Yahoo Answers: Hawking Asks the Big Question!
|
|
Einsman Schlegel
Disenchanted Fool
Join date: 11 Jun 2003
Posts: 1,461
|
07-08-2006 13:44
From: Associated Press Hawking Seeks Answers on Humanity's Future
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
Fri Jul 7, 3:28 PM
NEW YORK - Some questions even stump Stephen Hawking.
The famed British astrophysicist and best-selling author has turned to Yahoo Answers, a new feature in which anyone can pose a question for fellow Internet users to try to answer. By Friday afternoon, nearly 17,000 Yahoo Inc. users had responded.
Hawking's question: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?"
Some of the answers were short _ "get rid of nuclear weapons" _ and others vague _ "Somehow we will." Many were doubtful: "I don't think it is possible unless we expand into space," one user wrote.
A number of people suggested thinking differently, ending bickering or fostering cooperation.
Officials at the University of Cambridge, where Hawking is a mathematics professor, confirmed that Hawking wrote the message but said he would have no further comment.
Hawking's groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe has made him one of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation. Author of the global best seller "A Brief History of Time," Hawking is known for proposing that space and time have no beginning and no end.
Lately, he's been pondering about the fate of humans.
In a June 13 speech in Hong Kong, Hawking said the survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth.
He said that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.
Hawking is one of 10 celebrity questioners Yahoo solicited as part of its "Ask The Planet" campaign.
The Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company spent weeks trying to track Hawking down but got his participation within a day of reaching the correct assistant, said Patrick Crane, vice president of marketing for Yahoo Search.
The question was submitted a few days before the Hong Kong speech and posted this past Wednesday.
Over the next week, Yahoo employees are expected to work with Hawking to sift through the answers and select one or several to highlight as best responses.
Yahoo Answers, like an offering from Google Inc. and one planned by Microsoft Corp., is among the services aimed at tapping the collective intelligence. It's based on the premise that humans as a group can do a better job at finding information than machines or any single person can.
Anyone can ask or answer a question, regardless of expertise, although Yahoo will eventually implement a rating system meant to elevate users with better reputations, based on their past questions and answers.
Questions typically get 6 to 10 answers.
Past celebrity participants include Donald Trump, Isaiah Washington, Al Gore and "Click & Clack," the hosts of NPR's "Car Talk." U2 lead singer Bono closed the celebrity series Friday by asking, "What can we do to make poverty history?"
___
On the Net:
Hawking's question:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid(equalsign)20060704195516AAnrdOD
You decide! Are we DOOMED? |
|
Olympia Rebus
Muse of Chaos
Join date: 22 Feb 2004
Posts: 1,831
|
07-08-2006 18:11
I don't know if we're %100 doomed but I'm not that optimistic.
It might help if everyone had the same religion and/or philosophy, but that's not going to happen. People have been fighting, trying to establish their religion as the religion forever. Even if a genie waved a wand and made everyone the same race, religion, political party, resources and money etc... I bet that within a few generations they'd break apart into their own sub groups and start fighting again.
|
|
Lance Elvehjem
Registered User
Join date: 18 May 2006
Posts: 17
|
07-08-2006 22:26
I think the move into space is the only solution. But whats to stop cruel people from following us into space? We are our own worst enemy. We've survived 100 years without blowing our selfs up. If were lucky we'll manage to contiune another 100 years. More crazy people are born into this world in 3rd world contries who have access to more lethal weapons. Education will be the key to changing the world by improving health care, food, and other necessities.
|
|
Vares Solvang
It's all Relative
Join date: 26 Jan 2005
Posts: 2,235
|
07-08-2006 22:50
We're doomed.
Religious fanaticism will be our downfall. The voice of reason can't be heard by a fanatic.
Of course, that's if global warming doesn't get us first. Either way we have less that 100 years left.
|
|
Lewis Nerd
Nerd by name and nature!
Join date: 9 Oct 2005
Posts: 3,431
|
07-08-2006 23:04
The answer is 42.
Lewis
|
|
Gabe Lippmann
"Phone's ringing, Dude."
Join date: 14 Jun 2004
Posts: 4,219
|
07-08-2006 23:24
23.
Folks have been toting the End is Near signs for eons.
_____________________
go to Nocturnal Threads 
|
|
Chronic Skronski
SL Live Musician
Join date: 23 Jun 2006
Posts: 997
|
07-08-2006 23:30
From: someone if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years... That's the biggest if, and if the world's superpowers continue this chest-beating, 'who has/is the biggest dick' contest, there is not a chance we'll see 2106. |
|
Red Mars
What?
Join date: 5 Feb 2004
Posts: 469
|
07-08-2006 23:44
Whenever my friends and I bs about this, I can't help but remember an episode of the Outer Limits I saw. The new series, not the old one.
