[Garsun]

0:48

-Fuck...FUCK!!!
-What the fuck was that?! What was that?
-A fucking bombing! A fucking preliminary bombardment!!!

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Natural events: eh, happen all the time.

Natural events involving hurtling, flaming rocks from space: exponential increase in "oh shit, this is scary".

Here's hoping the human population gets lucky for a few more million years.

[Kodaemon]

FoggyFishburne said:

Glad it didn't hit in the centre of, say, Paris :| ›››

Glad it didn't hit where it did in, say, the 1960's.

[Wichat]

Aver said:

The best thing is that when I was checking this morning Google News, I see news:
"NASA: There is no chance that meteorite will hit the earth"
and news below:
"Meteorite hit in the Russia"

Screw you NASA. I won't trust you ever again. ›››

NASA: Never Ask for a Sure Answer

[Costin Moroianu]

cmdr_flashheart said:

Natural events: eh, happen all the time.the human population gets lucky for a few more million years. ›››

Here's hoping our bombs get bigger so we can blow them out of the sky.

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Bad idea to shoot at them that close But I know what you mean.

[WhySoGreedy?]

when i saw this in the news my first thought was 'So god plays dota2 too' but then they mentioned about injuries and i wish there will be nothing more serious about good old folks around there.

[Costin Moroianu]

cmdr_flashheart said:

Bad idea to shoot at them that close /> But I know what you mean. ›››

The real problem is finding the asteroids who are going to smash into our planet but after I wouldn't worry too much since we can build this:



http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Tsar_Bomba

The Tsar Bomba, the 57 Megaton bomb the soviets built during the cold war. It's so powerful that they scaled it down from 100 megatons so that the airplane drooping it wouldn't be destroyed.

Surprisingly it releases very little radiation for it's amazing power. It's scary as shit, but we would need to find a way to build a rocket to fire the asteroid with. It wouldn't necessarily destroy it but it could change it's course.

If there's one thing one learns from this it's the following: Don't fuck with Russia.

[Sirnaq]

Im not sure if atomic bomb is as effective in space. I mean, no shock-wave.

[Wichat]

Sirnaq said:

Im not sure if atomic bomb is as effective in space. I mean, no shock-wave. ›››

Not sonic-shock-wave... but radiation-shock-wave, which comparing with those solar explosion they have nothing to do...

[Pangaea]

Since we can build shit like that bomb above, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get hit by a huge asteroid and wipe the floor with us, before we start to spread to other planets.

If we were to evolve to value life and peace above war and death, we deserve a place in the universe.

[Aaden]

Pangaea said:

If we were to evolve to value life and peace above war and death, we deserve a place in the universe. ›››

Sadly the way power works contradicts that wish.
Ultimately, power will fall to the one who resorts to violence, because the peaceful ones have nothing to put against him to keep him from taking it. So, even if humanity at large was peaceful, all it would take is one scumbag to spoil it all.
I failed to come up with a solution for that in thinking about a better world, yet.

On topic of the asteroid hitting us: I think the problem is far more complex. It's not about the firepower to destroy it. We have that. It's about finding a threat early and getting rid of it in a way that doesn't turn one big rock into a shotgun-like spray of smaller rocks. And I'm sure there's a lot more issues involved, we non-astronomers and non-physicists can't even grasp for a lack of knowledge. I don't think we're in any place to discuss it properly...

[M4xw0lf]

Pangaea said:

Since we can build shit like that bomb above, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get hit by a huge asteroid and wipe the floor with us, before we start to spread to other planets.

If we were to evolve to value life and peace above war and death, we deserve a place in the universe. ›››

This might just require being able to pulverize an incoming asteroid some day

[Costin Moroianu]

Pangaea said:

Since we can build shit like that bomb above, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get hit by a huge asteroid and wipe the floor with us, before we start to spread to other planets.

If we were to evolve to value life and peace above war and death, we deserve a place in the universe. ›››

Do you for a second believe humanity has become the dominant species on this planet by valuing peace and life? No. It became the dominant species by being the top predator, the smartest, most intelligent and deadliest species out there. Our way of life as we have right now is as direct result as to how we've tamed this planet.

Survival of the fittest. Valuing peace and life is all well and fine but the wealth the first world countries enjoy comes as a result of their imperialism and colonialism. Europe built it's wealth upon the backs of Africa, Asia and to a point America while the US built it's wealth upon the backs of Latin America.

