Steven Hawking: 'The Earth is now so dangerous that humans must find a new home'

[Sidhe]

Earth is the only option for us to be living on because there is no other planet like us that can support life like earth has for such a long time.

Is that a faith based assumption by any chance? Or do you have proof?

EDIt: Religion is frighteningly depressing at times isn't it? Who here thinks so?

 

[Elrohir]

Is that a faith based assumption by any chance? Or do you have proof?

EDIt: Religion is frighteningly depressing at times isn't it? Who here thinks so?

No more so than non-religion. For me, much less so.

 

[Evil Tyrant]

Tell that to the dinosaurs.

Then again, they didn't have weapons of mass destruction, or constant wars. We are doomed, let's face it. Don't know when, don't know how, but someday, there will be none of us left.

We are alot more adaptable than the dinosaurs were, and are a lot more organized. That is why we rule this planet in the first place. I am not worried about the extinction of our race through war or disease. These things have been with humanity for as long as it has existed and our numbers have only increased. We can and will survive.

 

[Sidhe]

No more so than non-religion. For me, much less so.

Science is exciting at least to me, I don't need to believe I get all my strength from inside and from the world around me and if not and it's inspired by God so be it, really happy either way.

Science is visionary the religion is somewhat blinded by it's own lack of understanding of the universe 4000 or so years ago. Problem I think is people tend to take what was written then literally, with knowledge of only a single planet and no knowledge of what stars were, it's a valid assumption to presume you are alone, and that space is realtively small, with stars being glowing jewels or whatever half baked nonsense passes for astronomy in your time period. Trouble is when someone reads that 4000 years later and presumes the same thing you almost feel sorry for them, then you realise they are just as happy believing that they are alone and that to me is what is depressing, sooo boring so lifeless. I just prefer the scientific view that we are not special different or better than any other part of the universe we can see so far, we're just a speck of dust floating around a Sun which itself is part of the spiral Orion arm which in turn is part of a galaxy which is one of about 125 billion galaxies. The universe is big so big in fact that our feeble minds can't encompass it, and frankly we cant encompass a speck of what is out there in our imaginations without going there, that much is apparent to me. It's also a damn site more exciting than assuming we're alone despite the huge volume we exist in, to me this is just a pipe dream, probability leaves the chance of there being no other intelligent life in the universe as being hugely unlikely. And frightheningly heliocentric.

 

[Kyriakos]

Colonising another planet will create other problems as well. Even if it is some relatively nearby planet, like Mars. The fact that the colonists would have to think about earth being the home of their ancestors, would create yet another mental corridor of associations, and possible false conclusions of instrospection, just like now already it is fairly easy to be of the view that one is deeply influenced by many facts of his life (for example his country or the history of his country).
Supposed collective nostalgia of the old planet could fill in the gaps of not carefully thought through instrospection, much like now religion fills the gaps of the equivelant for people who tend to view it that way.

In a way the world was never ready probably for any technological advance, and not of those of the magnitude we have had the past few centuries. The mere fact that knowledge has progressed in astronomical speeds towards all directions has rendered entirely obsolete the more logical ancient system of "encyclopedic knowledge", since by now it is entirely impossible for any person to have- not just complete encyclopdic knowledge- but not even all of the knowledge about his own specialised field.
It seems that humans move in very sporadic, and abrupt ways, and that this carelessness will most likely be the reason of our worst problems in the future, since already with mass culture we have been faced with a consumerist society and a web of misconceptions about any and all fields of thought.The issues of morality, behaviour, emotions and their examination, states of consciousness, the ability to think 'rationally', the ability to focus on different issues and objects of study and calculate largely arbitrarily the connections between them, along with many more abilities and capacities of the human mind, have not been examined to any satisfactory degree, and the result is that human society moves recklessly and without any plan or concensus- and is all the more, ussually, violently exuberant about such a position of it.
On the other hand antagonism reigns supreme, and basic problems such that of the so called 'generation gap', or a bit more examined ones, like the mental images of the parents and their effect on the formation of a view of the world by the child, are persisting to exist, and also serve as means of differentiation by and large, and get again thrown into the arena of social antagonism, where they form micro-cultures, to be found in each individual.

Then again there is no serious step to get rid of the worm of religion, apart from attempts to examine that phenomenon in seriousness.

