The End of the World (Well. Crap.)
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2147879.stm

Damnit, that sucks. When are those lasers gunna come along...?

So what do you guys think? I realize that this is a pretty large guess, and will most likely end up not happening so I'm not worried. Things like this pop up in the news every once and a while, and they never end up being true. But then again, it received a "Palermo technical scale of threat of 0.06!" (?)

Interested in hearing what you guys think...

Is this the one where the scientists who supplied the story stated that "our margin for error is one in twenty million"? I laugh in the faces of astronomers. They're all total idiots. Except of course, for Patrick Moore, who is actually a really cool guy.

Anyone who knows anything about this, will tell you that if anything is headed our way, the likelihood is that it will hit the moon, get sucked into Jupiter, or get sucked into the sun.

It'll probably fly by our solarsystem, billions of miles away from any object.

0.06, what bullshit.
Don't get me all excited.

Meteorite
 

"Detailed calculations of NT7's orbit suggest many occasions when its projected path through space intersects the Earth's orbit."

Does this mean that it could get into our orbit and get dragged along behind earth which will then make it like another moon? because im confused

Plus if it is going to hit we have a while to make things to deflect it

I have this fear that everyone will get to cocky and start being like "Nothing from space can destroy us!", and then the world will be jinxed like when whoever said that the Titanic was unsinkable even by God.

There's billions and billions of rocks flying around out there. The chances of spotting one coming towards us in time to deflect it seem very unlikely.

I think the title of this thread was a bit misleading since it said continental devastation and not global. Then again, the huge cloud of dust that would be thrown up into the atmosphere would block out the sun. Thus, leaving the majority of the world to starve to death. Whee.

Yup, because then all the plants would die so the animals have no food, then the animals will die beacuse they have no food, then we would die because
we will have no food

That's what the people of earth (as a whole) deserve. But it can always change.

I Suppose, The Earth does kind of deserve that.

No, not the Earth. The Earth itself is a good, it's gives us life, food shelter and ,many good things. And human kind trys to destroy it, that's why we get earthquakes, eruptions,ect. She's mad at us. I beleive.

Sorry, I wasnt very clear by "earth" i meant the human race as a whole.

This might sound kind of retarded but i think the earth is like a living being the core its heart and stuff, like where you said shes mad at us i think maybe the tsunami could've been for the war in iraq.

Or maybe shes trying to make us make peace with other countries by bringing us together with a disaster, it sounds kind of wierd but it makes sense to me

We don't try to destroy it. We try to live on in comfort.
Enormous populations have caused us to expand our 'destruction' (as you would possibly call it).

Some of us dont try to destroy it, but some people do deliberatly.

EDIT: E.g the french on an island off the coast of australia,they test nukes there which destroys the island

I know this since 2000. My classmates said it isn't true, but I saw on Discovery Channel. But, yes... I think the really enemy of the Earth is the Humans.

They actually test most of their nukes underwater, most nuclear capable countries do. It's safer to the environment and causes less damage.

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.

-Agent Smith, The Matrix

Bah... of course !
Human specy's nature is to destroy, it's not new, just think about prehistorical humans. They were already doing the war, why would it change ?
Some scientists think that we could own the gene of violence, could it be right ? Mmmmh...

Huh... for asteroids, don't worry, we won't be exterminated by a rock, the chance to be hurted is very infinitesimal. When they say it was very close, hum... it was of some million kilometers.
And if this had to happen, you won't suffer, this will be very rapid :D
Euf... paranoia, paranoia... -_-'

You should have to worry about your future and your children's, when I see the level of pollution and the extinction of so much animal species, I'm very anxious...

Do you acttually worry and beleave about this crap?! They've been saying things like this since before I was born! They said in the year 2000 the world would end! And you worry about this?!

Thers an amusing video of a Londoner on 1st January 2000 getting some cash from a cash machine.

He cries out: "it works!"

People honestly believed in the Millenium bug.

Silly people, enviromental concern is for tree huggers and hardcore vegans. Unless significant, widespread technological advances are made to prevent and reverse negative impacts, we're all going to wind up screwing ourselves over anyways. With that confession out of the way, I say do whatever we damn well want, as long as it doesn't screw up the end of our current generation, and good luck to our descendants. By "whatever we want" I of course mean within the boundaries of common sense (If we can plant trees, plant trees, so the price of paper doesn't skyrocket).

