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Is our civilization in danger?


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#31 bobdrake12

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 02:02 AM

Posted Image

PROJECTED COLLISION OF THE MILKY WAY AND ANDROMEDA GALAXIES



Galaxies collide but yet like ghosts the scale is such that millions and millions of stars merely pass by one another like traffic on the freeway. But collisions do happen, does this mean we should stop all driving? Andromeda and us are on a collision course, should we panic becuase in 3 billion years we may see a major change in the neighborhood?


Lazarus Long,

Once the collision were to begin (providing there was no technological intervention), it might take over a billion years (after a very complex gravitational dance) before both galaxies would eventually form an elliptical galaxy.

If this civilization successfully makes the transition from a Type-0 to Type-1 civilization in the next 100-200 years, it should progress to a Type-3 or maybe even a Type-4 civilization when the collision occurs. I sense that a Type-3 civilization could handle this hurdle technologically without even having to to evacuate to another galaxy or two. [B)]

bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 25 January 2003 - 02:03 AM.


#32 bobdrake12

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 02:19 AM

What is the greatest threat to our civilization? In the past, everytime a civilization was wiped out, it was through man's own folly. Even then it was at times, when man had to make a jump in consciousness. Natural disasters actually seem to assist our evolution.


Saille Willow,

Very well said! [ggg]

I agree with Darwin on the concept of the survival of the fittest.


http://images.google...ages/desatl.gif


Legend has it that some previous civilization(s) may have even been more technoligically advanced than this current one. The legends indicate that they essentially fell due to the reason you state. Probably the biggest mistake is to believe that any civilization is invulnerable to being destroyed.

bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 25 January 2003 - 02:21 AM.


#33 bobdrake12

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 02:34 AM

Making a claim about where the path of a Super Heavy Dark Matter Body without sufficient evidence is just gross speculation and if it leads to hysteria, worse. I will not speculate on impacts from bodies that aren't charted, but I don't mind speculating on the threat of near misses from objects whose gravity is so great that it would generate tidal storms from the Sun and rip at our world with tectonic stress while subjecting us to a downpour of dangerous levels of Solar Storm radiation. We don't have to struck from such a body to feel its effects, we only have to feel its passing.


Lazarus Long,

This is where we agreed to disagree with another person who once posted his speculations at this Site.

The concept this other poster was discussing was that this "fly-by" had an orbit (taking thousands of years) perhaps somewhat similar to the one shown below:


Posted Image


The heavy gravity or even the satellites from this kind of "fly-by" might conceptually cause problems.

Some have tied the Mayan Calendar (projected dates ranging from 2003 to 2012) along with an interpretation what the Sumerians reportedly recorded with such an event.



bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 25 January 2003 - 02:46 AM.


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#34 bobdrake12

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 03:39 AM

While this current civilization seems to have the potential (although the technology probably is not in place) to ward-off the threats of most meteors, comets and perhaps some "fly-bys"; there are other risks this current civilization probably does not have the technology to defend against threats from space such as:


Posted Image

supernovae


Posted Image
NASA

gamma-ray bursts


http://images.google...coronalhole.jpg

solar flares


What concerns me is that the I am unaware of any corrective action being made to avoid the threats that this current civilzation could potentially defend against. In other words, there appears to be an overall low priority and lack of public awareness to take the necessary action to mitigate these types of (avoidable) risks.


http://images.google...ages/meteor.jpg


bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 25 January 2003 - 04:02 AM.


#35 Lazarus Long

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 04:08 PM

I understood Doc's point then I only disagreed that yelling about it was fruitful. I also feel that evidence is important for making informed decisions and that we were dealing with anecdotal not concrete evidence; inuendo, legend and implication but not verifed fact.

The Chinese astronomical records are wonderfuly precise and extend back also for almost five thousand years. Could the Mayans have been the keepers of archives from even older civilizations? I understand that I do not have the answer to that question and belief is irrelevant what is important is to detrming the truth of it. We need incontrovertible evidence.

In the case of the Maya I happen to be a student of their history that has been fortunate enough to have spent some periods of time in personal study of their culture, ruins, and history. I suspect the truth to be that thyey were such keepers of ancient records, that it was a very importnt part of their religion to be such honest historians. A part I might add that was not shared by the Aztecs that inherit the archives by default.

Before the Spaniards had arrived the Aztecs had begun a Stalanesque rewrite of their histories. In fact it was one of the "High Crimes" that was prophecized as leading to the fall of their Civilization, the corruption of State.

What is left are tantalizing fragments but less substantial then the bones of a fossilized pterosaur. The problem is that it is too easy to produce almost any conclusion through mere conjecture and what we need to plan with are valid records themselves not stories from others about what may or may not have been in them.

I proposed the hypothesis about Planet X not because I "believe" it, but because I wanted to demonstrate a viable scenario for such being the case.

There is another way to find an elusive object in the cosmos, calcuate a sufficient number of parameters to test a valid hypothesis and we might find an object sitting where such theories suggest they may be by bringing the strongest level of focus to bear, thus acid testing the hypothesis.

Our solar system is far larger then most comprehend. The difference of six months makes a great difference in impact for how powerful the effects of such an object will be. The Earth is insignificant in terms of gravity and part of the problem Doc had in thinking about all this, (besides relying almost exclusively on intuition) was that he was consistently confusing Ptolomeic and Copernican Cosmological models. It is the Sun which is the focus of the orbit of Planet X (if it exists) not us and this has great bearing on the outcome of its orbit.

But as I said, I don't think it will be immediately fruitful to speculate about that orbit as there is too little data to make a meaningful analysis with, but could we obtain such data?

