http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26641652/
I am utterly amazed by this rationale. "The world is going to end soon, so I'll just do the job myself, only quicker."
This girl would have felt right athome with those people who thought breaking the sound barrier would destroy the world, and those who opposed exploding an atom bomb because they thought it would end the world too.
Puh-leeeze. Has mankind ever been so good at something that we could destroy everything? We can't pay our bills on time, much less figure out how to kill off the companies that keep sending us the damn things.
Nevah happen, Joe.
Totem
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Totem wrote:
Has mankind ever been so good at something that we could destroy everything?
The human race could easily end our existence on earth in a variety of ways.
It simply isn't rational to expect the LHC to end the world with about a hundred million times less energy per event then the ultra high energy cosmic rays we detect from space on a daily basis (and occur much, much more frequently then we detect them).
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Almalieque wrote:
If no one debated with me, then I wouldn't post here anymore.
gbaji wrote:
I'm not getting my news from anywhere Joph.
bsphil wrote:
End all life on the planet? Maybe we could do that--although the roaches and bacteria may survive. Destroy the planet itself? Even if we managed, there would still be large chunks. So no.
and even if we did manage to create black holes, the planet would still exist in one form or another.
Edited, Sep 11th 2008 1:46am by Paskil
Paskil wrote:
and even if we did manage to create black holes, the planet would still exist in one form or another.
Pretty sure that wouldn't matter.
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Almalieque wrote:
If no one debated with me, then I wouldn't post here anymore.
gbaji wrote:
I'm not getting my news from anywhere Joph.
Totem wrote:
Puh-leeeze. Has mankind ever been so good at something that we could destroy everything?
Yeah. Well, no. Not everything. Just us.
The girl's not to blame, by the way. The news programs that told her the world was ending are. She's sixteen. It's not the most emotionally stable age.
That's terribly sad for her and her family.
Probably a good indication of the perils of a poor education in combination with mental illness.
Yes, I do believe modern humans COULD send every human extinct, if we fought a full-out nuclear weapon war, using every nuclear weapon in existence right now, and presuming that more than one continent was involved.
I think it's an indication of a HUGE bout of mass sanity that no-one so far HAS started a nuclear war. Despite all the brain-washed suicidal martyrs around.
Probably a good indication of the perils of a poor education in combination with mental illness.
Yes, I do believe modern humans COULD send every human extinct, if we fought a full-out nuclear weapon war, using every nuclear weapon in existence right now, and presuming that more than one continent was involved.
I think it's an indication of a HUGE bout of mass sanity that no-one so far HAS started a nuclear war. Despite all the brain-washed suicidal martyrs around.
zepoodle wrote:
Totem wrote:
Puh-leeeze. Has mankind ever been so good at something that we could destroy everything?
Yeah. Well, no. Not everything. Just us.
The girl's not to blame, by the way. The news programs that told her the world was ending are. She's sixteen. It's not the most emotionally stable age.
Seriously? If that was true, teenagers far and wide would commit suicide every time a tornado showed up in their area, because they're doomed anyway. Somehow billions of people managed to make it through that age without committing suicide. Pretty good odds that this girl already had some deeper issues going on.
She drank pesticide?
Jeebus.
Jeebus.
What's bred in the bone will not out of the flesh.
bismarckmajivo wrote:
Seriously? If that was true, teenagers far and wide would commit suicide every time a tornado showed up in their area, because they're doomed anyway. Somehow billions of people managed to make it through that age without committing suicide. Pretty good odds that this girl already had some deeper issues going on.
Tornadoes end the world?
:/
So far there I haven't seen anything on that list which isn't entirely speculative in the extreme, bsphil. Again, we do not have the capacity to kill ourselves in entirety. Period.
We could possibly make a good sized dent in our total population, but it would take the 3 C's: cooperation, capacity, and coordination.
Cooperation: Either directly or indirectly, it would require multiple nations engaging in an utter and total scorched earth policy, either via warfare against each other or where everyone gangs up against another. The unlikelihood of this occuring is very high in that Doomsday scenarios fail to take into account the built-in limited nature of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
Capacity: We simply do not have the abilty to end life on this planet. Period. Argue against this all you like, but throw everything into the mix and you still couldn't exterminate humanity,much less all life on earth.