Now, regarding the asteroid. If it has to hit, I hope it hits Antarctica, so we can get snow in addition to chunks of debris and massive dust. Note that questioning the scientific backing of that logic is far too complex for the common mind to fully comprehend, thus requires no legitimate explanation. If mankind isn't lucky enough to score some snow, I s'pose we can always do away with Europe. Africa has too many uptapped resources, Asia makes cheap products to stock local Wal Marts and Australia houses dingos. It would really suck to nearly kill off a species with a name as cool as "Dingo".

A deadpan delivery doesn't always translate too well in typed form, Majic. So maybe you were kidding, and maybe you weren't. But its pretty obvious that the end of "our current generation" is headed for disaster, regardless of what we do now. You realize an absurd amount of landloss occurs every year when the water rises, right? Not so noticeable if you're in texas, but the polynesian islands aren't as numerous as they were ten years ago.

You may be thinking, Pfft! Poly-whatnow? Who cares? and that would make you a bad person. But aside from that, more prominent cities and places (to the americans in the audience) aren't exactly safe from disaster. Goodbye, New york! Ciao florida! and I have no knowledge of french but goodbye is what they'll be screaming in new orleans. Australia is the island continent, and I don't know much about their geography, but I have a feeling raising water levels wouldn't be fantastic for them, either.

But this all beside the asteroid. With something like that, all I can think is: Do we really need this? Can't we finish our destruction on our own?

And on my final note, Humans are not now, nor were they ever "at war" with the earth. I'm not saying humans aren't responsible for destruction galore, but I am saying no human was ever born thinking it had the right to do whatever it wanted with the nearby resources, and that nothing else should have access save by that humans mercy. Society and Culture are to be blame. Tribal societys affected their environment temporarily (We are, as a species, resource-heavy) but lacked the desire to work hard enough to cause permanent damage. Later cultures did. End of story.

I wish it just destroys my school with teachers in it................YEAH PARTY AT MY PLACE!

You're still going to be in school in 14 years?

Geez, and I thought I was a slow learner.

Were kind of overdue for a good kick in the ass. Kidding aside, I believe if it is our fate to be wiped out either by killing our earth ourselves, killing each other, or being wiped out by uncontrollable events in the cosmos. Then so be it, we shouldnt fear the end.

I dont care about this date too much as its not even close yet, and the fact that its such a slim chance added in with human error, blagh.

With that being said we should focus more on the now. Looking for more immediate threats, or improving life here on earth and making it better for our children atleast. But if theres an asteroid thats coming to blow away the earth, and theres no way to stop it no way to escape it, who would want to survive the aftermath of that anyways? I know I wouldnt. Enough of my talk though, think about it for yourself.

Ok, so how long did it take for you to establish that assumption?
0.06? I was all happy for a moment... I don't think its anything to worry about. It could collide with another planet, or burn up in the 15 year wait anyways...

Not to mention the British tested warheads (not sure about nuclear though) on Australian soil, more importantly, Aboriginal land.

I don't think this 0.06 threat level is anything to worry about. Maybe if it was 0.07 or higher, I'd be worried. But I couldn't really care at the moment. It won't be here for another few years anyway.

Alcar...

Yes nuclear. And, what's more, they didn't take any precautions to make sure that the scientists, army people and random aborigines around were protected from the radiation. Also some of the fallout blew around the country and even hit Adelaide, which could explain a lot.

From that 70's show "NOO,I'm going to die a virgin!!"----Fez

Well then the Earth must hate me becuase I'm pro-Bush, but hey, what's it gonna' do?

*Starts laughing but is then swallowed by a crevice that mysteriously pops up.*

Thats all I ever hear now is that the world is ending some people think that the tusnmai is a sign the world is ending. I would much rather die knowing god exist and that im ether going to heaven or hell then die not knowing if there is an afterlife.

I assure you, the world will not end. Not even the Christian God is that mean and twisted. ;)

When the sun gets hotter in a few Billion years, Earth's plants and animals will die. If Scientists have cracked lightspeed by then Humans may escape. Then die out on the Spaceships as they don't have a clue where to go and they shall be flying about until their supplies run out.

2006
 

Apparently the world is going to end in 2006 from a nuclear holocaust. Its a skip code in the bible apparently

[q]I think the really enemy of the Earth is the Humans.[/q]
Bol-locks.
The real enemies of the Earth include massive meteors, black holes and stuff like that.
Humans live on the planet, and half of us love the earth and try our best to conserve it - within 1st world society reason, of course.

I don't see what everybody, everywhere, has against humanity. Every ****ing person seems to say humanity is a bad idea, that we'll all kill ourselves, that we're destroying the planet and such.
No we're not. We're living on it and consuming it, like other animals. At least we attempt to put back what we take away, you don't see any giraffes planting new trees, do you?