If the historical records are insufficient what is stopping us from looking for ourselves?

First there needs to be a better Evolutionary model to explain the formation of our Solar System, then an analysis of the known masses. This is all being done by the way, and then a predictive hypothesis can be developed determining the probability of the size and location for such an object utilizing the paleoclimatological data, combined with paleoastronomical theory.

Once we have a clearer idea of what & where to look it for then we might begin a search for traces, perturbations in the Sun's rotation & galactic orbit, planetary shifting, occlusion over stars along a predicted path, low level radiation emmisions from unknown nearer celestial sources, also I suspect as do many cosmologists that we might study Pluto.

There is a lot of theory that it was this same said Planet X that caused Neptune to lose Pluto as a moon and if that were true then a careful mathematical study of orbital paths backward through time might yield a moment when they clearly coincided and mark the period and point in space when and where their company parted. That would be crucial data for figuring out the trajectory of this hypothetical Planet X.

This kind of study is not glamorous, nor easily funded. This is not something most people, or their universities want to invest in. In other words feel free to take up the study with me and others but realize that it won't feed our children. Soon however our newer generation of Super Computers will come online and perhaps there will comp time available to posit such inquiries.

As you have said and I agree with however, we aren't even getting prepared for what we can do something about. Before I post this a Nova disharched object from thousands or even millions of years ago, or a rogue known or unknown force could wipe out our world.

Even if we were trying to prepare for such threats as these could be we are a long ways away from that level of technology, but are we even remotely prepared for what we could prevent or mitigate?

No.

#36 bobdrake12

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 06:45 PM

But as I said, I don't think it will be immediately fruitful to speculate about that orbit as there is too little data to make a meaningful analysis with, but could we obtain such data?


Lazarus Long,

Those that have researched the subject anticipate the return somewhere between 2003 (May) and 2012 (Dec).

The evidence should manifest itself shortly if it is May or June in 2003.

bob

http://dsc.discovery...702/kuiper.html

Posted Image
Posted Image


Large Object Discovered Orbiting Sun (excerpts)

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News



Posted Image

Red Marks 2001 KX76


July 3 — The discovery of a large reddish chunk of something orbiting in Pluto's neighborhood has re-ignited the idea that there may be more than nine planets in the solar system.

Then again, it could also mean there are only eight planets, depending on your point of view.

What the discoverers are calling 2001 KX76 might be one of the largest "Kuiper Belt Objects" or KBO's, found in the what is essentially a second asteroid belt beyond the orbit of Neptune. Initial reports give 2001 KX76 a diameter of 900 to 1200 kilometers — roughly the size of Pluto's moon, Charon. Pluto itself, it should be noted, is smaller than our own moon.

Because KBOs are believed to have very elongated orbits around the sun they spend a lot of time on dark, centuries-long excursions into deep space. That makes them very hard to find, said astronomer Robert Millis, director of the Lowell Observatory, which was involved in the discovery.

Astronomers at the Lowell Observatory have teamed up with colleagues from MIT and the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory to hunt for KBOs on the less remote parts of their orbits.

"There are certainly lots of (KBOs) in distant parts of their orbits now and we can't detect them," said Millis.

Edited by bobdrake12, 25 January 2003 - 06:48 PM.


#37 Lazarus Long

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 07:57 PM

Bob, I have been hearing such claims for discoveries to be made soon for much of my life and to date none was ever as predicted.

The objects that are being analyzed are intriguing examples of planetessimals, asteroids and rogue moons that may be more evidence of a past fly by but if anything were out in the orbit of Pluto, (that in fact represented a sufficient mass to threaten us) we would have already seen it. Anyway most of those objects represent relatively stable orbital paths that don't come into play as a threat. What we seek is not yet seen. But all too few are looking.

I am going to post an article that I have recently seen and tell you in advance that this is why I have a hard time with the discussion. There are too many on all sides of this debate that are more concerned with garnering converts and headlines than making serious scientific, (or even spiritual) inquiry. They are all too willing to manipulate the data to make things appear as they wish they were.

Scientists Show How to Make A UFO
SOHO team responds to claims of alien craft with a laugh

Posted Image
This UFO-like image was created from a picture of the sun and its surroundings, captured by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Click here for the step-bystep guide to producing the image

By Alan Boyle

Jan. 24 — The astronomers in charge of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory issued an unusual response Friday to widely reported claims that pictures from the sun-observing satellite contained evidence of alien spacecraft: In addition to scoffing at the claims, they showed how to turn SOHO imagery into UFO snapshots.

THE HOW-TO GUIDE came in the wake of claims from a British-based group called Euroseti that hundreds of UFO-like images had been gleaned from NASA satellite imagery. The claims were picked up by newspapers in Britain and Australia over the past week or two, linking the photographs to SOHO, a $1 billion U.S.-European satellite that observes the sun from a vantage point 1 million miles from Earth.

The Perth Times headlined its article “‘UFO’ on NASA camera,” while the Evening News of Scotland worked the claims into an account that declared “We’re Doomed.”

“The images are irrefutable in that they are from official satellites owned by NASA. They resemble the kind of spacecraft we used to see in sci-fi films like Star Trek,” Graham Birdsall, editor of UFO magazine, was quoted as saying in the Perth newspaper.

Last week, MSNBC.com forwarded press reports about the imagery to Paal Brekke, the European Space Agency’s deputy project scientist for SOHO. In response, Brekke said he was aware of the claims and thought they were “quite funny.”

By Friday, Brekke and his colleagues had put together a more elaborate response.

