Abandon Earth—Or Face Extinction

[SecularMotion]

Let's face it: The planet is heating up, Earth's population is expanding at an exponential rate, and the the natural resources vital to our survival are running out faster than we can replace them with sustainable alternatives. Even if the human race manages not to push itself to the brink of nuclear extinction, it is still a foregone conclusion that our aging sun will expand and swallow the Earth in roughly 7.6 billion years.

So, according to famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, it's time to free ourselves from Mother Earth. "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," Hawking tells Big Think. "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. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load."

http://bigthink.com/ideas/21570

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

1. yes, by all means

There must be thousands of other inhabitable planets rich in natural resources that we can rape, suck dry and then discard like an empty juice box on an elementary school playground! Awesome idea!

[leftofcool]

3. Yea, and we could all just get in our cars and drive there too.

I wonder which planet Mr Hawking would like for us to rape and pillage.

[anarch]

8. exactly! I've long believed that this is our destiny,

so that hundreds of millions of years in the future, the human species will be known as an awful scourge across the entire galactic community...spoken of (in those communities where the very mention of our horror is not prohibited by law and/or common decency) much as we on earth today speak of the rampaging mongol hordes, or perhaps the bubonic plague.

[TheWraith]

19. Clearly, the only solution to such a horrible thing is suicide.

You're welcome to lead by example. :sarcasm:

Really folks, if you think we're any worse than anyone else we're likely to meet out there among the stars, you're kidding yourselves. Or you have a picture of humanity vastly skewed to the negative.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. You don't understand: The universe is a perfect, wonderful, pristine place- except for US.

We are bad, awful, tainted by original sin greed and our inherent eco-evil. We must be punished.

[anarch]

24. hey, don't you people rain on my parade

You act as if I'm saying it's a bad thing...I make no moral judgments on our species, I just want to go down in the galactic annals as a vicious, horrible race of invaders and conquerors. I think we have the potential, if we can just stop killing one another long enough to focus on pillaging the rest of the galaxy. It might take a while, but I think we can do it!

In the distant future, aliens will name their sports teams "The Humans", much as we have teams called "The Pirates" or "the Buccaneers" etc.

[anarch]

27. I think mass murder is probably more effective, as far as stopping this

People in general, and various governments in particular, seem hell-bent on implementing that solution.


But see, I don't want it stopped. It is our destiny! We must unify humanity and pool our resources so that we can take what's rightfully ours of the galaxy's bounty. Heute die Welt, Morgens das Sonnensystem!

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Ewige Blumenkraft, yourself.

I'll say one thing, you're well read.

[anarch]

30. in all seriousness, I do think it's our destiny to expand into space

Not due to any sort of "oh my god we must abandon our dying planet!" reasons, but mostly just because it is where we live, and evolution demands it. I mean, I sort of see Hawking's point as far as "it's not too bright to put all your eggs in one basket," but even without that consideration, I think exploration is basic to our nature.

Yes, aggression is also in our nature as primates, like I've been sarcastically saying in here, but we humans to some extent have the capability of shaping our own evolutionary trends, and I think eventually enough of us will evolve, consciously, toward cooperation and peace. And, I hope, toward peaceful exploration of our world.

[Warren DeMontague]

35. Hell, I also think that's what ---life--- does.

Life spreads. I'd like to see us potentially Terraform Mars and make it habitable, if there's not life there already.

I agree with everything you say, here.

[MellowDem]

29. All of those planets (and ours) will be destroyed eventually...

so really there is no problem with going and using up the resources of other planets. I suppose if you are looking at it from a moral standpoint, your mileage may vary. But whatever your morals, all species will one day be extinct, including our own. For most, I suppose, it is best and most properly moral to extend the lives of these things as long as possible. But why? Well, then you are getting into nihlistic territory I suppose. :P

[golddigger]

2. Yep. The "Human Virus" coming to a planet

near you.

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. The world's population is not expanding at an exponential rate

In fact, the population has started to level off in some developing nations. As more countries become developed, you can expect their growth to level off as well.

[TheWraith]

6. Curse you for bringing facts into the discussion!

Don't spoil a good opportunity for people to hate on science and progress, and wish for the extinction of our species. :P

[G_j]

9. Hawking not a scientist?

that's news!

