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THE Stephen Hawking Thread (merged)

What's on your mind?
General interest discussions, not necessarily related to depletion.

Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby MonteQuest » Sun 18 Jun 2006, 12:27:28

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Invasion from Earth. This is the mindset of the early arrivals to this country. They decimated the local wildlife, (passenger pigeon and the American Bison come readily to mind) then focused on decimating and outcompeting the "natives".

No wonder we are in trouble on this planet.


Troubles (if there are any) should rather be solved, not mouned about.

In respect of "dealing" with native species:
Those are only ethical issues.
You may take either "absolutely protective", "Nazi-like" or "balanced and reasonable" approach.
Last option is likely to be the best.


Thus, the most unlikely, given our history.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby grabby » Sun 18 Jun 2006, 12:34:56

If you'd like to have anitgravity, and amrica votes for antigravity you still won't get antigravity.


If you'd LIKE to go to the stars spend all our gross domestic product on going to the stars you still can't build a ship that will make it to the stars.
Last edited by grabby on Sun 18 Jun 2006, 15:53:08, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby EnergyUnlimited » Sun 18 Jun 2006, 15:32:33

It is quite funny when someone who resorted to ad hominem attacks FIRST (presumably due to lack of better arguments) make complains about receiving the same LATER in reply to his own actions.

Evidence:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', ' ')It is also a fact, that humans had newer tried to live in alien planetary system.
Even if not constructed or evolved to live there, they may ADAPT easily should conditions there sufficiently remain ours.
Look on rabbits in Australia for precedence.


Your ignorance of basic biology is showing, I am afraid.


Looks like a bad loser.

Now go to subject.
1. Yes , I do believe, that genetical fiddling may partially replace natural process in the future.
Even if not perfect, this technology could improve survival chances of new species introduced into an alien world (or endangered on the Earth in fact).
NB. Instead of calling idea "hubris" you should rather provide an evidence to contrary.
Otherwise your argument looks silly.

2. I am not surprised that alien life had not been found yet, as we have hardly any means to look for it NOW.
Mars is hardly suitable, Europa may just support microorganisms (but I do not believe in it by the way) and other proposals within Solar System are bordering with nonsense.
However no investigations outside of Solar System had taken place (except of rather silly SETI approach able to find technological civilizations only and extremely rare in all probabilities) and therefore it is far to early to make affirmative statements in this respect.
Once few dosens of alien Earth like planets are pinpointed (and spectral data of their atmospheres is recorded) we may start to form theories about alien life forms.
However NOTHING SHORT OF ROBOTIC MISSIONS WILL DELIVER CONCLUSIVE PROOF.

You probably misunderstood word "likely" in my post.
Given "random" Earth size planet to investigate one is unlikely to find life there.

However if you are searching ENTIRE Galaxy it is very likely that alien life will be found in some places (many billions Earth like planets expected).
Spectral data of alien atmospheres (collection should be within our abilities) will mark you candidates to investigate further.

You CANNOT claim, that life here is unique, if you have NO data from other stellar systems to confirm it (albeit I am aware that we are now finding only "hot Jupiter" type planetary systems, time will show how many "friendlier" settings, if any, are out there).
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby EnergyUnlimited » Sun 18 Jun 2006, 16:09:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', 'I')f you'd like to have anitgravity, and amrica votes for antigravity you still won't get antigravity.


Note few facts:

1. Universe is expanding.
2. Expansion of Universe is speeding up with increase of distance from us (according to detailed observations of far away quasars at least).

Astronomers are "blaming" so called "cosmological constant" on it.
A. Einstein first proposed this concept, than dismissed it, but now motion appear to be correct.

Such behaviour of space is only explanable by repulsive force of "empty" space on its surroundings (means space as well).
This force (even if extremely negligible in small scales) is probably predominant on Universe scale and it may predetermine its evolution (it is suggesting so called "Thermal Death" in the future if left to work unchallenged).

Interestingly this force does have all the properties of antigravity, which you had mentioned.

Even if America voted against antigravity, it may still have to live with it.
Last edited by EnergyUnlimited on Sun 18 Jun 2006, 16:25:34, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby MonteQuest » Sun 18 Jun 2006, 16:24:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'I')t is quite funny when someone who resorted to ad hominem attacks FIRST (presumably due to lack of better arguments) make complains about receiving the same LATER in reply to his own actions.


Making note of your ignorance of biology is not an ad hominem attack. An ad hominem means "against the man" ignoring the issue, which is what you did. Likening rabbits ability to adapt to Australia as a precedence for humans being able to adapt to living on another alien planet shows huge ignorance of biology.

Lack of better arguments? You presume much. LOL!

