Posted on 08/09/2010 8:53:02 AM PDT by Scythian
It's time to abandon Earth, warned the world's most famous theoretical physicist.
In an interview with website Big Think, Stephen Hawking warned that the long-term future of the planet is in outer space.
"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet," he said.
"I see great dangers for the human race," Hawking said. "There have been a number of times in the past when its survival has been a question of touch and go. The Cuban missile crisis in 1963 was one of these. The frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
We could be the only “intelligent” or humanoid creatures in the universe.
The earth has been here 4.5 billion years. Unless the planet explodes, etc., humans will still most likely be in for a long time. In what form or condition, who knows.
Who knows, we may be able to evolve in a better, smarter and happier form if we can just wise up the leftists, Democrats, Muslims and socialists. That's the toughest challenge.
Yes but the progressies are trying to drive us bck to the dark ages.
How can re achieve an answer when society has been driven to the stupid leaders.
MY list:
End: EPA.EDU,NEA, INTERIOR etc etc etc.
bttt
There’s nothing stupid about. Earth becoming largely uninhabitable is an inevitability. Might be an asteroid strike, the next ice age, or a pole reversal, and if we somehow manage to avoid all that eventually the sun will turn off. One way or the other the planet will no longer be able to sustain us, and if we haven’t gotten a sustainable population off the rock by then everything else we’ve ever done becomes pointless.
“From what I’ve read in the Bible the Earth is doomed anyway”
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Along with the rest of the physical universe! (at the exact same moment)
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What made America great was the people with balls sailed across the ocean for a chance for opportunity while the weak and timid stayed home.
Another migration is in order.
“A Brief History of Time” was one of the very few books in recent memory I discarded half-read.
He’s right but you need to filter out the mandatory PC babble.
But he’s talking in the next 100 years? Rediculious ...
Until now people haven’t been aware of the kinds of space debris out there, some of it passing by relatively close. Most of the debris that actually hits us is small enough that it doesn’t even hit the ground. But sooner or later we’ll run into something large enough to do damage. So they need to be thinking about how to deal with it. The easiest way might be simply to break it up into smaller pieces.
I do think our destiny is to spread life. We will eventually get off this planet. It will only take a couple of technical breakthroughs to make it feasible. I’m betting that they will happen.
The end times are not near, it is here.
I don't follow Hawking's logic in "abandoning" Earth, but we certainly need to stop wasting time in colonizing the universe...
I am flabbergasted at the Luddite reactions being posted here.
Hawking is right. We need to spread beyond the Earth if for no other reason than to have a backup population to rebuild after the inevitable cosmic collision or global disaster.
There is far too much evidence of past mass extinctions for us to ignore the certainty of it happening again in the future.
We should be mounting an expedition to alter the orbit of the asteroid Apophys no matter what the probability of it hitting Earth in twenty to thirty year. We need the practice and need to develop the technologies to spread out into the solar system and beyond.
All of our eggs are in one basket just waiting for something to come along and smash all of them. We need to change that and it will take decades to do it. We need to start right now.
It’s not time to ABANDON Earth but it is long past time to put colonies on the other planets if only for species survival. Europa alone could house a huge number of people quite comfortably.
“I do think that mankind can, and should, eventually spread to other planets.”
Actually, the way things have been going over the past few years I thought I already was living on another planet.
And you can just bet on future Goreacle disciples blaming it on Bush...
If in a million years we're not in a position to move the Earth to a different orbit, then perhaps we don't deserve to survive.
He’s talking about the next hundred AND thousand AND million. We know the sun has a long time left in it, by some estimates the next ice age is actually over due, asteroids and pole reversals happen at seemingly random intervals and could be on the way next week or not for thousands of years. But to get a sustaining population out there is a lot of work, might as well get kicking on it now as if we only have a hundred years.
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