Prophecies Nobody Wants to Hear, part I of V

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's probably what happened with our ancestors.

In a few dozen thousand years, they'll assume that the ice age we brought on was natural, and that the "warming trend" they're experiencing is all bullshit.



This cheers me up to no end.

WIN


'Specially since we don't write shit down on rocks anymore. How much of our knowledge and history will survive 10,000 years from now, if we haven't gone extinct?

I wonder if people were saying that before the last ice age?

Ha! Well, whether or not they did, we've still one-upped them.

Long after our magnetic and optical information storage has degraded past recovery, the people of 12,000 AD will still be dealing with loads of our toxic leftovers.

After all, if the people of the future won't use their time travel technology to fix our problems now (and therefore their own, even if it fucks up their history), screw 'em. Taking a leaf out of your book with that attitude.

Maybe.  The last word I've heard is that 50,000 years after we're gone, all but one or two traces of us will be gone, too.

[Requia ☣]

That's probably what happened with our ancestors.

In a few dozen thousand years, they'll assume that the ice age we brought on was natural, and that the "warming trend" they're experiencing is all bullshit.



This cheers me up to no end.

WIN


'Specially since we don't write shit down on rocks anymore. How much of our knowledge and history will survive 10,000 years from now, if we haven't gone extinct?

There's a few projects to write shit down on metal plates that will supposedly last 10,000 years.  Last I checked they were busy writing down copies of dying and dead languages, instead of trying to warn our decedents of how we fucked up though.  This, the nuclear waste, and the bizarre deformed bones of people who weighed 400 pounds will be the only traces left by then.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There's a few projects to write shit down on metal plates that will supposedly last 10,000 years.  Last I checked they were busy writing down copies of dying and dead languages, instead of trying to warn our decedents of how we fucked up though. 

You know, we had a case here in Tucson, of a guy who killed someone who tried to mug him while he was getting ready to jump off an overpass.

Yeah, he killed someone in self-defense, while preparing to commit suicide.

Your story and the story I just conveyed explain why monkeys rule the planet.   

[Jasper]

That's probably what happened with our ancestors.

In a few dozen thousand years, they'll assume that the ice age we brought on was natural, and that the "warming trend" they're experiencing is all bullshit.



This cheers me up to no end.

WIN


'Specially since we don't write shit down on rocks anymore. How much of our knowledge and history will survive 10,000 years from now, if we haven't gone extinct?

I wonder if people were saying that before the last ice age?

Ha! Well, whether or not they did, we've still one-upped them.

Long after our magnetic and optical information storage has degraded past recovery, the people of 12,000 AD will still be dealing with loads of our toxic leftovers.

After all, if the people of the future won't use their time travel technology to fix our problems now (and therefore their own, even if it fucks up their history), screw 'em. Taking a leaf out of your book with that attitude.

Maybe.  The last word I've heard is that 50,000 years after we're gone, all but one or two traces of us will be gone, too.

Copper statues.  Radio signals.  Anything else?  Nuclear waste maybe.

[Remington]

That's probably what happened with our ancestors.

In a few dozen thousand years, they'll assume that the ice age we brought on was natural, and that the "warming trend" they're experiencing is all bullshit.



This cheers me up to no end.

WIN


'Specially since we don't write shit down on rocks anymore. How much of our knowledge and history will survive 10,000 years from now, if we haven't gone extinct?

I wonder if people were saying that before the last ice age?

Ha! Well, whether or not they did, we've still one-upped them.

Long after our magnetic and optical information storage has degraded past recovery, the people of 12,000 AD will still be dealing with loads of our toxic leftovers.

After all, if the people of the future won't use their time travel technology to fix our problems now (and therefore their own, even if it fucks up their history), screw 'em. Taking a leaf out of your book with that attitude.

Maybe.  The last word I've heard is that 50,000 years after we're gone, all but one or two traces of us will be gone, too.

Copper statues.  Radio signals.  Anything else?  Nuclear waste maybe.

Keanu Reeves.

[Cain]

I like to think 21,000 years ago, at least one of our ancestors was saying "goddamn, why does it have to be so fucking hot all the time?  I could really go for a white Christmas, and some mammoth burgers".

And then he was stoned to death once the giant ice sheets started crushing everything in their path.

Incidentally, in the last two books I've been reading, both on totally different subjects, Milkantovich cycles have come up.  I'm not sure if this is even that relevant to the thread, but they sure are interesting.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

[LMNO]

Has anyone brought up the (admittedly implausible) idea of going off-planet?  You could even worst-case scenario it, and make it into Blade Runner or Total Recall -- but you would still be spreading the population around rather than killing it.

[Cain]

Not that I know of, though I did think that as well.  Of course, there are as many problems with that as it could solve, such as the energy and labour intense nature of support such colonies would need over the long term, the legal status of such colonies etc etc  and as far as we know, those ice deposits on the Moon and Mars are nonreplaceable, and so a very limited resource over the long term.  Of course, terraforming may be able to eventually bring about a climate where such fresh water stores become replenishible, but if we master the science of that, I think the need for offworld colonies would also be significantly lessened.

