(July 25, 2013 at 1:30 pm)Minimalist Wrote: I'm not so sure we are worth saving.

For every Mozart there are a million Godschilds. Bad odds.

Yeah?

one ounce gold nugget out of every hundred tons of dirt still makes for a valuable deposit.

A billion christians didn't stop us from learning the universe predated god by 13.7 billion years.

(July 25, 2013 at 3:45 pm)Chuck Wrote: A billion christians didn't stop us from learning the universe predated god by 13.7 billion years.

It did - for a quite while.

(July 25, 2013 at 4:00 pm)Gilgamesh Wrote: It did - for a quite while.

In geological terms it was a blink of an eye.

(July 25, 2013 at 1:23 pm)Rahul Wrote: Yes! We've got to get independently established on a second planet. If we can manage that our chances for a greatly extended lifetime of our species is much better.

We need to establish a Mars colony and start driving big SUV's around the planet to warm it up enough for human habitation. Either that or turn on the reactor.

The next big step for the survival of humankind, is utilizing nuclear fusion for meeting our energy requirements (which is currently underway, yippee!: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scienc...90480.html).

Then we can float through space juicing up on the many billions of stars at our disposal, and with no cost to the habitat of any future planet we may colonize. Humans will make it. While we can be hilariously stupid, don't underestimate our ingenuity.

(July 25, 2013 at 4:00 pm)Gilgamesh Wrote:

(July 25, 2013 at 3:45 pm)Chuck Wrote: A billion christians didn't stop us from learning the universe predated god by 13.7 billion years.

It did - for a quite while.

Not really. The tools for expanded understanding of the universe wasn't there. The fact that christianity managed to shut a few guessers who by good fortune to have guessed correctly didn't retard the development of science as much as you think. When the physical and intellectual tools for expanded understanding of the universe through not just theorizing, but also verification, is really in place, the stale bible of bronze age is soon overwhelmed.

(July 25, 2013 at 3:45 pm)Chuck Wrote:

(July 25, 2013 at 1:30 pm)Minimalist Wrote: I'm not so sure we are worth saving.

For every Mozart there are a million Godschilds. Bad odds.

Yeah?

one ounce gold nugget out of every hundred tons of dirt still makes for a valuable deposit.

A billion christians didn't stop us from learning the universe predated god by 13.7 billion years.

Every year, school boards in the bible belt try to reverse the whole advance of science.

Obviously it's hard to say how long the human race will be around. We are the only species capable of making ourselves (and almost everything else) extinct. I tend to think that humans will be around for quite a while, while modern civilization is destined for a collapse from resource destruction/depletion in the next couple hundred years. It's hard to say what will arise out of it.

If y'all just found Jeebus, this silly question would already have an answer...no thinking necessary. Simple!

(July 25, 2013 at 12:26 pm)Severan Wrote: I've been thinking recently (oh no!) about our species, and our ultimate goal to survive. I was thinking about how in the past, primitive people just survived off the scraps they found, unaware what their survival would mean for the world. We became advanced and learned how to expand, and thrive. Now, we are faced with extinction again, not from animals, starvation, disease, but from cosmic disasters, such as asteroids, supernovae and our own destruction, nukes, war, etc. I was talking to my friends recently, and they said that humans will last about 2000 years more. 2000 puny years?!?! I think we deserve more than that! We need to be AT LEAST a two planet species. If one is destroyed, the other can come back. What do you think?

We need WAY more than merely two species. One of the theoretical insurances of planet-wide extinction is the sudden mass-destruction of the biosphere. Complexity, as we are all aware, leads to fragility; the more components are relied upon for full functionality, the more a critical failure can occur from damage or degradation to the parts. Hell, look at the bees for example; plants are HIGHLY reliant upon them for reproductive purposes. Remove bees from an ecological web, and all the agricultural aspects of the biosphere are suddenly at a drastically heightened risk for extinction due to lack of ability to procreate. Wipe out a half of the existing biosphere and biological catastrophe WILL follow. Yes, the species will adapt, more will evolve to fill the niches, but the biosphere we rely upon will be altered to an extent that it's possible it could cause our own destruction, or at the very least cause extreme problems for our species in regards to economy, agriculture, and society/culture.

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(July 25, 2013 at 4:00 pm)Gilgamesh Wrote:

(July 25, 2013 at 3:45 pm)Chuck Wrote: A billion christians didn't stop us from learning the universe predated god by 13.7 billion years.

It did - for a quite while.

Quite a while, but yes: This ^

A millenium of scientific repression. Who knows what point we could be at today if religion had not persistently fucked our intellectual progress over at every conceivable turn. Fuck, for all we know we could've cured death itself by this point.

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(July 25, 2013 at 4:22 pm)Rahul Wrote:

(July 25, 2013 at 4:00 pm)Gilgamesh Wrote: It did - for a quite while.

In geological terms it was a blink of an eye.

But in terms of human intellect and society, it might as well have been the approximation of a nigh-eternity.