“Ever since launch, there’s been a number of people who’ve projected their fantasies onto the SOHO images, seeing flying saucers and other esoteric objects,” he noted. “Mostly, we’re just amused by the unfounded claims, but in recent days, we’ve been receiving so many questions and claims (in news stories) that we’d like to set the record straight: We’ve never seen anything that even suggests that there are UFOs ‘out there.’ That is, to our (trained) eyes.”

Full Text with Links and images

#38 bobdrake12

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Posted 25 January 2003 - 11:39 PM

There are too many on all sides of this debate that are more concerned with garnering converts and headlines than making serious scientific, (or even spiritual) inquiry. They are all too willing to manipulate the data to make things appear as they wish they were.


Lazarus Long,

There is no question people have agendas. Some have the agenda to seek the truth and some have other agendas.

We look for evidence but evidence of what?

Is there a Kuiper Belt?

I believe that is accepted as at least a reasonable scientific fact.

Are there Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs)?

Again, I believe that is accepted as at least a reasonable scientific fact.

Is a KBO about to orbit near this planet?

There is no scientific observable evidence that I know that there is a KBO (no matter what size) that has an obit near this planet.

The objects that are being analyzed are intriguing examples of planetessimals, asteroids and rogue moons that may be more evidence of a past fly by but if anything were out in the orbit of Pluto, (that in fact represented a sufficient mass to threaten us) we would have already seen it.


I do not know whether the above is a scientific fact or not. In fact I didn't know about KBOs until recently. Perhaps, that could be a blessing because I have no preconceived ideas one way or the other.

So what do we know?

We do know that NEOs whose existence (orbits) are unknown until they pass by this planet. I posted one such instance in this topic (shown in the CNN article called, "Surprise asteroid nearly hits home").

Also, we do know that some scientists are recommending correct action (shown in the SpaceRef article already posted called, "Report Of The Near Earth Objects Task Force Published") so that (at least more) NEOs can be observed ahead of time before they pass (or hit) this planet.

Now here is the point: Nothing has been done to-date regarding the findings of the "Report Of The Near Earth Objects Task Force". Thus, there appears to be no interest in mitigating a low probability but high consequence risk to this civilization.

We have not discussed other issues such as fossil fuel or nuclear energy. Might we find the same trend that essentially too little is being done about potential risks in that area as well?

bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 26 January 2003 - 12:01 AM.


#39 Lazarus Long

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 02:33 AM

As I have said before, while you and I may disagree on the importance any specific issues such as where this threat be and how it is defined, you and I make a lonely choir. Basically we are in agreement about the dangerous and irresponible complacency being shown in this matter and I assure that there will come a day when panicked and inadequate measures get taken to meet issues that could have been instead more than adequately addressed through foresight, dilligence and cooperative planning.

We have not discussed other issues such as fossil fuel or nuclear energy. Might we find the same trend that essentially too little is being done about potential risks in that area as well?


As for the issue of fossil fuels, nuclear; I'll add wildlife habitat in crucial biomes, Oceanic sterilization (reef bleaching) and food chain disruption, climactic instability, Carcinogenic pollution of urban and isolated "Hot Zone" environments and the list goes on.

On only one thing we can be confidently assured, yes we are being lied to and generally lulled into a very false complacency about global environmental issues, fossil fuel hazards and most certainly long term nuclear power issues for waste containment and asociated problems and risks. No I don't take comformt from "Official Reports", or "Un-Official Ones" either, but I try not to be part of the problem. I generate less than a tenth of the common consumer waste load that a family of four does on average and I still walk as a rule to visit my neighbors. One reason New Yorkers haven't been at the top of the Fat America polls of late is that we still have a habit of walking around town. We still have viable mass transit systems and rural areas where people congregate without TOTAL dependence on automobiles. Though we are a minority.

But as to the Kuiper Belt Objects, that was my point precisely, the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt are out well beyond Pluto & Neptune's Orbital path and distance. We don't have an impossible time measuring objects that close. We get enough light from the Sun to illuminate Pluto so an object the size of Neptune is even less difficult. What we need to look at is much further out beyond the belts that are known.

Kuiper-Oort - The Kuiper Belt and The Oort Cloud. ... This has come to be known as the Oort Cloud. The statistics imply that it may contain as many as a trillion (1e12) comets. ... http://seds.lpl.ariz...neplanets/ninep

I have been a sky watcher and navigator most of my life. I can't even live long in overly urbanized zones without getting to where I can mark the night sky or I become uncomfortable. I track and walk at night and have been known to turn all the lights off in the cabin of my plane on moonless VFR nights in order to navigate by starlight and the ribbons of man's light against the horizon. You can't imagine the view above a sedentary Atlantic over Amber 555 at 12K or 14K feet. There have been times when the sea of the Bermuda Triangle was so calm that the brillant near cloudless night sky reflected like a mirror and it would seem, like you are in outer space with stars above and below. I am a natural pilot and can navigate IFR quite well too.

The first time I saw the rings of Saturn with my own eyes I must have been 12 and snuck up into the Columbia University Observatory and was found by professor Charlie Brown. That's right his name was Charlie Brown and how could I forget that. :)

He took me and my friend Gerard for a guided tour and was ecstatic to have company in the cold rooftop observatory on fridged winter nights. We went often and looked at many celestial objects with that wonderful telescope. I think it was a 21 inch or larger reflector. I used to go up regularly in college to the one behind Bascomb hill as well in Madison where the Indian Mounds are preserved on Campus.

