way which might cause a lot of new star formation.
Chip:
Maybe this sentient galactic consciousness, that was once "us" and perhaps a few others in the Milky Way we haven't met yet, will "know" this, and sow the seeds of future life forms via the solar systems created in this new star formation? (This may sound too "hocus pocus", and I'm not thinking of New Age pseudo-science at all, I'm just suggesting an alternate way of existing that we may see no connection to from where we are now.)
ljbrs:
The idea of interstellar travel is just a dream which cannot happen except in movies and television programs. The many centuries it would take to get to the nearest star system would prevent this. Nothing with mass can travel anywhere near the speed of light (299,792,458 meters per second [m/s]).
Chip:
Anywhere near? How about 85% of the speed of light, cutting the trip to a nearby system to only a mere 600 years.
ljbrs:
The ability to sustain life on a space ship over very, very long periods of time would be impossible.
Chip:
Are you sure? Impossible is awfully ironclad in certainty.
ljbrs:
Sheer boredom would be one result of space travel. One would have to carry everything one would ever need for many centuries on board the spaceship which would make the spaceship so massive that it would not be able to accelerate.
Chip:
One should never say "never". Boredom is the easiest part to fix. The long term space craft is actually designed to sustain human life permanently. Smaller steps precede larger once. The used of robots precedes humans, or supercedes them.
ljbrs:
Personally, I think that humans will find a way to do away with each other (and everything else here on Earth) long before we could get the capability for space travel even to the nearest star (which would take centuries).
Chip:
Here's an even scarier notion. we accept ourselves as a beautiful, intelligent, violent, stupid species. We simply accept the fact that we'll always have war. We fight against it, we try to better ourselves, but we simply accept it too. We go to the stars when we have reason too. (It becomes profitable perhaps.) No prime directive - just survival. Who knows?
"Speaking without thinking like shooting without aiming." - Charlie Chan |
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 04/29/2002 : 05:42:17 [Permalink]
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ljbrs:
The idea of interstellar travel is just a dream which cannot happen except in movies and television programs. The many centuries it would take to get to the nearest star system would prevent this. Nothing with mass can travel anywhere near the speed of light (299,792,458 meters per second [m/s]).
Actually this isn't true, is it? Particles, (ie: mass), are hurled from black holes and pulsars, in polar jets, at very near the speed of light. Me tinks a stellar trip of about a century's duration, even just shy of, is within our present day's technology, albeit much of it as yet untested. Really ljbrs, for one with such faith in the scientific method, you make such absolute statements. Yet, your dismissal of possibilities, would suggest a lack of confidence in science's ability to solve problems...
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire |
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Mespo_man
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2002 : 07:03:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Actually this isn't true, is it? Particles, (ie: mass), are hurled from black holes and pulsars, in polar jets, at very near the speed of light. Me tinks a stellar trip of about a century's duration, even just shy of, is within our present day's technology, albeit much of it as yet untested. [NubiWan]
Okay NubiWan. Just step into the particle accelerator for the trip of a lifetime. You first, of course. Let me know how you, uhhh, come out...so to speak. 
(:raig |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2002 : 08:38:53 [Permalink]
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How indeed will the world end? A bang? A whimper? The sloshing sounds of a global ocean?
Or the demented giggle of a Soopreme Being that forgot to take it's meds?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
f
"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
- Albert Einstein
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