h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just a thought; our planet isn't geologically unstable. The energy of the earthquake was amazingly trivial compared to the energy pushing the tectonic plates around, even though it was rather large by human standards. In percentage terms, what area of land was affected by the tsunamis?
I'm sure I read somewhere that plate tectonics is essential to life because it helps the planet recycle carbon and other elements on geological timescales. Anyone know for sure?

PS I don't think this was God's fault for the same reason it wasn't Santa's.

Yeah well, wait until Yellowstone blows or San Francisco drops into the ocean - then what will Bush and his fundamentalist Christian cronies say about their benevolent God?

No doubt they will try to blame their citizens for not having been better Christians.


az

Yeah, tremors are caused by the positive feedback through millions of tons of rock by unmarried people having sex. It's true! I read it in a Fundie magazine

Goodness me! They must really be going at it!


az

Hoo's comments put me in mind of Mark Twains pithy assessment of God and Faith;

'If there is a God, he is a malign thug.'

While checking the quote, I foundf the following comments, also from Mr Twain;

'Faith is believing something you know ain't true.'

'Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness... It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast.'

I have used the malign thug comment before, mostly when commenting on the death of friends and acquaintances. Now, more than ever, it seems to be true.

Oh, and the earth is *massively* geologically unstable, just for the record. Further horrors like this require only a *tiny* shift in the San Andreas fault, or Grand Canaria.

Though anyone requiring a good laugh should read David Aaronovitch's hilarious piece on why this disaster proves we need a system for stopping asteroids from striking the earth.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1380426,00.html

At least, I assume it's a spoof...

"hilarious piece on why this disaster proves we need a system for stopping asteroids from striking the earth. "



Why is this funny? Two things you can say with certainty about a massive asteroid impact is that it HAS happened before and it WILL happen again. The only uncertainty is when. As for where it hits, that's almost irrelevant.

There are two major features of asteroid impact that differentiate it from other natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanos:

1. Asteroid impact could kill every single human on the planet.

2. Asteroid impact could be prevented using technology not much advanced on what we already have.

Neither of those points are speculative. They're fact. Given that, why is it funny to suggest that we should be doing something about it?

Personally I'm quite looking forward to the Americans' reaction when La Palma breaks up and the resulting tsunami demolishes the whole of New York. I'm betting they'll bomb Spain. Any takers?

H.

Gosh, I hope not.


az
(now sitting somewhat uncomfortably in Seville)

Hoo - it's hilarious because as Bill Bryson points out in his 'Short History...', current scientific thinking on the subject holds that;

1) At any time we are watching less than 1% of the sky at any given time.

2) The MOST warning we are likly to get without investing something equivalent to the GDP of the entire planet 15 times over to improve the coverage significantly is 4 SECONDS.

Time enough to get Bruce and Clint into space or just enough to go 'Oh sh..'?

As to the La Palma question, what's the betting that if/when it does happen its a terrorist with a suitcase bomb?

I don't think the article was a spoof, I think he's deadly serious.

There are other major disasters waiting in the wings aren't there e.g. the San Andreas fault & a volcano in Yellowstone park?
Given that there are finite resources, I guess the problem is one of assessing the risk & allocating resources appropriately. Something we don't always do very well.

Regretably, i don't think it's a spoof either. Aaronovitch is a buffoon, as he has proven ably over the last couple of years.

Treating it as a spoof is all it desreves however.

haha have you been to mars etc , yes we love or kids to bits but hold on they grow up they need to look 4 work what happens when one cant find work they could sign up for the army etc there coice no body wants to go to war its a thing that happens when people want to rule others they cant just do with there on country they take on things that are nowt to do with themself s think about it if there was no gulf war there probley would still have the twin towers still standing today but thats life people cant just make do they have to have power greed the list is endless no one has the answers we can only debate till we are blue in the face 2 wrongs dont make a right if we did no the answers we would all be very rich indeed shifty

Shifty me old fruit, your name is quite ironic, since you don't seem to own a full keyboard. Do please get a grownup to show you where the shift key is, and then you can join the adults in the exciting world of English sentences. You'll also be needing the key a little off to the right of the "m", just past the comma. You have a comma key, I see...

Anyhoo...

Yes, Aaronovitch is a buffoon. And yes, "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" were both utter tosh. But the annoying thing is, both those facts contribute to people laughing off the risk of asteroid impact as being something not worth bothering about.