You say we should only deserve a place in the universe if we let go of war. I say that when we meet the first sapient alien species we should have the biggest guns available just in case they decide to conquer us.

[Guy N'wah]

M4xw0lf said:

This might just require being able to pulverize an incoming asteroid some day /> ›››

Knocking it off course is a safer and more likely course of action. Blowing it to bits means those bits are going to go off in unpredictable directions, possibly including some large fragments on a collision course with a populated area.

It doesn't take an atomic bomb, just a damned big paintball gun: http://web.mit.edu/n...balls-1026.html

[guipit]

Guy N said:

Knocking it off course is a safer and more likely course of action. Blowing it to bits means those bits are going to go off in unpredictable directions, possibly including some large fragments on a collision course with a populated area.

It doesn't take an atomic bomb, just a damned big paintball gun: http://web.mit.edu/n...balls-1026.html ›››

pretty much this. I keep hearing how NASA can predict where stuff will hit 20 years before it actually does so I felt safe then I hear this kind of shit.

Hopefully people invest more money in space so that this and something even worse won't happen again.

[charmes]

It's terrible. We can't feel safe even when we sits at home.

[Wichat]

charmes said:

It's terrible. We can't feel safe even when we sits at home. ›››

The most terrible is forget that we've born to die, so in that term, there's no site where to hide />

[Sirnaq]

Imagine that in few centuries we will take most of our wealth from mining colonies on mars and moon. Imagine all that potential in our solar system. Imagine harvesting infinite energy directly from the sun. In fact we conquered only this small piece of rock while we have whole system for ourselves.

[Pangaea]

Aaden said:

Sadly the way power works contradicts that wish.
Ultimately, power will fall to the one who resorts to violence, because the peaceful ones have nothing to put against him to keep him from taking it. So, even if humanity at large was peaceful, all it would take is one scumbag to spoil it all.
I failed to come up with a solution for that in thinking about a better world, yet. ›››

Unfortunately there is a lot of truth in that, which history is filled with. There was a short passage in V for Vendetta that got to the core of it. I'm paraphrasing here:

"What do you think will happen?"
"What always happens when people without guns stand up to people with guns"

It doesn't always go like that of course, Gandhi's India probably being the prime example, but usually it does. However, thanks to countercurrents and slow development over long periods of time, things have improved in some respects. We have democracy and relatively free lives, compared to generations before us. That wasn't forced through at gun point by the power that were, but generally speaking went in the other direction, from the "little man" to the powerful landowners. So it's not all bad.

Costin Moroianu said:

Do you for a second believe humanity has become the dominant species on this planet by valuing peace and life? No. It became the dominant species by being the top predator, the smartest, most intelligent and deadliest species out there. Our way of life as we have right now is as direct result as to how we've tamed this planet.

Survival of the fittest. Valuing peace and life is all well and fine but the wealth the first world countries enjoy comes as a result of their imperialism and colonialism. Europe built it's wealth upon the backs of Africa, Asia and to a point America while the US built it's wealth upon the backs of Latin America.

You say we should only deserve a place in the universe if we let go of war. I say that when we meet the first sapient alien species we should have the biggest guns available just in case they decide to conquer us. ›››

I don't disagree with the short view into history there. Mankind is a brutal, hellish beast. If we just look at history at least. However, there are certain peaceful traits in us too. It's survival of the fittest, not survival of the strongest or survival of the most brutal. Humans have empathy, sympathy and are in general horrible to deal with violence. Large sections of "veterans" having post-traumatic stress issues is one indication. This is still a huge problem today, despite most Western militaries being professionalised rather than drafted. So, despite years and years of training in how to kill people and deal with it, they still have problems. To me, that says something about human evolution favouring more peaceful ways to live amongst one another, rather than to go out and kill each other at every opportunity.

Yes, this goes against what I wrote initially really. But I'm just so bloody fed up of bloodthirsty politicians running into wars and violence at seemingly every turn, the media largely following them (and often cheerleading them there), while the average Joe or Jane and so forth are paying the price - in lost lives, lost property, lost future and destroyed economies. Often not just in whoever is targetted for the latest war or spike in violence, but also in the home country or society.

Due to this very lopsided dynamic, yes, maybe it's not the best idea for our species to spread to other planets and spread our wars into outer space and potentially against whoever we may one day (in the very distant future) run into there.

"Come oooon Cooooomet!"