[TheWraith]

16. My comment is directed more at the doomsayers upthread, not Hawking.

I agree with his premise that we need to expand off-world for our long term viability. However, that's for far more reasons than population, such as new technology, new resources, and new discoveries.

[Terry in Austin]

7. Ah, that old chestnut

Another "fact" from the meme factory. Sorry to hear you went for it, but it is a comforting one.

Fact is, the rate of growth may be slowing here and there, but it's still growth. It's a first-derivative thing. A nice spin.

You might expect leveling off, but I don't. Realistically, any leveling off will be due to natural population-limiting forces, not "development."

[obxhead]

5. For this to even be close to possible a majority of the human

race must abandon god(s) first. In fact to solve a majority of our problems we must first get past the gods that are holding us back.

[SpiralHawk]

11. You are going to be, like, so totally unRaptured, Dood

[obxhead]

18. (phew) I really don't want to hang with many of the rapture ready

people that I've met. ;)

[Mendocino]

40. Is the rapture going to be like Dawn of the Dead,

with partially rotted human carcasses emerging from the ground, and flying to the heavens?:evilgrin:

[Xenotime]

10. Here is the only practical solution...

Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.

http://www.vhemt.org/

[meow mix]

12. i imagine a more "12 monkeys" type future

with the remnants of mankind digging large nuke-plant-cities underground. and living off hydroponically grown yeast.. soylent type foods.
just gotta survive 250,000 years down there till the earth cools off.

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. 42 and the Vogon intergalactic superhighway

Are possible extinction scenarios.

Besides when I posted this story last week in the Science forum I asked

WHEN IS HAWKING GONNA GET OFF HIS ASS AND INVENT THAT DAMN WARP DRIVE TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE?

[TheWraith]

17. Alcubierre did the warp drive thing already.

We just need somebody at CERN to do the math on production of non-baryonic matter.

[Ichingcarpenter]

22. Or as its really called the infinite improbability drive.

Adapted for use by Zaphod Beeblebrox
I think CERN needs to get busy with it because I have a million ideas, but, they all point to certain death and I'm depressed.

[Cherchez la Femme]

39. We could always hire Slartbartifast :>

[hatrack]

14. Extinction - good enough for trilobites & dinosaurs, good enough for us

:evilgrin:

[hatrack]

15. Extinction - good enough for trilobites & dinosaurs, good enough for us

:evilgrin:

[G_j]

36. my favorite reply

maybe it's just my mood...

but certainly an unvarished, simple truth.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. That's a misrepresentation of what Stephen Hawking said.

He's right. Long term, for us to survive, we need to move beyond this planet, and probably this solar system. The sun "only" has 4-5 billion years left.

But he's articulating a far more optimistic, hopeful, and humanity-positive vision than the "WUR DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED" crowd wants to hear, I suspect. Yes, we should move off this planet- that doesn't mean we aren't going to remain a presence here, as well- and humanity should work to solve our problems and become a spacefaring civilization. The solution to many of our Earthbound problems may lie in space, anyway. (for instance, solar power generated on the moon could be a clean source of energy for Earth, etc)

[TheWraith]

23. Can I get a "hell yeah"?

I agree completely.

Although I need to nitpick: solar power generated on the moon would be extremely impractical for two reasons. One, beaming it back to Earth, even from a low orbit, would be very wasteful and difficult. Secondly, anchoring solar power to the moon would mean only 50% exposure to sunlight. A low polar orbit above the Earth would be better, but even so returning the energy to the ground would be extremely difficult. Space-based solar power is better used as energy for actual space-based facilities such as satellites and space stations. We would be much better off using our space-based capabilities to extract Helium-3 from the lunar regolith, and use that to drive fusion reactors.

[Johonny]

32. frankly we need to solve our problems here

If humans can't live in some type of sustainable way in the world we evolved in and the one most likely to match our needs. It is very unlikely we will be able to live in any sustainable way on other worlds where resources are likely to much less match our needs and competition for resources will be much higher. If we do not solve our problems, we will not be able to produce a spacefaring civilization (which may be impossible in the sense people want anyways, but is a separate topic).

