[Optimus Prime]

D Man;241106 said:

Nature doesnt try to balance anything. "Way of" implies either intention (you have a goal, balance, and a "way of" doing it) or an unthinking, automatic, just-does-what-it-does natural process that its anthropomorphised with intention.

Nature doesnt "try" to balance anything with extiction events.

They just happen from time to time.

Shear chance of whether we're in an asteroids path or not, or whether the suns going to send a huge mass-ejection our way, or whether presssure under the crust needs some serious volcanic activity or if theres a supernova in a nearby system or whatever.

Edit: scratch the supernova: we'd ba able to see if any nearby stars were near nova. But we could have had different stellar neighbours, I suppose

I understand what you are saying, but I disagree. I happen to see Nature as a living, acting entity. (No, I'm not insane or a Druid lol). I think Nature has "safety valves" and ways of managing it's self. I mean...when Stars explode...they remainder of that explosion is what leads to the birth of new stars,planets, etc. This is a process. This isn't just wierd happenings.

In many ways Stars are "alive".

[Cold Iron]

Xander;241569 said:

I understand what you are saying, but I disagree. I happen to see Nature as a living, acting entity. (No, I'm not insane or a Druid lol). I think Nature has "safety valves" and ways of managing it's self. I mean...when Stars explode...they remainder of that explosion is what leads to the birth of new stars,planets, etc. This is a process. This isn't just wierd happenings.

In many ways Stars are "alive".

Not in any reasonably justifiable way. Stars are no more alive than a fire. When a fire starts, it creates sparks which lead to other fires, processes do not imply life and they certainly don't imply intent.

[Urb]

polishgenius;240923 said:

I don't think it's ever happened that humankind knows of. If life was reset to single-cell organisms, it would almost certainly evolve back very differently, and you can trace continuity back in some form to pre-dinosaurs.

I pretty much pulled that number out of my ass... head, I mean head of course. Please disregard if it is incorrect. What would be a reasonable number? 90%?

Anyway, I choose to believe you understood what I was trying to say.

[q21]

The largest known extinction event is supposed to have been the primean (not sure if the name is quite right, but its something like that, anyway, it was the one just before the dinosaurs started taking over). It is believed to have destroyed 95% of the planet's current life. Most of what survived lived in the ocean, and there were a few lizards and insects.

An asteroid collision with Mars would be an awesome thing to witness.

And if an asteroid came for us, surely we would just do an Armaggedon on its ass.

[Illuyankas]

Permian, perhaps. And firing Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck at incoming asteroids is a move I feel all of us can get behind.

[D Man]

Yes, permian-triassic boundary.

I'd like to think that if we identified an asteroid that was gonna twat us the worlds scientific and engineering resources would unite and we'd think of, and do, something.

Thats probably as likely as the asteroid itself though.

(Hitting in our lifetimes, that is)

[Cold Iron]

D Man;241823 said:

Yes, permian-triassic boundary.

I'd like to think that if we identified an asteroid that was gonna twat us the worlds scientific and engineering resources would unite and we'd think of, and do, something.

Thats probably as likely as the asteroid itself though.

(Hitting in our lifetimes, that is)

The US would stay out of it due to fear of economic disadvantage.

[Optimus Prime]

I was watching the History channel the other night and they were talking about Extinction Events....supposedly there is a plan that if an asteroid comes close we can send out a ship that can "nudge" the rock enough to deflect it away from Earth...now that is NUTS to me.

I agree with Illy...sending Affleck into space would be something that could finally bring the human race together

[Optimus Prime]

**UPDATE***

The Asteroid missed mars.

http://www.space.com...-mars-miss.html

man that would've been cool.

[Aptorian]

No it wouldn't. It would have woken all the sleeping Lizards.

[Cold Iron]

Quote

The asteroid missed Mars by a distance of approximately 6.5 Mars radii.

cool

[Optimus Prime]

It is only a matter of time before we get nailed.

You know Mars will eventually pull in one of it's tiny moons, crashing into it's surface...while at the same time pushing the other moon further and further away...eventually becoming moonless.

Poor lonely Mars.

[Werthead]

Xander;250785 said:

You know Mars will eventually pull in one of it's tiny moons, crashing into it's surface...while at the same time pushing the other moon further and further away...eventually becoming moonless.

Poor lonely Mars.

Yeah, in about 30 million years' time. I'm not crying for it just yet

Oddly, given his hippy pacisfistic leanings, Kim Stanley Robinson destroys both Phobos and Deimos in The Mars Trilogy. Not sure what they ever did to offend him so...

[Optimus Prime]

haha, I heard it was more like 50 million years.

Although, the new Armageddon theory is called "The Big Rip". Basically, imagine the universe as a balloon. The more air blown into the balloon, the bigger and more stretched it gets. This is the universe. Eventually the balloon reaches max capacity and explodes.

This will happen supposedly in 50 BILLION YEARS!

So little time left

[Cold Iron]

New?

[Optimus Prime]

Well "new" as in the latest one to gain popularity and credence.

[Cold Iron]

Popularity and credence are overrated. I like the idea that the universe is an infinite fractal

[Optimus Prime]

I think there is more than one universe...so...the end of this one is no big deal.

Perhaps the destruction of universes leads to the birth of others, like stars.

[Cold Iron]

So what do you call the collection of all universes?

[polishgenius]

I'd thought heat death was the current trendy Armageddon.