[BadBeast]

Has anyone brought up the (admittedly implausible) idea of going off-planet?  You could even worst-case scenario it, and make it into Blade Runner or Total Recall -- but you would still be spreading the population around rather than killing it.

The sheer distances involved would mean we'd have to evolve a prescient Guild of Spice abusing spacers, and find a shitload of Melange. (Or it's Terran equivalent) But I'd be up for  
any experimentation. Also, I had a weird dream a couple of years ago, about escaping the Earth, but the most memorable thing about it, was that we could breath perfectly well out there, and the "Cold, empty vacuum" model of Space was a lie, told by the Governments to discourage people from going up there. And for all I know, you really can breath in space.

[Captain Utopia]

Not that I know of, though I did think that as well.  Of course, there are as many problems with that as it could solve, such as the energy and labour intense nature of support such colonies would need over the long term, the legal status of such colonies etc etc  and as far as we know, those ice deposits on the Moon and Mars are nonreplaceable, and so a very limited resource over the long term.  Of course, terraforming may be able to eventually bring about a climate where such fresh water stores become replenishible, but if we master the science of that, I think the need for offworld colonies would also be significantly lessened.

It's estimated that there are about 600 million tons of water at the lunar north pole, in sheets a couple of meters thick.  So let's take an over-estimate of water usage based on what we currently use - about 100 gallons per day per person.  This would be much less when you take recycling and water-conservation methods into account.  But anyway, at that given rate you've got about half a million person-years of water available.

Given that half the difficulty of the Apollo missions was getting people back to Earth - dumping supplies and materials on the moon would be a lot easier than that.  If there existed the political will, we could have a sustainable, or near-sustainable moonbase within a decade - we've solved most of the major technical challenges with the existing space stations.

[Cuddlefish]

Has anyone brought up the (admittedly implausible) idea of going off-planet? 

I was going to say something about this, but I didn't want to draw any attention to myself in hostile thread.

And it's only implausible right now, if people could get their heads out of their asses for a second, we could be colonizing space in a "reasonable" amount of time.

[Captain Utopia]

I was going to say something about this, but I didn't want to draw any attention to myself in hostile thread.

Argh, it's too late... Remington noooooo!

[BadBeast]

I don't see that as totally improbable. After all, we were all brought up on a steady diet of Star Trek, and Science Fiction. Where else are we going to go? Ever since Man first looked up and saw the stars, it has been his ambition to go there. And the other day,  I was thinking, there are people alive today, who were born in a time when the only way to get off the ground, was in a hot air balloon.
They were alive when the Wright Brothers made that first flight, and when the earliest Powered Planes, made of paper, were taking their first confident flights, each going further, higher, and for longer than the last. Shortly after that, along comes the Helicopter, Jet engines, and supersonic flight. Air Travel for everyone is a reality. Then Sputnik, Telstar, Laika the Dog, Satellites, and manned Orbits. Then the crowning moment of man setting foot on the moon. The. Fucking. Moon.
All in the lifetime of one rather elderly, but still breathing, Man.
So no, hostile thread or not, I don't see why colonization of Space should be an impossibility. In fact, at the rate our technology is expanding, I'd be surprised if we didn't get to the Asteroid belt, in the next 20 years. And you know what? It wouldn't surprise me if there had already been a manned flight to Mars. On the quiet, maybe, but it's not beyond present technology at all.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGyeULvpQdY&feature=related

And if they have been to Mars, don't forget, Hawkwind were the first to
tell us.   

[Requia ☣]

Even if we pull of world colonization off, and millions of people leave for a successful mars colony (or just strip mine the asteroid belt, easier really), that still leaves billions of people in Earth.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

We have fucked everything up.  By we, I mean the human race.  By everything, well I meant everything.

We are a world of denial.  A world of procrastination. A world of passing the buck.  The problem is, while we can deny, put off or pass the blame all we want, the problems are still running rampant around us.  Choosing to ignore or avoid something amazingly does not make it go away.

We elect people who make empty promises to fix things that have been broken thru a decade of elections.  We fight wars no one can win, we let our peers dictate our decision making process.  We stand on the curb and watch the movement walk past.

So what, you ask, is the answer?  Well the solution is for people to step up to the plate and get shit done.  Demand that the governments find a way to balance their budgets.  To make environmentally acceptable alternatives for everyday fuel usage.  Something that is either self sustaining or at least rechargeable.   To limit offspring before we have more mouths than food.  To get control of the population booms in the third world countries and get control of population growth.  Or, and as terrible as it sounds, natural selection is natural selection, let people die.  Space or sea colonization might be a temporary fix, but it won't last, we'll just muck that up as well.

Unfortunately this would require the majority of the world population to make that demand and that is never going to happen.

We can come up with all the cures we want, there is only one simple problem.  People are not going to do shit.

I simply told my children not to bother to procreate.  Much easier to be the end of a line than know you have great great grandchildren watching the fucking world collapse.