Now this episode dealt specifically with cold fusion, but that didn't matter really, you can replace cold fusion with any of a vast number of potential technologies.
Anyway, the premise of this was a physics student who more or less accidentally discovered easy to create cold fusion, like made with simple things under the sink and a trip to the hardware store, and then went a little nuts providing much drama and a good episode. The theory the student proposes though ....
He said the reason we haven't found any other intelligent life was that at some point each society reaches a technology level we're hitting now, and develops cold fusion (again, this can be replaced by any number of things) and promptly blows itself into oblivion.
So that's what I'm afraid of. Not nuclear war, not global pandemics, not really global warning or running out of oil. What gets me is the idea that in the near future a destructive technology will be accidentally discovered that, in effect, will mean that any idiot with a GED would be able to create something as deadly as a nuke. Block wars with fusion bombs.
|
|
Damanios Thetan
looking in
Join date: 6 Mar 2004
Posts: 992
|
07-09-2006 05:05
I know, with wars, chaos, the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, emerging asteroid impacts, space debris, increased earthquake activity etc. etc. the earth is really starting to be an unhabitable and dangerous place to live. But have you checked out current living conditions on the moon???  |
|
Luther Spectre
Registered User
Join date: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 39
|
07-09-2006 05:32
There is nothing new with the world nowadays it's just we have quicker ways to spread news.
The world has always be in chaos with wars, geocides, religious intolerance and even plagues! Nothing has really changed over Human history it has always been like this. It's the way we are and we've already survived more than 3000 years!
As for the asteroid that threat has always been there since the creation of the Earth and the Solar System. It's the natural order of things and could happen any time!
As for the extinction of the Human Race well we would not be the first Human Species to become extinct nore would we the last!
The upshot of which why make such a big thing about it when it's the Universe. We're are not gods and we'll never have the power to change or control the Universe!
We'll get so focus on such things that we'll forget the most important thing which is just to LIVE OUR LIVES TO THE FULL!!!!!!
|
|
Starax Statosky
Unregistered User
Join date: 23 Dec 2003
Posts: 1,099
|
07-09-2006 08:05
Does it really matter if the human race is doomed? So we're not going to be able to place a Mcdonalds and Burger King in every other galaxy. Oh well...
|
|
Siobhan OFlynn
Evildoer
Join date: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 1,140
|
07-09-2006 08:09
I say "Ask Jake".........  Didn't he say we can "Ask Jake Anything?"
_____________________
From: Starax Statosky Absolute freedom is heavenly. I'm sure they don't have a police force and resmods in heaven. From: pandastrong Fairplay omgeveryonegetoutofmythreadrightnowican'ttakeit From: Soleil Mirabeau I'll miss all of you assholes. 
|
|
Lina Pussycat
Texture WizKid
Join date: 19 Jun 2005
Posts: 731
|
07-09-2006 08:16
Simply Put Hawking needs to realize something and scientificially a "disaster" big enough to destroy the world isnt estimated for a long long time as far as sun related things with the "current" trends in the ozone etc. Whats to stop a disaster that could destroy earth from destroying other places we would move to? Meteor's and other things are plausible in this case. I think it wont be good for everyone to have the same religion but i think at the same time the religious leaders of the world and the people that are involved in religion need to stop forcing their ideal's on everyone..
If you want to get involved with religion so be it. I for one am not but i still hold faith that there may be a higher being. Its people poking their noses where they dont belong that has been the problem. Religious wars have been going on since before Christ was said to of been born. I believe the human race will survive longer the hawking thinks simply because the world degrading unless a comet hits is unlikely to happen at a fast enough rate to end things that fast.
I find people like hawking to be a problem really. Its instills the belief in some people that meh we can screw up this planet then we can move on screw up another place and keep doing it. Pre tell if living in space is the answer where are we going to get an endless supply of oxygen, fossil fuels, electricity and other things water. Resources on this planet are not unlimited. We should work on making the planet a better state rather then saying we can just move if we screwed it up. Actions people take have consequences if we screw up the planet we are going to have to be able to fact the consequences.
|
|
Desmond Shang
Guvnah of Caledon
Join date: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 5,250
|
07-09-2006 08:18
The next 100 years will be much like the last 100.
Because honestly, most folks (99.9999999999999%) are satisfied with doing some relatively mundane thing until they drop dead.
To truly destroy the earth for humanity, you are gonna need some incredibly comprehensive plan and someone very thorough, or huge pockets of humanity will survive and repopulate the earth. Oop, we forgot northern Madagascar, here it all goes again!
Also, lots of evil. But high quality evilness takes brains, planning, effort, and most of all a good sense of style... a rare thing these days.
I think we are all relatively safe.