I was very fortunate for a Wolf Child and part of the way I learned to track and navigate even as an "Explorer Scout" was to track by the stars. I don't just name them as I see them I mark their passing and seasons.

Later in life I got to use my skills at sea and in the desert. Like walking once you begin to love the sky you never lose the "sense" of it. Weather is only one aspect I adore studying just because it relates to what is above. As above below, cosmology lead me to geology.

Funny huh.

I love flying because I feel at home in the sky, closer to where I belong, but that is another story.

Could there be a large body in the Oort Cloud that we haven't found?

Yes.

Is it likely? This is more difficult because the smaller bodies that are there would tend to be effected by such a body and we would detect that effect. Again that is why I suggest looking deper into space. It is a question of scale. Such a body will begin to disturb the orbits of the comets and other bodies as it descends back towards Sol and that wake effect will start showing up as major statistical deviation error as we plot known objects in orbit around out there. Issues of velocity, trajectory, and mass are very important and without real data the rest is merely soothsaying.

Again, if this body is coming in it is still far enough out to not have greatly discernable effects. In the mean time why can't we get ready for what we do see right in front of our faces, NEO"s. I think we should be at this and with determination to expand this avenue of exploration. It is not as glamorous as missions to Mars but it is far more effective at getting a head start on getting us to a planet like Mars.

Also, the risk of an asteroid coming out of the Sun's glare unseen after looping in low and fast around the star is because they ARE small enough to pass under our eyes on the way behind the Sun, Planet X as it is believed to be massive couldn't get away with such a stealth move. Too big to begin with for it to get that close sight unseen.

But there is an orbit path which a step sister unkindled star core could be on which is even less likely to be observed, and that is the very rare polar orbital path. Look up the phenomenon of the Solar Eccliptic. Most matter that we look for is located on the plane of the eccliptic and that is the disk like region that is formed basically because of properties of gravity. If you want I will hunt up the various rules of physics that come into play but regardless, while the accretion disk of OUR Sun is governed by these rules and falls into that orbital plane, if a second star that never coalesced enough matter to ingite a fusion reaction and was composed of principally denser heavier metals and materials was out there, this body would have its own accretion disk and its path wouldn't necessarilly be governed by the rules that lock up most mass into the plane of the eccliptic, ergo it could have a polar orbit.

If such a body exists and if it had a polar orbit it could arrive either out of the Northern hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere skies. I suggest searching more in the South Pole Sky not only because the North has disproportionately more serious study, but because an annecdotal application of the legends would suggest that the Southern Hemispheric peoples have more legendary mention of such bodies as part of their mythologies.

Remember, it is in a long period orbit around the Sun (if it exists) and ironically, even though its mass is significantly less than our star's, the Sun would be in orbit around it too.

It is that orbit which serious astro physicists are searching for and while we detect some perturbations we still don't have enough data to detect a body that influences our star. Less than our star's mass doesn't mean that its mass would be insignificant. Again we have to examine the question of the critical mass necessary to ignite nuclear fusion based on mass density and gravitational core force and it could contain a mass equivalent to most if not all the nine known planets combined and not be sufficient to ignite a nuclear fusion core. In fact that too is one of the questions serious cosmologist ask about when they study the Evoltion of our star system.

Issues such as our precession have little to do with this object, though precession and magnetic pole shifting could be influenced by such a rogue body. If it passed by the Sun opposite to us its gravity might still be effecting our weather and tectonic activity, by producing horrific solar storms and tidal conditions, unprecedented in scope and unseen for the entire time of study. Again, one big mistake people make when thinking about worlds in collision is that it is "all or nothing" "Hit or Miss" and this is not the case. A large planet like the theory describes would destroy our world without direct impact if we fell too close to what is called a Schwarzschild limit.

http://www.astro.uu..../kos2002/ln4.ps - ... transformation. However, the Schwarzschild limit, defined by this radius, certainly has a very unusual property, as is described below. ...
http://www.astro.uu....kurs/kos2002/ln

Here are some other articles:

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar - ... Dynamical instability of gaseous masses approaching the Schwarzschild limit in general relativity, Phys. Rev. Lett., 12, 114 - 16 (1964); Erratum, Phys. Rev. ...
http://hea-www.harva...m/space/axaf/ch

Gamma Ray Bursts - ... modes are below the threshold of oscillation in normal pulsars, it might nevertheless be that at a point quite near the Schwarzschild limit they become ...
http://www.s-4.com/pulsar/burst.htm

Lecture 14 - Black Holes (3/4/97) - ... it had a neutron star structure). This is the Schwarzschild limit for neutron stars. Calculations show masses greater than around ...
http://olddept.physi...du/~www/inr/ast

That should at least "wet your whistle" though a good Huber Bock would help around this time of year. Are we having fun yet [?] [ph34r]

#40 Lazarus Long

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 02:56 AM

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/oort.htm

The Oort Cloud
Copyright © 1999 by Rosanna L. Hamilton. All rights reserved.

Posted Image

The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years, about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. This vast distance is considered the edge of the Sun's orb of physical, gravitational, or dynamical influence.

Within the cloud, comets are typically tens of millions of kilometers apart. They are weakly bound to the sun, and passing stars and other forces can readily change their orbits, sending them into the inner solar system or out to interstellar space. This is especially true of comets on the outer edges of the Oort cloud. The structure of the cloud is believed to consist of a relatively dense core that lies near the ecliptic plane and gradually replenishes the outer boundaries, creating a steady state. One sixth of an estimated six trillion icy objects or comets are in the outer region with the remainder in the relatively dense core.

