Question The Earth is scheduled for demolition

[vonneuman]

I'll pack sunglasses

 

[Brycesv1]

dont forget the coppertone

 

[Linguofreak]

I'll pack sunglasses

Remember: The spectrum of a 7 megakelvin blackbody peaks in the soft gamma. Pack *lead* sunglasses.

 

[Andy44]

Molten lead in the eyes? Ouch!

 

[vonneuman]

Molten lead in the eyes? Ouch!

It's sad when that is the least of your worries.

 

[JamesG]

However, everything, and I mean everything, boils down to one purpose: preserving safety and life. When all hope of safety and life are removed, social constructs cease to have meaning, and "Mad Max" will be very much alive.

Why? The world is doomed (doomed! I tell you!) There is no where to go and no way to save yourself. Acquiring things is pointless, "surviving" is meaningless, unless you just want to be there to be incinerated by the fireball.

I think mass depression and suicide, as people just give up is much more likely than becoming banditos. Enough people either won't believe it, to "programmed" in their life to change, and might even see it as a good thing (ie: Judgement day) that something like civil services will continue right up til the end. The last thing destroyed on Earth will be a bureaucracy...

 

[vonneuman]

Everyone on this thread is so cheery:chainsaw:

 

[Artlav]

Virginia was more than three hundred kilometers away when the light burst toward her. Every nerve ending in her body began to record a strange, prickling sensation -- the sheer pressure of photons trying to push her backward. No shadows were cast anywhere in the tower, so bright was the glare. It pierced walls, ceramic beams, notepads, and people -- four hundred thousand people. The maglev terminal connecting Sri Lanka Tower to London and Sydney, the waste treatment centers that sustained the lakes and farms, all the shops, theaters, and apartments liquefied instantly. The structure began to slip and crash like a giant waterfall, but gravity could not yank it down fast enough. The Tower became vapor before it could fall half a meter. At the vanished city’s feet, the trees of the forest were no longer able to cast shadows; they had themselves become long shadows of carbonized dust on the ground.

So much for watching the show.

Are you going into XENOLOGY!?

Huh?

 

[Ghostrider]

Check out Nevil Shute's "On The Beach" (1957) for some literary unavoidable-incoming-death-for-everybody stuff. There's also a couple of movies based on it, one made in 1959 starring Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck and one in 2000 with Rachel Ward and Armand Assante. Here the Planetary Bogeyman is nuclear fallout but the basic premise (oh my God oh my God we're all gonna die) is the same.

 

[Dig Gil]

Huh?

All right, I’ll tell you. But I must warn you that your question, Richard, comes
under the heading of xenology. Xenology: an unnatural mixture of science fiction
and formal logic. It’s based on the false premise that human psychology is applicable
to extraterrestrial intelligent beings.

That's how I've first read the word "xenology" (altough I've already seen "xenologists" before).

Better definition: http://www.xenology.info/

 

[JamesG]

More like the study of the speculative study of nothing.

 

[Ghostrider]

Spatio-Analysts make a living out of analyzing the Nothing.

 

[jedidia]

Do I hear good ol' Asimov there? :thumbup:

 

[Ghostrider]

Do I hear good ol' Asimov there? :thumbup:

You can bet your kyrt jacket on it.

 

[martins]

Using global warming as a template, I would predict about this to happen:

• Until summer 2012, nothing happens because data isn't precise enough to guarantee impact.
• September 2012 there will be a series of high-profile political meetings confirming that there is a risk of impact.
• During October, a brief period of general relief when new data show that the impact will happen in central Africa. African nations demand immediate actions, and are promised financial help to be finalised "in due course".
• In November, politicians realise that Earth is doomed whereever the impact. New meetings scheduled to decide who is responsible to avert the catastrophe.
• December 10th. Global message to from the worlds leaders: Everything is under control. Immediately afterwards, all governments dissolve themselves.
• Mid December: various new religions are founded and go to war with each other.
• End of December: Food, water, fuel shortages. Human civilisation is wiped out.
• December 31: asteroid decides that there is no point and turns round.

 

[Dig Gil]

• December 31: asteroid decides that there is no point and turns round.

:rofl:
No more words needed.

 

[JamesG]

Or:

Asteroid turns out to be a hollow shell that burns up harmlessly in the atmosphere.

The rest of Earth's ecosystem enjoys the peace and quiet.

 

[Ghostrider]

Or:

Asteroid turns out to be a hollow shell that burns up harmlessly in the atmosphere.

The rest of Earth's ecosystem enjoys the peace and quiet.

And then the enraged citizens destroy the local observatory, so it won't happen anymore.

 

[jedidia]

And then the enraged citizens destroy the local observatory, so it won't happen anymore.

If all observatories managed to missjudge the mass of the asteroid by that amount, they would be damn right to do so!:lol:

 

[Notebook]

And then the enraged citizens destroy the local observatory, so it won't happen anymore.

Enraged citizens = angry mob? Pitchforks optional.

N.