I fully take on board the difficulty of the task. But the problem is one of perception of risk. There seems to be some sort of gap here, some deliberate blind spot we have because we're not comfortable with the truth.

The truth is this:

1. In any given year, there is almost no likelihood of a large rock impacting the earth. ALMOST none. A really tiny probability.

2. It is DEFINITELY going to happen.

3. When it does happen, it will probably kill every human on the planet.

One part of my job as an engineer is risk assessment. We use a formula to quantify risk. We multiply the following factors:

- likelihood of an accident
- likely consequences of an accident
- number of people affected
- frequency of exposure to the risk

For asteroid impact, you might reasonably say that the first factor is tiny. Really, very very small indeed.

The problem is, "frequency" is "every day", "number of people affected" is over six billion, and likely consequence is death for every single one of them. So your risk rating is a tiny number multiplied by three really, really HUGE ones.

To write the problem off as too difficult isn't good enough, either. Maybe we are only watching 1% of the sky. Why? Because we can't persuade anyone to fund anything more.

The opening of Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" told it like it probably will be - humanity will do nothing about this risk until and unless we have a near miss - something a mile across landing in the middle of the Mediterranean, say, killing just a few million. THEN we'd sit up and start taking notice. Except nature is unlikely to be so kind. As someone has already said, we'll probably get about four seconds' warning.

If nothing else, we should be doing everything we can to get a functioning, reasonably self-sufficient colony into space or onto the surface of another planet as soon as possible, because right now we have all our eggs in one tiny, fragile basket and there is a loony with a big cannon having a pop at it on a regular basis. But that won't happen either, at least not with Dubya in charge. What goes around comes around, though, and I fully expect that by the end of my lifetime, say about 2050, most of the people in space at any given time will be from the country that invented rockets in the first place - China. They'll also probably own the moon by then...

H.

<< and even at one stage two persoanlities!>>


Very funny, Blinky... What about friends of yours with four or more?

<>

It doesn't necessarily follow that thanking God for their deliverance means they think God caused the disaster! When I was waiting for a phone call on Monday night, and the phone rang after I'd been waiting an hour, and I said 'thank God', that doesn't mean I thought God had stepped in to make the people I was waiting to hear from get home quicker and phone me! I just meant "ah, thank God I can now relax and stop worrying."

Hoo, as usual, I'll ignore your shotung spite, and try to answer the one or two points you raise that are worth the effort.
I may be wrong, but as I understand it, the only reason why Earth has any protection against solar and cosmic radiation is because of our planet's molten core and that very same defence against radiation is the main cause of the very instability you screech at me for pointing out.
It amuses me that atheists graciously allow God to exist for a few minutes or hours when you want to blame God for natural disaster. otherwise, fuhgeddaboudit!
(Have a look at http://www.dechurched.com/atheist.htm )

<>
People die every day, Hoo, and wishing won't change that. Some die in car crashes, many are murdered (especially in the USA). I know that to many atheists, death is the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone, but personally, my sympathy is with the people who are left starving and homeless, and which is something that we as people can (and do) do something about.
<>

Once again, disregarding the spitting and scratching - you are aware, aren't you, that there were warnings, and some people managed to escape because of them? Others didn't - and as another thread is discussing, that's because of authorities deciding not to broadcast the warning, for fear of losing tourists...
But that's not the main point - which is, that you know perfectly well what I meant, but chose to pretend not to, as you also know the answer to the wider issue of God's intervening or not. Despite the swearword-and-insult ridden post from Alfster, it *is* true that God chooses to work through people since 2000 years ago. (Which, Alfster, doesn't mean that I am saying that all good things done by people are to be credited to God - in fact your claim that I said that, is just silly. You know I didn't.)

So don't sit back and whine that the God you've chosen to allow temporarily to exist doesn't do what you want done. Get off your chuff, stop crying about it being a terrible world, and try to make it a better one!
(Query - has there even been an officially atheist and also not for profit school or hospital?)

yawnnnnnnnnnnn it takes all kinds to make a world and h2g2 proves that hahahaha oh nooooo we are all going to die the wee green men are comming to get you lol get a life man lol

BTW, I spelled that URL right - but it's wrong on the site, so try

http://www.dechurched.com/athiest.htm

It's fun!

hi cat hows thing

Fine thanks, shifty... How'd you be?