_____________________
 Steampunk Victorian, Well-Mannered Caledon!
|
|
Lucifer Baphomet
Postmodern Demon
Join date: 8 Sep 2005
Posts: 1,771
|
07-09-2006 08:45
Natural disasters............
the dinosaurs didnt expect to be wiped out by chixitlub.
_____________________
I have no signature,
|
|
Vares Solvang
It's all Relative
Join date: 26 Jan 2005
Posts: 2,235
|
07-09-2006 10:23
That "meh, it will all be ok so don't worry about it" attitude is what will be our downfall. Look at the levels of pollution in the world today because of it. Just shrugging your shoulders and saying we will be fine isn't going to work this time.
Most people don't realize just how fragile our world actually is. The human race stands on top of a house of cards that has been built in the sand.
|
|
Chip Midnight
ate my baby!
Join date: 1 May 2003
Posts: 10,231
|
07-09-2006 10:57
I think apocolyptic thinking is part of our problem. The danger of a mass extinction event is very real and could happen at any time. That's simply a given. We should definitely be planning ways to colonize space as soon as we can so that a single disaster can't wipe us all out. But we should also be planning for the future as if we'll be living on this planet for a million more years. That means preparing for sensible population control, resource and evironmental management, genetic engineering, etc. Too large a percentage of the world's population lives as if tomorrow doesn't matter. Why not use up all the resources and at an ever accelerating pace if the world's going to end in a hundred years? Why think about population control? Why prepare for world changing disaster if we believe world ending disaster is just around the corner? We need to stop thinking tribally and start thinking globally. Without cooperation between all nations and peoples we don't stand a chance. We need to move rapidly towards rational humanism and away from superstition and myth. We won't survive just by wishing really hard that we'll be saved by magic or miracle. From: Bill Moyers Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the twelve volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelation where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist, Glenn Scherer - "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total - more since the election - are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the senate floor: "the days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that i will send a famine in the land.' he seemed to be relishing the thought.
And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 TIME/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the Book of Revelation are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations or in the motel turn some of the 250 Christian TV stations and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"
Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, America's providential history. You'll find there these words: "the secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie…that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." however, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth...while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people." No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on November 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.
_____________________
 My other hobby: www.live365.com/stations/chip_midnight
|
|
Selador Cellardoor
Registered User
Join date: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 3,082
|
07-09-2006 12:59
People who say that things have been as they are for hundreds of years are forgetting the extra dangers that modern technology brings. Apart from global heating, nuclear and biological weapons, we are constantly discovering new things that could mean the end. The current experiments being done in particle accelerators are affecting fundamental states of matter, and who knows what side-effects there could be from these?
It would be an irony if all the black holes that we have recently discovered in the universe don't actually arise because of collapsing stars, but as a result of a technology advancing to the point at which it carries out The Experiment on basic particles? There would be an irony.
There are many ways we could destroy ourselves in the near future. Hopefully once we get past this crisis point we will have advanced to the stage where we manage our existence so that we are a sustainable system on this planet. But that lip is a long way away, and the cup is held in a very unsteady hand.
|
|
Devlin Gallant
Thought Police
Join date: 18 Jun 2003
Posts: 5,948
|
07-09-2006 14:34
Well being a Cherub and all with the inside track I can happily tell you that... YOU ARE ALL FUCKED! There will soon be a full-fledged war in Israel, and the world's economy is about to go belly up. But don't fret too much you still have about 5 and a half years to enjoy yourself. Just thought you all might like to know what's coming. Have a nice day now.
_____________________
I LIKE children, I've just never been able to finish a whole one.
|
|
Gabe Lippmann
"Phone's ringing, Dude."
Join date: 14 Jun 2004
Posts: 4,219
|
07-09-2006 14:53
From: Devlin Gallant Well being a Cherub and all with the inside track I can happily tell you that... YOU ARE ALL FUCKED! There will soon be a full-fledged war in Israel, and the world's economy is about to go belly up. But don't fret too much you still have about 5 and a half years to enjoy yourself. Just thought you all might like to know what's coming. Have a nice day now. So business as usual, then?
_____________________
go to Nocturnal Threads
|
|
Tod69 Talamasca
The Human Tripod ;)
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 4,107
|
07-09-2006 23:24
From: Devlin Gallant Well being a Cherub and all with the inside track I can happily tell you that... YOU ARE ALL FUCKED! There will soon be a full-fledged war in Israel, and the world's economy is about to go belly up. But don't fret too much you still have about 5 and a half years to enjoy yourself. Just thought you all might like to know what's coming. Have a nice day now. OH THANK GOD and/or Goddess!!!! Just as long as I dont have to keep paying back those damn student loans!!  |
|
Richie Waves
Predictable
Join date: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 1,424
|
07-10-2006 03:05
Up his own arse is hawkings! He's british with an American accent!
_____________________
no u!
|