There is, simply, not at all even a basic understanding of what constitutes a specific state of consciousness, how one moves inside his mind (neuropsychology tells of astronomical numbers of brain cells that participate in even the seemingly simpler mental tasks) what those moves break up to, where is the move taking place on (what forces the so called 'field of thought' and what/how forms the various corridors where one moves in the progression of a thought, and also in what time does this movement take place; is the move already complete as one is still of the view that he is nearing an end, or is the end to rise only later on from some depth where it was being prepared?
Human beings are careless, and even the more intelligent ones ussually are tied down by a myriad of pathological behaviours. But then again the sense of being part of an external world, in a way which supposedly exceedes the mere impression that one has of a notion of an external world, and a notion of a being inside it, is one of the greatrest foundations of human life, and an explanation of why people continue to exist, without needing to meet any standard for doing so.

It would seem that people have become so accustomed to the fact that they are 'social animals', that they forgot that in reality they are not part of any group if one takes away their sense that they are, and neither do they have any qualities in relation to the world, if the impression of theirs that they do is equally diminished. In reality a human being lives entirely inside its own world of thought, and there it occupies a small part, that which is covered up all around by the sense of having wordly qualities and abilities. But below that covered up ball of a human Ego, there exist the surrounding depths of the human mind, and they are not at all about any such anthropomorphic understanding of emotions, senses, thoughts, thought patterns, mental movements, urges, tendancies, fears. In reality we are pretty much made up of totally un-anthropomorphic material, and being human is mostly a dream of the socialised Ego.

Which is why i am of the view that moving to another planet is not something for which anyone is ready; much like no one was really ready for any other progress. We are still very much a relative of the animistic cave half-beast man, and we appear to have founded our differentiation from that beast by moving mostly away from any closer instrospection of ourselves.

 

[Elrohir]

Science is exciting at least to me, I don't need to believe I get all my strength from inside and from the world around me and if not and it's inspired by God so be it, really happy either way.

Science is visionary the religion is somewhat blinded by it's own lack of understanding of the universe 4000 or so years ago. Problem I think is people tend to take what was written then literally, with knowledge of only a single planet and no knowledge of what stars were, it's a valid assumption to presume you are alone, and that space is realtively small, with stars being glowing jewels or whatever half baked nonsense passes for astronomy in your time period. Trouble is when someone reads that 4000 years later and presumes the same thing you almost feel sorry for them, then you realise they are just as happy believing that they are alone and that to me is what is depressing, sooo boring so lifeless. I just prefer the scientific view that we are not special different or better than any other part of the universe we can see so far, we're just a speck of dust floating around a Sun which itself is part of the spiral Orion arm which in turn is part of a galaxy which is one of about 125 billion galaxies. The universe is big so big in fact that our feeble minds can't encompass it, and frankly we cant encompass a speck of what is out there in our imaginations without going there, that much is apparent to me. It's also a damn site more exciting than assuming we're alone despite the huge volume we exist in, to me this is just a pipe dream, probability leaves the chance of there being no other intelligent life in the universe as being hugely unlikely. And frightheningly heliocentric.

I'm not quite sure where you get all those mistaken ideas about religion, but it's not the Bible, or Christianity.

For one thing, the Bible doesn't talk about stars as jewels in the sky, or anything like that. (I believe in some Hindu creation stories, they're reflective points of light on the iron dome above us; in the Muslim Hadiths Mohammed calls them disks thrown to hit demons; but those aren't Christian stories) As for assuming we're alone - why? I believe in God, and angels, and other humans; we're hardly alone, even if there is no life outside of Earth. And to be honest, the Bible doesn't refer to life not on Earth, so as far as Christianity goes, it's completely nuetral. You can be a Christian and believe in aliens - you just might get a few funny looks if you mention that in Sunday School.

Personally, I'm rather ambivalent. I think aliens could exist, but I haven't seen evidence that they do, and I have no reason to believe that they do. Until I do, I believe that they don't. I'm a skeptic.

 

[Sidhe]

I was talking about the "science" of the times as well as the bible, I'm sure ancient Israelites had some pretty far fetched astronomical ideas? Although I'm not up on Kabala myself.

I can't see that there could not be other life given that there are 125 billion galaxies let's be conservative and say an average of about 75 billion stars in each that's a 75*125 billion stars

That's 9375000000000000000000000000 suns in the universe.

