78stonewobble

It would have to be a few of them and between equally nuclear capable nations and take 10+ minutes, but sure... if it happens it'll be bad. Until then... cars kill alot more people. Seems more sensible to protest that.

Njyarf... Just because we've had nuclear weapons, doesn't mean people haven't found a way to fight the last 60 years, on pretty big scales even. Whatever sides there are in the future and even if we can agree on not wiping ourselves out by not using the big weapons... I'll be pessimestic and bet that someone somewhere would want someone else dead for what ever reason or just to self defend.

Hmm... assuming 16.000 500 kiloton blasts and a damaged area of 137 sq. miles per blast, "only" 3,8 percent of earths land area would have severe blast effects. If they're spread out evenly and there is no overlap and allmost all the weapons are used. But I'm far from an expert on the area :S PS: "only" *lol*

Well I allways found it a bit interesting that if we could see Jupiters magneticfield. It would be 5 times the size of the full moon, even though it's 1700 times further away. Uhm there's Eris, as someone else mentioned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet) And there's Sedna, which has an orbital period of about 11,400 years, the longest, sofar of any large object: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90377_Sedna Unless there's some new things being discovered that haven't made it to wikipedia yet.

I think some intelligence agency somewhere would notice terrorists or rogue nations beginning a programme on the scale to make enough nuclear weapons to destroy all of humanity. It took a little more than a garage workshop to make the nuclear arsenals of the height of the cold war. Offcourse the terrorists could allways claim that another nuclear country went and "dun it" and hope that the attacked nuclear country would believe this completely and then annihilate, not only the supposedly attacking nuclear country... but attack all sorts of other countries just for the heck of it. PS: Offtopic and perhaps mostly suitable for a new thread. Hmm, can a global thermonuclear war these days even kill everyone? We're down to what? 4,180 active nuclear warheads and some 16,400 total nuclear warheads (takes a bit of time to use). Down from 85.000 warheads total in the 80's. Would that be enough to cause a bad enough global nuclear winter as compaired to volcanic eruptions (which relatively rarely wipes everything out) and/or lethal fallout globally?

That might make him able to play the guitar better, which would make me happy. It wouldn't really make him able to build a humanity destroying nuclear arsenal... And I don't really see why that would make him homicidal.

o.O I'm relatively certain that my neighbour has free will, even though his insistence on continuing to try to learn the guitar (with no improvement) would suggest otherwise, but I don't feel doomed. Should I and the rest of the world feel doomed? Alternatively, If my computer turned out to be intelligent, just how would it doom me? Attempt to knock me out with the dvd tray or make me trip over it? God knows how it would doom everyone else that way.

Well, obviously the same way that nuclear weapons don't kill... only the people firing them are doing the killing, but thats splitting hairs. Regarding number of deaths directly related to automobiles, it's based on a WHO estimation: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/road_traffic/world_report/en/ Where it's estimated that in 2004 traffic accidents caused 1,2 million deaths and injured upwards of 50 million people. Regarding the consequences of their pollution I think it's once again a WHO, but this time future, estimation on the consequences of global warming, to which automobile use obviously contributes. Here it's been a while so I can't find the link. However there it is estimated that global warming will indirectly cause an extra 5 million deaths a year from the year 2025 til 2050. Due changes in weather, leading to less arable land and thus local famine. Or more rainfall leading to more puddles, lakes and whatnot and thus more malaria mosquitoes. EDIT: This is where the 100+ million number comes from... It's over time. IF these numbers are correct, and I know thats a pretty big if, atleast in the 2nd estimation, then automobiles are a far greater threat to humans than nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. Atleast so far. We'd need thousands of Chernobyl sized accidents for nuclear energy to be more dangerous than global warming and quite a few to be as dangerous as cars... ... Anyways... My point was more that a couple of thousand nuclear weapon in silo's and submarines or even sinking submarines is a relatively theoretical problem costing very few lives. There are other and bigger practical problems that cost lives every day and to me it seems more rational to protest those or do something to change those instead.

Yeah, I'm not really gonna jump on the whole "technological singularity" bandwaggon. There are certain physical hard limits that even AI cannot surpass. Ie. if you make anything too dense it will collapse gravitationally (or just stop working due to heat). If you spread it out too far you'll be wasting energy in transmitting information back and forth and light speed and travel distance. Sure, an AI might end up vastly more intelligent than humans, but so what? There's room enough... Heck, it might like having pets around and I like having my belly scratched.