In addition to stellar perturbations where another star's Oort cloud passes through or close to the Sun's Oort cloud, are the influences of giant molecular clouds and tidal forces. A giant molecular-cloud is by far more massive than the Sun. It is an accumulation of cold hydrogen that is the birthplace of stars and solar systems. These are infrequently encountered, about every 300-500 million years, but when they are encountered, they can violently redistribute comets within the Oort cloud.

Tidal forces affecting the Oort cloud come from stars in the Milky Way's galactic disk with some pull from the galactic core. The tide results from the sun and comets being different distances from these massive amounts of matter. The force on the comets from these tides is greater than the perturbations of passing stars, and comets beyond 200,000 AU are easily lost to interstellar space. This pull contributes to the steady state which replenishes the outer comets that are randomly distributed away from the ecliptic plane.

Full Text

#41 bobdrake12

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 04:58 AM

Lazarus Long,

Thanks so much for all the information! I was unaware of the Oort cloud.

As a lad, I spent close to 100% of my free time playing sports.

In high school, I did spend a lot of my time studying in addition to sports. The same is true with college, but I never had the free time to study what I wished to study until recently.

While I enjoy science in general, I have not studied very much astrophysics.

My exposure to astrophysics is through new physics theory. Yet, it is in the area of new physics theory that; perhaps, some of the old paradigms are keeping us from progessing at a faster rate.


Could there be a large body in the Oort Cloud that we haven't found?


Possibly, if we changed our paradigm a little and reconsidered the possibility that we are referring to more of a dense object (e.g., heavier than planets but not quite massive enough to generate the nuclear fusion that lights a real star) than just merely a "large" object; we might find that the potential fly-by might be more difficult to locate.


Basically we are in agreement about the dangerous and irresponible complacency being shown in this matter and I assure that there will come a day when panicked and inadequate measures get taken to meet issues that could have been instead more than adequately addressed through foresight, dilligence and cooperative planning.


Unfortunately, this appears to be true.

This irresponible complacency by the general population is of far greater concern to me than the the actual risks we have discussed to-date. The fact that this civilization appears to believe it is invulnerable to the possibility of near-term risk, is probably going to decrease its chances of successfully transitioning from a Type-0 to a Type-1 civilization. On the other hand, a basic trait of a survivor is to realistically access risk and to take appropriate corrective action.

A couple of the causes for the irresponsible complacency might be summarized by these two traits of this current Type-0 civilization:

1) The desire to be entertained rather than to face reality. Stating this concept a different way, the inability to handle the truth or potential truth that may not be what the general public wants to hear.

2) The drive to be popular. To be popular, a person eventually needs to be a people-pleaser telling people what they want to hear rather than what the people-pleaser considers to be the truth. Stating this a different way, the facts may be compromised to such a degree that facts are simply dismissed by demeaning the person or the thought process of the person rather than remaining objective with the issue.

Two other traits that are of concern to me regarding the successful transition of this civilization to a Type-1 are:

1) The hunger for power. Those driven by power tend to discount the rights of others in their quest for power. Thus, conflict arrises. With the current technology, all-out war could put this civilization at risk (driving it back 100s if not 1000s of years).

2) The focus on money and material possessions. When money becomes a number one priority, a person can be birbed (compromised). If those in power are compromised, they might not necessarily be making the best decisions for all concerned but instead could be following a pre-set agenda.

bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 26 January 2003 - 05:37 AM.


#42 wannabe

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 09:47 AM

Since we're bringing up Planet X as a threat to civilization, ironically it may be that it was actually responsible for our civilization. Here is Neil Freer's synthesis of Sitchen-Jaynes dealing with:

Planet X
Immortality
Transgenic Humans
Exotic Matter (mono atomic gold)


complete text here - http://www.neilfreer...t... ians paper
"...The planet is on hold because of the recycling of outmoded paradigms in all areas. In many respects we are faced with a near crisis of survival as a planetary race.  But this is the end-game of an age, be certain. The lumbering lunatic caricature of the hapless hero with a thousand hang-ups is over: mark it well. Yet everyone knows that there is something grand about to happen!  There is a new human emerging, a new planetary civilization on the horizon.  We probe the elastic membrane of our racial imprints  for the adequate maps and metaphors, the comprehensive unifying vision of the way  beyond war, want, primitive competition, and the inevitability of death. But we reject partial solutions grasped at in the criteria vacuum conflict between religion, philosophy, science and new age hope.  Yet there is an almost unthinkable new world-view dawning that releases us into that new era beyond religion and  beyond the old new age.  The background for the new paradigm comes from archaeology, bio-genetics, anthropology and astronomy.

The Profound Contribution Of Zecharia Sitchin

We are profoundly indebted to the Sumerian scholar, Zecharia Sitchin, for his archaeological synthesis which proves the transcultural gods (Sumerian:Annunaki; Egyptian:Neter;  Hebrew:Anakim, Nefilim, Elohim) the ancient civilizations insisted came here from space, created humans and gave us civilization, were flesh and blood humanoids from the last planet in our solar system (Nibiru, Planet X) who genetically engineered us as slave animals by splicing their genes with Homo Erectus genes and, eventually, accepted us as limited partners. That is the true "natural history of the gods" that Joseph Campbell failed. A half million pieces of archaeological proof is corroborated  by the evidence for Planet X/Nibiru as developed by  NASA,  JPL, the Naval Observatory and various astronomers. Its gravitational pull on Uranus and Neptune flags it in our solar system. The mitochondrial DNA "search for Eve" and anthropology's "out of Africa" data placing our genesis in Central Africa 250,000 years ago, as well as strong evidence from many field of study,  corroborate the ancient records.