That's alot of suns and alot of places where life may have potential? Even if you go with the very conservative estimate of 1 intelligent life form per galaxy that's 125 billion intelligent life forms in the universe. Of course if there that spaced out it might be a few billion years before we meet them so for now your position is safe

 

[Elrohir]

The probably did - but to my knowledge, they didn't make it into the Bible.

I still think those odds are pretty long. Honestly, I would be suprised if there were one other intelligence in the universe. I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Smidlee]

"How are the Muslims going to pray in the direction of Meca?
How are Catholics going to host the mass in the weightlessness of space?"

Don't worry! They can all stay on earth!

I'm staying with them . you can have my share of boring lifeless space.

 

[CurtSibling]

I wonder how Religions are going to deal with living on other planets as well as aboard space ships.

How are the Muslims going to pray in the direction of Meca?
How are Catholics going to host the mass in the weightlessness of space?

I hope we have outgrown such things as religion when we colonise other worlds.

Or we could just banish religionists to their own planet.

.

 

[tomsnowman123]

26000? thats a lot, i was sure we'd dismatled most of them since the Cold War was over.
Society and the world as we know it would be very different, but we would not 'die out.'

Your right, I was wrong:

Additionally, during the Cold War the U.S. and USSR came close to nuclear warfare several times, most notably during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As of 2005, there are estimated to be at least 29,000 nuclear weapons held by at least seven countries, though 96% of these are in the possession of just two (the United States and the Russian Federation).

It's 29,000.
Source

Agreed though, that the world would not be destroyed, just drastically changed.

We can and will survive.

I hope you don't mean forever.

I think either:
A: We destroy the earth/make it inhospitable
B: Giant asteroid kills us all

There's always Yellowstone or La Palma though, in terms of mass death and destruction.

 

[mdwh]

I agree we should be exploring and moving into space more - I also believe that over a long scale, it is necessary to avoid the risk of extinction.

However, I don't follow the reasoning of moving into space as a way of avoiding disaster in the short term - even if we have global warming or a massive nuclear war, the point is that Earth will still be a more habital place than the moon or Mars. Hawking even says "We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system".

 

[tomsnowman123]

However, I don't follow the reasoning of moving into space as a way of avoiding disaster in the short term - even if we have global warming or a massive nuclear war, the point is that Earth will still be a more habital place than the moon or Mars. Hawking even says "We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system".

I would not be willing to bet money on that. It is reasonable to at least believe that one day we will have the technology to make mars and the moon perfectly hospitable places, like the earth, unless we are all dead by then.

 

[luiz]

Who cares if a giant asteroid hits the Earth 300,000 years from now and mankind becoms extinct?

 

[Elrohir]

Who cares if a giant asteroid hits the Earth 300,000 years from now and mankind becoms extinct?

I imagine the people who will live on Earth 300,000 years from now would care very much.

 

[Shylock]

Lucky for us a nuke stack only effects a maximum of 9 tiles no matter how many nukes you have.

 

[CurtSibling]

Who cares if a giant asteroid hits the Earth 300,000 years from now and mankind becoms extinct?

By that time, I think we will be able to destroy or change the course of such objects easily.

.

 

[mdwh]

I would not be willing to bet money on that. It is reasonable to at least believe that one day we will have the technology to make mars and the moon perfectly hospitable places, like the earth, unless we are all dead by then.

I disagree we'd be able to do that in the next 200 years or so.

But even if we did have that technology - we'd be able to clean up Earth, also.

 

[Sidhe]

The probably did - but to my knowledge, they didn't make it into the Bible.

I still think those odds are pretty long. Honestly, I would be suprised if there were one other intelligence in the universe. I'll believe it when I see it.

9375000000000000000000000000 having that many potential sources of life is not long odds btw? It's almost inconceivably short odds. That was the point. There are so many potential sites for life in the universe that it's impossible with any rationality to say we are alone, I think you missed the implication inherent in the sheer scale of the universe, but don't worry mankind has always been somewhat Earthbound, until recently.

 

[Smidlee]

9375000000000000000000000000 having that many potential sources of life is not long odds btw? It's almost inconceivably short odds. .

Just like the Drake equation, there's too many unknown factors to even try to guess the odds.