Asteroid right ahead Captain!

[Guest Wellington]

save our skins

Hi

That is where I find trouble... I do not think that there can be any skin saving in that kind of event. We live in a bubble, correctly defined and bordered, and we, through evolution, managed to come over it, master some of its feats. We also managed to become technological beings: we are able to figure out things that are not in front of us, that are not solid, that are not - dot. All that we do is in respect of the scale of our existence. Even space travel, as extraordinary as can be, is reduced to our little abilities, our little resources.

My point is, as of now, if we want to gather millions of tons of material, we need dozens of people for months and months. A space object over the head is those millions of tons in one shot, compactly gathered, and hurled at thousands of mph. That is simply beyond us, it is super-human. We are not even meant to understand it yet. We may find difficult to fly a 70 meter long plane, so how could we come to think that an asteroid can be avoided or diverted or anything else?

I am pretty sure that the day such a menace will become real, that a countdown is begun, no one should even bother to ask what to do. Half of everything in life is luck, and the other half is fate. This would be fate. Much more fate than wmd or genocide or hit and run killing. This is the final line of man's great history. Survivors would not be the lucky one, if there are any. In fact, getting one in the face would be for sure one thing that every inhabitant of this planet will share, with no discrimation of any kind. It would level us to a point where efficiency is not even an appropriate word.

And there would be no one to hear us scream, no camera to shoot tragedies. We would be all alone, and all together for maybe the one and last time. That would be a time when glory, heroics, courage, fear, joy, sadness would have no meaning any more. We use to live by the image we project on one another, and then there would be nothing in return for what we would do, whatever we would do. There would be nothing to remember and nothing to be remembered.

Not to say it brightens my mood...  

Regards

[Guest nuno]

Hi folks, no panic ok! This is only a matter of will. How many years took to put a man on the moon with early tecnology. How long it took to resolve the y2k problem. Ladys and gentleman do not fear, it's just a matter of dollars. I remember seen a guy on tv saying that if there where an investement on aids research like there was on the y2k, the aids problem would probably been solved. So no worries because if some problem afect also the establishment they will be taken care of. I start to sound like Mulder.

[Guest se7en]

Hi

That is where I find trouble... I do not think that there can be any skin saving in that kind of event. We live in a bubble, correctly defined and bordered, and we, through evolution, managed to come over it, master some of its feats. We also managed to become technological beings: we are able to figure out things that are not in front of us, that are not solid, that are not - dot. All that we do is in respect of the scale of our existence. Even space travel, as extraordinary as can be, is reduced to our little abilities, our little resources.

My point is, as of now, if we want to gather millions of tons of material, we need dozens of people for months and months. A space object over the head is those millions of tons in one shot, compactly gathered, and hurled at thousands of mph. That is simply beyond us, it is super-human. We are not even meant to understand it yet. We may find difficult to fly a 70 meter long plane, so how could we come to think that an asteroid can be avoided or diverted or anything else?

I am pretty sure that the day such a menace will become real, that a countdown is begun, no one should even bother to ask what to do. Half of everything in life is luck, and the other half is fate. This would be fate. Much more fate than wmd or genocide or hit and run killing. This is the final line of man's great history. Survivors would not be the lucky one, if there are any. In fact, getting one in the face would be for sure one thing that every inhabitant of this planet will share, with no discrimation of any kind. It would level us to a point where efficiency is not even an appropriate word.

And there would be no one to hear us scream, no camera to shoot tragedies. We would be all alone, and all together for maybe the one and last time. That would be a time when glory, heroics, courage, fear, joy, sadness would have no meaning any more. We use to live by the image we project on one another, and then there would be nothing in return for what we would do, whatever we would do. There would be nothing to remember and nothing to be remembered.

Not to say it brightens my mood...  

Regards

WELLY: "YOU MUST BE GREAT AT PARTIES."

                                        ~se7en

[Guest 19:19]

My point is, as of now, if we want to gather millions of tons of material, we need dozens of people for months and months. A space object over the head is those millions of tons in one shot, compactly gathered, and hurled at thousands of mph. That is simply beyond us, it is super-human. We are not even meant to understand it yet. We may find difficult to fly a 70 meter long plane, so how could we come to think that an asteroid can be avoided or diverted or anything else?

Why not they did it on Futurama!

Plus tv has proven to show that in the end,

everything will be okay. And tv knows best.

[Guest Wellington]

"YOU MUST BE GREAT AT PARTIES."

Yeah... not much tip left when the show is over...    But seriously, some people managed to like me for my occasional non-fun. I wonder if they are still alive...  

Why not they did it on Futurama!

Plus tv has proven to show that in the end,

everything will be okay. And tv knows best.

To be honest, I am not particularly in a hurry to see man crying after his cartoons heroes to save his life as he used to do at the age of 4-5. Same phenomenon, other age: I would anticipate a boom in religious recruitings! There will not be enough churches/temples/mosquees/synagogues to welcome every one. If Nature decided to tidy things up, it will give us this bloody odd out of 909000. 909000... In front of such greatness, what other answer than "sh*t!"?

Now, mind you, it could be worse (yes). What if Jehova's witnesses were right and there were only 144000 seats in paradise. We are 6000000000 on earth. 6000000000... The odds one of us gets to Heaven are 1 out of 41667. That means that if Nature has it its way, in 14 years from now, each of us has one chance out of 37875000000 to go directly to Heaven, to be perfectly sure to go there. What I will remember: if I pick this chance out of 37875000000, there is no need to get any insurance. I would be very lucky indeed!  

Regards