FYI, my remarks to your ad hominem was in the role of moderator.

Do not use them in the open forums.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')nstead of calling idea "hubris" you should rather provide an evidence to contrary. Otherwise your argument looks silly.


Not to anyone versed in the sciences.

I wish I could just stop boiling the ocean. :roll:

Silly is continuing to respond to this nonsense.

Much of your remarks are so far outside the realm of reality, science and biology as to be more than tedious to even address.

The appearance of life relates to the environments needed for its formation and long term evolution. That may be quite rare in the universe, which is quite hostile to life. But it would be hubris to assert that there is no life out there. There might be lots of microbial life, but complex evolved life anywhere similar to earth may be quite rare or unique, for all the reasons previously stated.

To suggest that a complex set of circumstances that gave birth to a certain type of life here on earth is likely found similarly duplicated on some distant alien world where we can easily kill off the natives and plant what we want, I find just ludicrous.

Life on our planet may be but a single example of how life might work, rather than as the only example.

I suggest reading The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and Rare Earth by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, before you pontificate further.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Sun 18 Jun 2006, 17:17:23, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby linlithgowoil » Sun 18 Jun 2006, 16:41:07

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', '
')Hawking does have a clue on the final outcome for most of us though.


What, you didn't realise all by yourself that every single person ever born is going to die? Surely you didn't need Hawking to tell you that did you?

THats why all this stuff is nonsense. We're all doomed. Even if it be 10 billion years from now on a planet circling alpha centauri A. We are ephemeral. So, why would anyone try to preserve resources for future generations when everything could come to an end in a nanosecond? There is your answer for our current predicament.

Peak oil is inevitable and is necessary.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby 0mar » Mon 19 Jun 2006, 04:14:10

Entire discussion is moot. We are decades from establishing a Lunar Colony, 50 years from exploiting asteroirds or what not, 50+ years from a Mars base. We just now have established a permanent base in space (ISS).

Interstellar travel is several hundred years away, if it's even possible to travel such huge distances. Hawking, of all people, should know the tremendous hurdles to interstellar travel.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby EnergyUnlimited » Mon 19 Jun 2006, 06:45:25

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('0mar', 'E')ntire discussion is moot. We are decades from establishing a Lunar Colony, 50 years from exploiting asteroirds or what not, 50+ years from a Mars base. We just now have established a permanent base in space (ISS).

Interstellar travel is several hundred years away, if it's even possible to travel such huge distances. Hawking, of all people, should know the tremendous hurdles to interstellar travel.


Your remarks are about correct, but one can always discuss something if he has nothing more useful to do.
I found this thread quite a fun.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby EnergyUnlimited » Mon 19 Jun 2006, 07:34:25

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'L')ikening rabbits ability to adapt to Australia as a precedence for humans being able to adapt to living on another alien planet shows huge ignorance of biology.


Release of rabbits in Australia was only an example of survival abilities of living organisms in environment not familiar to them.

If you really believe that ALL what civilization capable of interstellar travel could do, is to take few individuals somewhere few light years away and than "release them into wild" (and nothing more), than you are patentely ignorant in respect of technology this time.

Your current remarks in respect of possibilities of alien life existing somewhere are about correct this time, but it had taken long time before you had specified them.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'T')o suggest that a complex set of circumstances that gave birth to a certain type of life here on earth is likely found similarly duplicated on some distant alien world where we can easily kill off the natives and plant what we want, I find just ludicrous.


All what I am saying is that if alien Earth like planet (with reasonable themperatures & pressure ranges, breathable atmosphere, plenty of liquid water etc. - add some conditions like magnetic field, presence of large moon etc.) is found by civilization capable of interstellar travel, than it CAN be collonized by this civilization in principle, REGARDLESS of presence of any local life forms (short of yet another civilization capable of interstellar travel).

My belief is that it is likely that there ARE such planets in our Galaxy (in addition to our Earth) and this is based on arguments that our Galaxy contain 100 billions stellar systems (and about 5-10% of them contain very much Sun like stars).
Many billions of Earh size planets are also expected there.
however I also believe that technological civilizations are extremely rare, if more than one exist at any given time in Galaxy.
It is best described by phrase "plenty of protoplasma around but no one to talk to".
However it does NOT mean that It IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GO AND LIVE THERE UNDER ANY IMAGINABLE CIRCUMSTANCES, and I observe, that you represent this viev.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby untothislast » Mon 19 Jun 2006, 07:40:07

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', 'N')ow this space-travel thing requires vast amounts of energy, so vast you’ll never be able to understand. Traveling to the closest star with the current technology or with what we have in the most advanced labs right now is utterly and totally fiction. Not even science-fiction, but pure fiction.