Why should we accept this almost unthinkable history?  The traditional belief has been that the "gods" must have been imaginary because the deeds  (flight through the atmosphere and space, use of weapons akin to atomic bombs and star-war lasers, the ability to communicate over long distances, the ability to create humans) ascribed to them were utterly fantastic. That reasoning has been vaporized by our own current technological capabilities.  Reaching the point in our technological knowledge that allows us to understand genetic engineering, lasers, interplanetary rocketry, electronic communication, has furnished the keys to the integration of our past with our present encompassed in the concept of generic humanity, the critical factor for planetary unification. In this perspective, in every area, it becomes clear that almost every  previous philosophical, religious, metaphysical and scientific worldview, has been partially correct.

The two major paradigms, the Creationist world view and the Evolutionary model, which have molded Western culture have been subsumed, corrected and outmoded by this new meta-paradigm of human nature provided by the profound ramifications of the new archaeological perspective. Joseph Campbell's gods are unmasked.

 click for index

The Politics Of Our Evolution

The politics of our unique racial history may be characterized as a rapid evolution from slave to serf, to saviors to self. We were literally invented for the Nefilim' pragmatic purposes as gold-mining and agricultural slave animals, became their serfs and limited partners with kings as local go-between foremen after they almost wiped us out in the Flood.  Once they had phased off the planet and left us on our own, we began to look to charismatic saviors, political and eventually  "religious", to lead us in the same submissive way we had formerly looked to our Nefilim masters.  I feel fortunate to be living in and contributing to an age when we are emerging from racial adolescence.

We come alive in a laboratory, the mutant fusion of an alien race with slightly more advanced knowledge and science than ours is today, with an indigenous species with intelligence requiring genetic manipulation to bring it up to adequate for basic gold mining operations. We are slaves of these far superior masters, looking up, innocent, naked and history-less, in awe at their power, knowledge, history and amazing activities. As we develop over time, more precociously than they perhaps anticipated, some of us, at least, are recognized for a growing potential, elevated in status and function, sometimes even taken as sexual partners. Occasionally the offspring of such a marriage, like the king, Gilgamesh, who knew his mother to be pure Nefilim and his father human, demanded the rights of the Nefilim. Gilgamesh literally demanded immortality on a purely legal basis as a demi-god, a half-god...."
complete text at http://www.neilfreer...t... ians paper

#43 Lazarus Long

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 04:58 PM

I want to thank you Wannabe for joining in. That is an interesting contribution that I am going to take a little time to digest before responding to. Agan thanks and welcome to the discussion.

I don't have as much time today as I wish for other duties call and I want to take some time to respond on another topic but I would also add that long before "Heat Death" and other Universal cosmic forces come into play our own star will turn upon us and eat us like Chronos consuming all his children.

The fusion furnace that marks the day sky hasa schedule to keep and without manipulation of the masses involved and the amount of hydrogen necessary to keep this type of reaction going, it will go through its own metamorphosis someday in a few billion years and convert to consuming helium.

When this occurs it will convert from a yellow Type G into a Red Giant and consume all the inner planets, out past Mars and into the asteroid belt. The Earth, if it is still in this orbit will disappear into the fusion fires of stars womb that birth us to begin with. A cycle will be complete. I brought this up because just today I found an article that says we can see this happening to one of the recently discovered planets orbiting a star not too distant from us for detection.


Giant planet faces a distant doom


Posted Image Swelling star threatens world, providing preview of what awaits Earth

The European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile made observations of this giant star, HD 47536, and concluded that a giant planet was in orbit around it.

By Robert Roy Britt
SPACE.COM
Jan. 23 — A large planet recently found orbiting a distant star serves as a preview for the likely frying fate that awaits our own planet.

THE STAR, called HD 47536, is more than 23 times the diameter of our sun. It is the largest star ever found to harbor a planet. The discovery was announced Wednesday.

The planet is five to 10 times heavier than Jupiter and orbits the star more than twice as far as Earth is from the sun, or at a distance of roughly 186 million miles (300 million kilometers). It goes around the star every 712 days.

The star is in the southern constellation of Canis Major (The Great Dog) and is at the very fringe of visibility for naked-eye observers under perfectly dark skies. It is almost 400 light-years away. Only one other planet has ever been found farther from our solar system.

Along with other recent discoveries, including a planet detected in a system of two closely orbiting stars, astronomers are realizing that planets can grow to all sorts of sizes in a myriad of environments and orbital configurations.

*******************

Even though HD 47536 and its planet don’t resemble the sun and Earth, a destructive process going on there is similar to one that will occur here in a few billion years. The star is swelling so dramatically that the fraction of sky it occupies, as seen from the planet, is growing, astronomers say. Temperatures are rising, along with winds. In tens of millions of years, the planet will literally fry.

When a similar scenario plays out on Earth, extreme drought will prevail in the early stages, theorists say. Eventually, the oceans will evaporate. Ultimately, Earth will be incinerated. Unless, some have suggested, our world moves outward (due to the reduced gravity of a dying sun). One team of theorists has even calculated a way to move our planet out of danger.

© 2003 Space.com. All rights reserved.
Full Text

Related Info
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Two Close Obiting Stars

Interactive of the Search for Other Worlds

Freeze, Fry or Dry: How Long Has the Earth Got?

Way-Out World: New Technique Finds Most Distant Planet Ever

30 Billion Earths? New Estimate of Exoplanets in Our Galaxy

Space.com: NASA chief confirms nuclear plans

More from the European Southern Observatory

#44 bobdrake12

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 06:22 PM

wannabe,

Thanks so much for your contribution on Zecharia Sitchin. I have heard him speak a few times but have not read any of his books.