Of course we should. It's the end of the world. What the hell else is there to fear? End of the world in this context, equalling death, of course.

It's only natural we have weapons of mass destruction. I'd like to see any meat-eating animal who isn't slighly aggresive when the circumstances are right. And remember, the majority of humans are jolly nice people who aren't in for beating the shit out of anyone. Not really, really.

Sure, nuclear weapons are nasty, but we're not going to use them, and or testing doesn't do that much damage.

The causing of global warming isn't that special either, we've become a massively prosperous collective of civilisations with awesome technology, brilliant life expectancies and amazing qualities of lives. We could be the most advanced race in the entire universe. Global warming is a small price to pay for our majestic civilisation.

I agree. Stop over reacting. We're all going to die someday, we may as well make the most of our wonderful technology.

Here, Here. I'm inspired to go burn something.

but overreacting makes me look more extremist which is fun.

My comment wasn't aimed at you. It was aimed at the anti-technology and anti- humanity peoples who will no doubt disagree with us.

I'm not anti-Technology, i love technology :D

Hopefully they'll make some sort of invulnerable injection. If not, once we're gone, a genetically squid race will replace us, or we might be harvested by some sort of alien race.

Of course not. I test things all the time that I am never ever going to use... :rolleyes:

You don't see giraffes creating nuclear warheads either...

Yes, but do these meat-eating animals cause 'mass destruction' by being slightly aggresive, or do they just keill a few animals for natural dietary reasons?

If we created them, we surely had a need for them, and intended to use them?

Pour quois(sp?)?! That's like saying a mouse that has made a stick a slightly different shaped stick, then, consequentually(actual word?), he must be stomped on until his eyes are expelled from his skull.

Sorry, am angry. I am just expressing my views, even if they conflict with yours. I don't wanna be enemies. If I am being a bastard, slap me. :p

Our Majestic civilization, as Esus so aptly puts it, is crap. We work harder and longer than any society before us has, and our children are likely to work harder than we do. Our technological advances are trivial when seen in the light of the damage they do. (And that's saying a lot). Depression and mental illness are forever on the rise, while they were virtually unknown in the "native" world until we introduced christianity to them. We have a tendency to lead stress filled lives and set standards which are diametrically opposed to each other. As in: Monogamy and Two people working career jobs. Think about it.

What makes people think humans are so special to begin with? "We have abstract thought, that means we'll be the only species ever to expand beyond our means?" The prediliction is to think of the resource greedy, environment bashing societys as the basis for human thought, when its simply not true. If the first homo sapien sapien to fall out of its mother's womb had created a race that acts the way we do, we would not be here today.

And while I'm ranting, Global Warming isn't just a notch up on some global thermostat. No one can turn a dial and fix the problem. And it won't lead to a big happy greenhouse either. I'm not saying we're facing a waterworld-type future, just that when the water level rises globally, groundwater rises as well. Suddenly valleys are lakes and swamps. We're already stacking people on top of one another, what happens when the sea level rises fifteen feet? If someone wants to find the statistics somewhere, I'm sure I've heard that the global temperature of the ice ages wasn't more than ten degrees colder. I think its more like two, but I'm trying to play it safe.

"I just planted a tree." Oh goody. I'm sure that planting that spindly little pine where those sequoyas were will really help avert any ecological ramifications.

Seriously, this thing about humans nigh unto gods is way overblown. Even the worst gods don't play to kill off the whole board. Way I see it, we're just the first kids to make it the abstract playground, and now we get to kill anything that might want in. I'm not anti-humans, and I'm not anti-technology. First of all, I'm human, and I don't think its wise to think of yourself as inescapably, genetically evil and wrong. Thats crap. And second, technology's not the problem. Its this (thing) where we stick with the first dumb idea because it made some people rich. I'm pro-technology, lets start using it to make our lives easier, our air better, and the land less polluted. I'm anti-[Technology=pollution]. And that's where its at.

Before one goes spouting about the brilliant life expectancies and amazing quality of life, it might be prudent to take a look beyond your backyard. Bad health, short lives and overall shitholes are not few in number. A more than fair portion of these caused by the same prosperity we revel in. I don't suggest one drop material things and become a hermit because that won't help anything. But it would be good to get some perspective about where all those material goods come from, who makes them and under what circumstances.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here and, (my apologies to super munch) I wholeheartedly agree with super munch. And I'm not trying to make enemies either.

And PS, under no circumstance do the words "slightly aggressive" and "Weapons of Mass Destruction" have common ground. (I'm probably over-reacting, but I'm probably pissed the f**k off).

Volsung

I agree totally with Volsung.
Except I'm a little more anti-human than him.