Coordination: It would require a joint effort by all parties, timed to simultaneously explode/germinate/meltdown-- something that wouldn't happen because it implicitly implies agreement among adversaries. Once the other side dies or capitulates, the living or winning side quits doing what killed the losing/dead side. Half measures wouldn't be nearly enough to come anywhere close to exterminating life on Earth.
Totem
We could possibly make a good sized dent in our total population, but it would take the 3 C's: cooperation, capacity, and coordination.
Cooperation: Either directly or indirectly, it would require multiple nations engaging in an utter and total scorched earth policy, either via warfare against each other or where everyone gangs up against another. The unlikelihood of this occuring is very high in that Doomsday scenarios fail to take into account the built-in limited nature of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
Capacity: We simply do not have the abilty to end life on this planet. Period. Argue against this all you like, but throw everything into the mix and you still couldn't exterminate humanity,much less all life on earth.
Coordination: It would require a joint effort by all parties, timed to simultaneously explode/germinate/meltdown-- something that wouldn't happen because it implicitly implies agreement among adversaries. Once the other side dies or capitulates, the living or winning side quits doing what killed the losing/dead side. Half measures wouldn't be nearly enough to come anywhere close to exterminating life on Earth.
Totem
zepoodle wrote:
Totem wrote:
Puh-leeeze. Has mankind ever been so good at something that we could destroy everything?
Yeah. Well, no. Not everything. Just us.
The girl's not to blame, by the way. The news programs that told her the world was ending are. She's sixteen. It's not the most emotionally stable age.
The girl's not to blame? Hell yes she is. She drank pesticide, and nobody held a gun to her head to make her do it. It's a very sad event, and a gross overreaction from a young mind, but I'm sure the vast majority of people watching the doomsday predictions didn't gulp down some Bug-B-Gone. Her family tried to divert her attention, even. In the end it came down to the girl being neurotic* and offing herself. Sad, yes, but her own fault.
I'd say if anything, it was a selfish event. She couldn't just wait for the end like the rest of us? I bet the fireworks are going to be awesome if a blackhole is actually created. Er, or the lack of all fireworks, since light can't escape...
*By neurotic I mean of course she wasn't quite right in the head. Doesn't change the fact that she did indeed kill herself. Lots of "not quite right in the head" people live perfectly fine lives.
Hey, stop the cruel teasing of this poor young girl, this was much worse than the sky falling, you can dodge that, these are experiments underneath the earth! Just imagine the damage that would be caused if they accidentally bumped into Atlas!
Totem wrote:
So far there I haven't seen anything on that list which isn't entirely speculative in the extreme, bsphil. Again, we do not have the capacity to kill ourselves in entirety. Period.
We could possibly make a good sized dent in our total population, but it would take the 3 C's: cooperation, capacity, and coordination.
Cooperation: Either directly or indirectly, it would require multiple nations engaging in an utter and total scorched earth policy, either via warfare against each other or where everyone gangs up against another. The unlikelihood of this occuring is very high in that Doomsday scenarios fail to take into account the built-in limited nature of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
Capacity: We simply do not have the abilty to end life on this planet. Period. Argue against this all you like, but throw everything into the mix and you still couldn't exterminate humanity,much less all life on earth.
Coordination: It would require a joint effort by all parties, timed to simultaneously explode/germinate/meltdown-- something that wouldn't happen because it implicitly implies agreement among adversaries. Once the other side dies or capitulates, the living or winning side quits doing what killed the losing/dead side. Half measures wouldn't be nearly enough to come anywhere close to exterminating life on Earth.
Totem
We could possibly make a good sized dent in our total population, but it would take the 3 C's: cooperation, capacity, and coordination.
Cooperation: Either directly or indirectly, it would require multiple nations engaging in an utter and total scorched earth policy, either via warfare against each other or where everyone gangs up against another. The unlikelihood of this occuring is very high in that Doomsday scenarios fail to take into account the built-in limited nature of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
Capacity: We simply do not have the abilty to end life on this planet. Period. Argue against this all you like, but throw everything into the mix and you still couldn't exterminate humanity,much less all life on earth.