Some have claimed that Zecharia Sitchin did not translate the texts correctly. Perhaps, there could be an interpretation issue.

Zecharia Sitchin might be of worth to discuss on the Ancient History Forum, but to touch on his writings and speeches in this topic does make sense to me.

Please note that just because I provide a Link such as I am doing here, does not mean that I believe or do not believe in what is being stated. It is being presented for discussion puposes only.

I tend to listen to everybody, read everything but believe nothing until I perform my own research. So far, while I have made inadequate research on this subject, I tend to discount Sitchin's conclusions.


bob


Posted Image


Excerpts from one of Mr. Sitchen's speeches are shown below:

http://web.archive.o...om/sitchen.html


There is one more planet in our own solar system, not light years away, that comes between Mars and Jupiter every 3,600 years. People from that planet came to Earth almost half a million years ago and did many of the things about which we read in the Bible, in the book of Genesis.

I prophecize the return of this planet called Nibiru at this time. The planet is inhabited by intelligent human beings like us who will come and go between their planet and our planet. They created homo sapiens. We look like them. I call them the Annunaki.

I learned to read the cuneiform Sumerian texts and came upon their persistent and repeated statements that those beings, whom the Sumerians called Anunnaki, came to earth from a planet called Nibiru. The planet was designated by the sign of the cross and Nibiru meant, planet of crossing.

The question thus shifted in my research from who were the Nefilim and the Anunnaki, to, what planet is Nibiru? Forced to become proficient in astronomy, I had to learn enough about it to deal with the subject. I found out that the scholars were divided.

Some said it (Nibiru) was Mars, which of course was described and known to the ancient people, and others said, no, it was Jupiter. Those who said it was Jupiter and not Mars, had very convincing arguments why it could not be Mars. And those who said it was Mars and not Jupiter had very convincing arguments also.

Being able to go directly to those ancient sources, clay tablets and cuneiform scripts, it seemed to me that neither was right, because the description of Nibiru and its position when it nears the Sun indicated that it could not be Mars, and it could not be Jupiter. And then one night I woke up with the answer: Of course, it is one
more planet that comes periodically between Mars and Jupiter; it is sometimes nearer to Mars and sometimes nearer to Jupiter, but it isn't Mars or Jupiter.

Once I realized that this was the answer, that there is one more planet, everything else fell into place. The meaning of the Mesopotamian Epic of Creation on which the first chapters of Genesis are based and all details about the Anunnaki, who they were and who their leaders were and how they traveled from their planet to Earth
and how they splashed down in the Persian Gulf and about their first settlement, their leaders and so on and so on, everything became clear! The Sumerians had immense knowledge.

They knew about Uranus and Neptune and described them and they knew about Pluto. They were proficient in mathematics and, in many respects, their knowledge surpassed moderm times. They said, "All that we know was told to us by the Anunnaki."

The first book's innovation, its impact, was the realization that the ancient peoples, beginning with the Sumerians, knew of and described and spoke of one more planet in our solar system.

Edited by bobdrake12, 26 January 2003 - 06:39 PM.


#45 wannabe

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 07:57 PM

BobDrake12 wrote

Zecharia Sitchin might be of worth to discuss on the Ancient History Forum, but to touch on his writings and speeches in this topic does make sense to me.



Cool, Bob! My thinking in providing the info (Neil Freer's synthesis) was that while we do need to understand the details of what we can observe today, that there is a broader contextual framework we ignore at our own peril. I'm not just thinking of the return of warlike, yet advanced beings from Nibiru, but of the impact on immortality advancements and our own psychological tendencies, if we are a transgenic species designed to be slaves in gold mines. Considering the challenges of learning the various dead toungues, I'm throwing up my hands on verifying Sitchin directly. Still, I can appreciate Freer's sense of gratitude towards him, and Freer's synthesis

#46 bobdrake12

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 08:34 PM

I'm not just thinking of the return of warlike, yet advanced beings from Nibiru, but of the impact on immortality advancements and our own psychological tendencies, if we are a transgenic species designed to be slaves in gold mines.


wannabe,

Very interesting point! [!]

Allow me to place emphasis on your quote:

"I'm not just thinking of the return of warlike, yet advanced beings from Nibiru, but of the impact on immortality advancements and our own psychological tendencies, if we are a transgenic species designed to be slaves in gold mines."

Perhaps, the word "we" can be changed to the vast majority of the general public on this planet.

Could this slavery design explain why this civilization has been such a death-oriented one? Might it even explain what drives the philosphies of the Joshua Hublar crowd?

Joshua Says:

http://www.imminst.o...f=67&t=757&st=0

What do you mean, "What if there is nothing after death?"

This statement is egocentric, you see: Even if you die, your work can be the shoulders that someone else stands on. Mankind will continue, dear Bruce. Personally, I have inclinations towards the judeo-christian mythos, but - I have my own reasons. Not so much Fear, per se. At any rate, if I grope around a bit I still find that I can find my atheistic humanist hat and *ahhhhh, yes* it still fits rather snugly.

You see, immortality is actually something quite dangerous for *any* life. The mechanisms of the universe need to be fluid. Consider our constitution, for example. If it were not written in such a fasion as to be mutable - then, my friend, future generations would not be able to adapt its content to suit their times. So as it is with life. If we end death, we also end the mechanisms that allow us to adapt into the unknown. We need genetic diversity to insure our survival. This means dying and fucking, I am afraid.

But, such is life. N'est pas?