Wrong. We don't actually need to build anything. The guaranteed way to get to the stars, and meet with other advanced civilisations, remains driving a pickup truck along a US dirt-road at 2am. Preferably, while drunk.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby MonteQuest » Mon 19 Jun 2006, 13:32:13

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'H')owever it does NOT mean that It IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GO AND LIVE THERE UNDER ANY IMAGINABLE CIRCUMSTANCES, and I observe, that you represent this viev.


Unsupported by earth? No, I don't believe that to be possible under any imaginable circumstances.
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Re: Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space

Postby EnergyUnlimited » Mon 19 Jun 2006, 13:52:05

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'H')owever it does NOT mean that It IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GO AND LIVE THERE UNDER ANY IMAGINABLE CIRCUMSTANCES, and I observe, that you represent this viev.


Unsupported by earth? No, I don't believe that to be possible under any imaginable circumstances.


Anyway, as I see we will never get to agreement on this issue and it is a distant future, when an idea will have any chance to be tested.

I was searching an internet to find arguments of others in this respect and I found following (reference to reputable paper also given there):

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06 ... index.html

Sounds like total bullshit to me, but who knows.
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THE Stephen Hawking Thread (merged)

Postby Carlhole » Fri 07 Jul 2006, 23:56:37

Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future: Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Anyone have any suggestions for him?
Last edited by Ferretlover on Thu 09 Jul 2009, 08:36:15, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Merge thread.
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Re: Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Postby Jack » Sat 08 Jul 2006, 00:03:58

''In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?''

Establish well defended locales (probably nation-states) and keep the starving hordes at bay until the die off finishes its necessary work. After 100 years, population will be in balance with resources.
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Re: Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Postby rogerhb » Sat 08 Jul 2006, 00:15:15

Learn to live within its limits. I thought that would have been obvious to a bright chap with lot's of time on his hands to think.....
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
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Re: Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Postby Loki » Sat 08 Jul 2006, 00:15:54

I think a better question is do we deserve to be around in 100 years. I'm not so sure.

As for Hawking, he's already decided what humanity's future will be like. It involves "self-designed evolution," the replacement of "unimproved humans" by "superhumans," the colonization of space, and then the replacement of biological humans by machines. At least that's what he said in a lecture I attended 10 years ago.
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Re: Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Postby threadbear » Sat 08 Jul 2006, 00:23:12

Hawking should stick to physics and math.
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Re: Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Postby aldente » Sat 08 Jul 2006, 03:53:13

Jack talks about a population in balance after a die-off 100 years from now. I doubt that. It is as if one would regress and go back to common agriculture just the way it happend for the last 10.000 years. Less people, problem solved (or so). The larger process displays patterns however that give away clues for those who look for them, most significant the irreversible nature of the overall process.

In an older post I quoted a statement that I picked up in context of the irreversible development happening on this planet Earth at the moment, quote: This process, Chardin realized, requiring the tapping of the stored energy and amassed mineral resources of the planet could happen only once.

Earth Ascending

Reality is that that there is not a single activity that humanity could pride itself of contributing to the overall equilibrium. In fact, every activity, without exception seems to be upsetting the natural balance, mildly worded.

It seems that we all have our own vision of how a post peak world will look like and following the patterns of the past a inevitable final resource world war will termimate us or a gradual and nasty natural kind of die-off due to a shortage of provisions and/or both plus ' not to be forgotten the runnaway global warming effect.

No wonder this forum is full of doomers.

The New Age I envision is different however. It is not specifically new, neither is it common trade. It will be an example of how consciousness follows the same leap-pattern that was first discovered by Heisenberg and what is now referred to as Quantum Mechanics.
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Re: Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Postby evilgenius » Sat 08 Jul 2006, 18:33:43

Yeah,

I would tell him not to be tempted by the idea that going back to riding horses and living on multi-acre non-interconnected plots of land is any solution at all. We will get through what is coming as a whole or we will not get through it at all. In that view every person is as valuable as the next. Nobody deserves to survive any more than their neighbor or their enemy does.

Yes, if we can only see two solutions to every problem the issue of which is survival then we aren't thinking like people and insofar as evolution goes we probably don't deserve to survive. Man has gotten as far as he has because he hasn't allowed himself to be limited by black and white thinking. He has innovated and solved seemingly unsolvable problems in new ways.

We need to find a way to get everybody through this one.
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Re: Stephen Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future

Postby rogerhb » Sat 08 Jul 2006, 19:05:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'M')an has gotten as far as he has because he hasn't allowed himself to be limited by black and white thinking. He has innovated and solved seemingly unsolvable problems in new ways.


Rather a rosy picture of history......
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