Coordination: It would require a joint effort by all parties, timed to simultaneously explode/germinate/meltdown-- something that wouldn't happen because it implicitly implies agreement among adversaries. Once the other side dies or capitulates, the living or winning side quits doing what killed the losing/dead side. Half measures wouldn't be nearly enough to come anywhere close to exterminating life on Earth.
Totem
There are a number of ways the human race could kill itself off in much less fantastical ways than a nuclear war or some other mass destruction. For example, it may happen some day that for all of our scientific and medical advances, we inadvertently produce or encourage the breeding of a virus that sterilizes all humans and is easily spread through the air. Such a disaster would not be immediately recognizable, and may only be discovered after it's too late.
Fears over the LHC are no doubt exaggerated, but dismissing the possibility of the self-destruction of the human race entirely is a bit too optimistic, I think.
LockeColeMA wrote:
The girl's not to blame? Hell yes she is. She drank pesticide, and nobody held a gun to her head to make her do it. It's a very sad event, and a gross overreaction from a young mind, but I'm sure the vast majority of people watching the doomsday predictions didn't gulp down some Bug-B-Gone. Her family tried to divert her attention, even. In the end it came down to the girl being neurotic* and offing herself. Sad, yes, but her own fault.
I'd say if anything, it was a selfish event. She couldn't just wait for the end like the rest of us? I bet the fireworks are going to be awesome if a blackhole is actually created. Er, or the lack of all fireworks, since light can't escape...
*By neurotic I mean of course she wasn't quite right in the head. Doesn't change the fact that she did indeed kill herself. Lots of "not quite right in the head" people live perfectly fine lives.
I'd say if anything, it was a selfish event. She couldn't just wait for the end like the rest of us? I bet the fireworks are going to be awesome if a blackhole is actually created. Er, or the lack of all fireworks, since light can't escape...
*By neurotic I mean of course she wasn't quite right in the head. Doesn't change the fact that she did indeed kill herself. Lots of "not quite right in the head" people live perfectly fine lives.
If you tell a suicidal person the world's going to end and they kill themselves? Yes. It is your fault. It's not their fault they're suicidal, but you don't get off scot-free for provoking them. It's like filling their bathroom with sleeping pills and razor blades and hanging nooses in their bedroom.
bsphil wrote:
At present, atmospheric gases trap enough heat close to the surface to keep things comfortable. Increase the global temperature a bit, however, and there could be a bad feedback effect, with water evaporating faster, freeing water vapor (a potent greenhouse gas), which traps more heat, which drives carbon dioxide from the rocks, which drives temperatures still higher. Earth could end up much like Venus, where the high on a typical day is 900 degrees Fahrenheit. It would probably take a lot of warming to initiate such a runaway greenhouse effect, but scientists have no clue where exactly the tipping point lies.
I stopped reading at this point, but I couldn't remove the imprint of my palm from my face.
zepoodle wrote:
LockeColeMA wrote:
The girl's not to blame? Hell yes she is. She drank pesticide, and nobody held a gun to her head to make her do it. It's a very sad event, and a gross overreaction from a young mind, but I'm sure the vast majority of people watching the doomsday predictions didn't gulp down some Bug-B-Gone. Her family tried to divert her attention, even. In the end it came down to the girl being neurotic* and offing herself. Sad, yes, but her own fault.
I'd say if anything, it was a selfish event. She couldn't just wait for the end like the rest of us? I bet the fireworks are going to be awesome if a blackhole is actually created. Er, or the lack of all fireworks, since light can't escape...
*By neurotic I mean of course she wasn't quite right in the head. Doesn't change the fact that she did indeed kill herself. Lots of "not quite right in the head" people live perfectly fine lives.
I'd say if anything, it was a selfish event. She couldn't just wait for the end like the rest of us? I bet the fireworks are going to be awesome if a blackhole is actually created. Er, or the lack of all fireworks, since light can't escape...