While the sun has billion of years left the Earth may only have 0.5 to 1 billion more years on the habitable zone of its orbit. Still a long long time.

[rustydog]

25. The Termites are hunting for another home!

Humans are the termites of the solar system. We are on the brink of destroying what some believe is God's creation and one of the brightest of the termites are telling us we need to colonize other worlds so that we can destroy them in a few thousand years too.

I do not recall who demonstrated this, but is was the first space shot of Earth and the narrative was something like this:
Every famous person in the history of time, every historical event, every love story, every war, every medical, scientific advancement from the invention of the wheel to the spaceship that took this photograph has happened on this tiny ball in space.

It is all we have and we are killing it and us.

Sad, very sad that this race is so destructive.

[blindpig]

26. Cop out

Abandon Capitalism or face barbarism and eco-collapse is more like it.

[chaska]

31. What in the world is so necessary about the human race? YOU NEED TO READ THIS.

One day the planet will rid itself of our kind and life will go on just fine without us. And we won't care in the least, we'll be dead.

It's sad that Stephen Hawking so wants to live that he thinks that we as a species should live forever. It's a bias that clouds his thinking here. After all, what's to stop us repeating the same mistakes elsewhere?

More importantly, only a handful of humans would ever be able to leave the planet. The energy required (see peak oil) to do even that would destroy so many other options to make life better for those of us who remain that I for one will fight this. They might wish I were on some godforsaken planet, but believe me they won't expend the resources to make it happen. Can you say, "master race"? Stephen's chosen people?

Yet more importantly, humans are of this planet, we need more than breathable air, potable water and nutrients to live. We need OUR planet. We need THIS planet, and our fellow forgotten beings, the animals, to survive.

Let's stop them from boldly going where fools so often go in such instances, that is, to their deaths. And at great financial and ecological expense to the rest of us at that.

Fight for Earth. Stephen Hawking is so very wrong about this.

[TheWraith]

33. Yes, you're SO much smarter than the world renowned supergenius.

We should all follow your leadership, and seek to avoid progress and advancement at all costs. :eyes:

[Cherchez la Femme]

42. I think chaska is right (see post below)

Man is above all greedy and arrogant.

Do you have any idea how close (actually far) the nearest M-class planet is? Any idea how to get even a representative portion of humanity there? How to transport enough people to safely genetically combine; and that includes all of mankind's knowledge, history and art). How to choose fairly only the best and the brightest, not the richest? (You think you could stop the Cheney's from boarding? Does their DNA need to be replicated?)

I'll bet Hawking doesn't know, either.

And you DO know he's been wrong, on big things, before
correct?

& I'm in Intertel
not that you could tell by my grammar
(but I'm a whiz at statistics : )
-- I may not be famous but I think I could hold my own with SH
on general subjects, mind you; this one perhaps in particular. Or Fortean Events or Cryptozoology, whichever :>
I'm no astrophysicist, philosopher nor do I have a doctorate in Maths
still, I think Steve & I could have a bit of a lively discussion...


Then again, he well could wipe the floor with me... but I'd surely come prepared on the subject :D


But I still would say, to him and to anyone who'd listen: fix then maintain what we've already got!

[Forkboy]

44. In your case, this is probably wise advice.

[Warren DeMontague]

37. So if we suck and there's no point to any of it, what difference does it make?

And more importantly, why do you care?

[jberryhill]

41. "Fight for Earth"

Against a giant asteroid?

[MadHound]

34. And just how are we supposed to do this?

A big self contained "ark" ship? Hate to tell you this, but there is no ship that we can currently build that is capable to taking us to nearby stars, the distance is too great and our technology is too primitive. We're stuck here, at least for awhile.

[Cherchez la Femme]

38. But where? Kolob?

(If so I'm in the wroooong religion and I'd rather die on Earth than convert to Mormonism/LDS!)

It's just an exercise in futility... humans will just become parasites on the next class-M planet and have to evacuate sooner or later just to fuck up yet another planet.

Too bad we can't all try to fix the one we've already got.

Disposable society indeed!

[Boojatta]

43. Hawking said:

"That is why I'm in favour of manned, or should I say 'personed', space flight."