Actually... The automobile is a much bigger threat. It kills and maims millions every year and has for years. Plus it's... you know... via enviromental effects part of killing around a 100 million more. More on topic. If you think panspermia is possible, wouldn't life evolving in just one place, dramatically increase the chance of life somewhere else?

Completely guesstimating and in my humble interpretation... I'd say that it is reasonable to think there is life elsewhere in the universe and that some of it will be intelligent. I even think it's reasonable to think there is life elsewhere in this galaxy and that some of it may be intelligent. Guesstimating again, my bet is on maybe 10 intelligent species and life in maybe a few thousand places in the milkyway. Obviously more if we include the entire universe. As to why we haven't seen or heard from them. I think that intelligent life will be comparatively rare and that interstellar communication and travel will turn out to be exceedingly hard and to become even a limited interstellar species (just enough to survive some sort of homeplanet cataclysm) will require the will to pour an incredible amount of ressources into it. Not all civilisations will want to do that and offcourse not all will survive long enough to do so. It would also render interplanetary conquest an exercise in futility. I might offcourse be completely mistaken, but it doesn't seem an unreasonable position, without any evidence to the contrary. They might be out there, they might not be out there... It's mostly a philosophical question...

I am... Now I'm wondering how they'd respond to a thumbs up...

How is it with meteorological predictions? After 3-5 days something their accuracy falls to around 50 percent? I think the problem with economics is that, some people, expect even better accuracy for that. In some ways human interactions are probably even more unpredictable than the weather and if we can only predict the weather a week ahead? Then you're bound to have problems if your betting you're correct a year, 5 years or even 10 years ahead with your economic predictions.

If I remember correctly from a "documentary", experts: Ie. economists are just about as accurate, in their predictions, as pure random guessing, actually... a little less.

And here I thought that heavy elements came from space, since they were made in, you know, stars and supernovas.

Terrorist wise theres a big difference between having to go 5-11 km. into a desert versus going 5-11 km. to the ocean floor (or trench floor). Also, stuff gets blown from deserts hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers away all the time. Stuff rarely leaves the ocean (or trench floor), travels to the surface and then gets blown by wind hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.

Maybe if they reversed the idea a bit: "Pay to put people on mars... And we'll also remove reality shows and reality contestants from tv onward" ?!?!

It's subjective offcourse... Personally I think 60 years total is plenty... Eternity, imho would become boring very quickly. Atleast after only a few billion years. Sure it would be awesome to have the longevity to see ie. a supernova relatively close or life develop on a planet, but maybe not so for the trillionth time.

Well you could also launch unmanned stuff on the SLS. Ie. hubble replacement with say an 8 meter primary mirror versus the 2,4 meter mirror on hubble.

Completely agree... As far as I know the brain is probably the most wonderfull and complicated thing that nature has created. "The number of neurons, according to array tomography, a technique far more accurate than earlier microscopic methods, has shown about 200 billion neurons in the human brain with 125 trillion synapses in the cerebral cortex alone."

I think that's a very good point. In the same vein... Does it matter if your feelings are "just" electro chemical processes in the brain or attached to a soul... Or, as here, just simulated. To me? Not really...

Personally I have to agree... It doesn't diminish their accomplishments though... I attach the same high value to those accomplishments as the next guy. It just doesn't carry over to a piece of paper and autographs. It's one of the few places where I'm not overly sentimental, well for me I mean.

Regarding dementia and other late life diseases... I just don't think the human body was in any way "built" with longevity in mind. Not much beyond the point of small chance of procreation. Regarding large asteroids/comets/dwarfplanets/ungodly marbles hitting the earth. I think that is the greatest threat to the survival of humanity and life there is. Granted the chance is small, but if it happens we loose everything. Global warming... If it's not "so bad", beyond killing the 125 mio. we're allready guessing it will cost, then it's insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Obviously it still sucks and we should try to minimise the damage and cost of lives... but still... not a threat of survivability, but a threat of quality of life. If global warming on the other hand is a threat that can end up killing us all? The run away scenario discussed in another section. Then I believe we'll be unable to change it anyway, atleast much less easily than deflecting a large asteroid.

Life with arm > Life? Life with arm = Life? Life with arm < Life? Personally... It depends on which arm it is... I'm single so...

Dawn, Messenger, still listening to voyager once in a while... SOHO, Stereo and other assorted probes aimed at investigating the sun... James webb telescope and others that we might want to put a little further away than LEO.