Monday, July 10, 2006

Answering Hawkings Question

Hmm this is a very interesting question that Stephen Hawking is asking in this article.

Hawking's question: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?"

My answer to this question is: easily. The human race has been in far, far worse shape in the past. These next 100 years will be a cakewalk when you put it up against some of the real honest to God chaos we have faced in the past.

We have gone through plagues that have wiped out 1/3 of the population (the Black Death) and 50 million (1919 Influenza Epidemic.) We have faced wars that killed 6.5 million people (Napoleonic Wars,) 15 million people (WWI) and 62 million (WWII.) We have faced climate change that is far worse then global warming (Big and Little Ice Ages.) We came back from the brink of total annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis and several other points during the Cold War.

Al-Quida terrorism, global warming, Korea Acting up, and Iran getting the bomb are *nothing* when compared to Global Thermal Nuclear War reducing humanity to Wasteland. About the only thing that humanity has to directly fear in the next 100 years is a direct hit from a comet or an asteroid. We still might be able to survive that event like how the mammals did when the Dinosaurs got wiped out. Maybe humans would have to live in burrows like the Morlocks but humans will survive by any means necessary.

I think that all these naysayers that think humanity is doomed need to read some of the stuff that was thrown around during the Mongol Invasion or the Black Death. They thought the world wouldn't last even 10 years more. I guess we proved them wrong.

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