*By neurotic I mean of course she wasn't quite right in the head. Doesn't change the fact that she did indeed kill herself. Lots of "not quite right in the head" people live perfectly fine lives.
If you tell a suicidal person the world's going to end and they kill themselves? Yes. It is your fault. It's not their fault they're suicidal, but you don't get off scot-free for provoking them. It's like filling their bathroom with sleeping pills and razor blades and hanging nooses in their bedroom.
No it's not even CLOSE to that situation. It's like someone looking at the daily terror level, seeing it's orange, offing themselves because they're more likely to die in a terrorist attack. Or going to your church, hearing about the end of times, and killing yourself to beat God to the punch.
The news program said the world was ending? Fine. Did they say "The world is ending, go drink pesticide?" or "The world is ending, kill yourself now, here's the top ten ways!"? No way. They said something... well, irrational but with some truth to it ("some" being a 1 in 10 billion chance of truth), and an irrational mind took it waaay too far and killed herself. There is no logical progression there that a rational person would make. As I said, I'm sure tens or hundreds of thousands of people watched the same program and didn't kill themselves. The news program might be fear-mongering, but the girl made her own decision and killed herself.
The only argument I could see is that her impaired state of mind made it impossible to make a rational decision. In which case it's the girl's mind's fault. No one can predict 100% what a response will be to anything we do, but no one would predict an outcome like this because it is not rational. If it's not a rational and logical conclusion following from the program, then I say it's not the news program's fault.
Still a pity. Also, was the girl suicidal? I mean, like, depressed? I don't recall reading that in the paper. If she killed herself but wasn't a depressed suicidal, I'm guessing the family history has a lot more to do with it than the precipitating action (ie, the news).
Edited, Sep 13th 2008 11:22am by LockeColeMA
Fine. So she was suicidal. But in order to convince herself she needed to die, was it necessary to use possibly the lamest excuse around to off herself? Couldn't she have used, oh, I don't know, maybe the bird flu or the destruction of the world's coral reefs as a reason to drink some bug juice?
C'mon. The earth being destrroyed by the HLC? Really? Was it all that plausible, especially when compared to any number of more scary things outs there?
Totem
C'mon. The earth being destrroyed by the HLC? Really? Was it all that plausible, especially when compared to any number of more scary things outs there?
Totem
LockeColeMA wrote:
No it's not even CLOSE to that situation. It's like someone looking at the daily terror level, seeing it's orange, offing themselves because they're more likely to die in a terrorist attack. Or going to your church, hearing about the end of times, and killing yourself to beat God to the punch.
That actually happens.
Totem wrote:
C'mon. The earth being destroyed by the LHC? Really? Was it all that plausible, especially when compared to any number of more scary things out there?
FTFY
I'm not sure, but I think the multi colour stripe bow tie on the Jehovah Witness that I just turn away, without accepting the boring comic book, he wanted to hand me, would cause someone less stable then me to drink spiked kool-aid.
His partner tie was barely less ugly for nearly making them twins. Well now I know I don't need to go to any store front church for the latest fashion in old black man church wear.
His partner tie was barely less ugly for nearly making them twins. Well now I know I don't need to go to any store front church for the latest fashion in old black man church wear.
In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair! -ElneClare
This Post is written in Elnese, If it was an actual Post, it would make sense.
This Post is written in Elnese, If it was an actual Post, it would make sense.
Aha-- the correct thread for this post.
Michael Jackson is a JW. So they have that going for them. Did he bust out a Thriller move on your porchstep while wheedling you into talking with him just a bit longer?
:D
Totem
Michael Jackson is a JW. So they have that going for them. Did he bust out a Thriller move on your porchstep while wheedling you into talking with him just a bit longer?
:D
Totem
No I find my resistance to JW has reach the point where I can say No and close my door.
But then I barely made my save against heinous ties. I rather face a Barlog.
But then I barely made my save against heinous ties. I rather face a Barlog.
In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair! -ElneClare
This Post is written in Elnese, If it was an actual Post, it would make sense.
This Post is written in Elnese, If it was an actual Post, it would make sense.
Drinking pesticide is actually one of the more common ways of killing yourself there.
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