Now - insofar as ego is concerned. . . I do admit a sadness at not being able to fit my mind around all that is - but dear Bruce, that is why we have language and division of labour. We are a macrocosm for life on a cellular level. Our society is an organism. It will endure your death just as your body will endure the death of millions of your columnar cells. Fear not - you can leave your mark.

Individuality is a spiritual construct. You are a man in a tribe. Your tribe is what matters - not you.
*shrug*

joshua


Slaves usually are cowed into a hive-mentality as typified by Joshua's apparent philosophy. While I consider Joshua's philosphy an unhealthy one, unfortunately his self-destructive belief appears to be mainstream.

Even so, not all of us buy into a self-defeating, hive-mentality. While there could be a number of explanations for this, there appears to be a point of view (that I do not subscribe to but in fairness am presenting) related to Sitchin:

http://www.mars-eart...sitchintext.htm

Where does one look for their arrival? (excerpts)

Answer: In the Southern skies. The fact becomes incontrovertible once you study Sitchin. It is now up to us to revamp our own understanding of who we are as a species called humans so we can, as Sitchin says, "be more prepared when the Anunnaki arrive."

Many of us will never travel all over the world to visit the ancient observatories. However, Sitchin has, and what he has found concerning the placement of these observatories on the surface of the Earth also is startling. All the observatories are inclined to the Southern hemisphere. They also are on the same Earth latitude. In his latest book, we learn that many of these observatories measure exact lunar and solar risings and settings with an accuracy unmatched by any modern measuring equipment. The field of astronomy and astrology are made completely understandable by Sitchin, who shows that the concept of "Divine Time" was something these ancient astronomer priests created to predict the arrival of their creators. Farfetched, to be sure, but when logic and patience are afforded to Sitchin's conclusions, one comes away with the realization that humanity has been misled in regards to our actual origins.

The biochemical research is especially haunting. Our entire DNA structure is like a Contact time-release capsule. When we were originally programmed, our basic DNA structure was limited to a double-helix strand. The triggering mechanism that enables us to function as we do is affected by stellar radiation. We are now at a place in the orbit around our central galaxy where the radio frequencies of the center of the galaxy, as well as many other star systems, are communicating new information to us. The release of this information, according to Sitchin, coincides with the next arrival of the 12th planet.



With all this in mind, check out the section I originally posted earlier in this thread and see if there might be a connection...with that connection being that the vast majority of the general public on this planet appear to conduct themselves in an unquestioning, slave-like manner deferring creative thought and critical thinking to the "experts".


Lazarus Long:

Basically we are in agreement about the dangerous and irresponible complacency being shown in this matter and I assure that there will come a day when panicked and inadequate measures get taken to meet issues that could have been instead more than adequately addressed through foresight, dilligence and cooperative planning.


Unfortunately, Lazarus Long's quote appears to be true.

This irresponible complacency by the general population is of far greater concern to me than the the actual risks we have discussed to-date. The fact that this civilization appears to believe it is invulnerable to the possibility of near-term risk, is probably going to decrease its chances of successfully transitioning from a Type-0 to a Type-1 civilization. On the other hand, a basic trait of a survivor is to realistically access risk and to take appropriate corrective action.

A couple of the causes for the irresponsible complacency might be summarized by these two traits of this current Type-0 civilization:

1) The desire to be entertained rather than to face reality. Stating this concept a different way, the inability to handle the truth or potential truth that may not be what the general public wants to hear.

2) The drive to be popular. To be popular, a person eventually needs to be a people-pleaser telling people what they want to hear rather than what the people-pleaser considers to be the truth. Stating this a different way, the facts may be compromised to such a degree that facts are simply dismissed by demeaning the person or the thought process of the person rather than remaining objective with the issue.

Two other traits that are of concern to me regarding the successful transition of this civilization to a Type-1 are:

1) The hunger for power. Those driven by power tend to discount the rights of others in their quest for power. Thus, conflict arrises. With the current technology, all-out war could put this civilization at risk (driving it back 100s if not 1000s of years).

2) The focus on money and material possessions. When money becomes a number one priority, a person can be birbed (compromised). If those in power are compromised, they might not necessarily be making the best decisions for all concerned but instead could be following a pre-set agenda.

bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 27 January 2003 - 05:03 AM.


#47 wannabe

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Posted 27 January 2003 - 09:56 AM

bobdrake12 wrote:

Allow me to place emphasis on your quote:
"I'm not just thinking of the return of warlike, yet advanced beings from Nibiru, but of the impact on immortality advancements and our own psychological tendencies, if we are a transgenic species designed to be slaves in gold mines."
Perhaps, the word "we" can be changed to the vast majority of the general public on this planet.


Yes, I dare say that would probably be more accurate, Bob. If we are going with the premise that humans were bio engineered laborers designed to take orders [alien] , the earths population could be "cast" as basically either:
1) mundane earthlings upgraded transgenically and via limited sexual crossing with Annunaki
2) the same, plus more Annunaki blood, breeding royal bloodlines and using the alchemical gold [>] http://www.nexusmaga.../starfire1.html ).

Under this model of ET dominion, there would be developmental advantages for those with more of the Annunaki genetics. Yet, succumbing to bicammeral tendencies-- deference to external authority-- can better be addressed as a personal honesty issue-- a software, not hardware problem, at least at this juction in time. Defaulting on the work of linking facts into proper context, in the face of the discomfort that this effort can produce, is the factor that speaks to your concern, what threatens our civilization with oblivion. Given back self-responsibility incentives, this stupidity tendency may be overcome by about any determined, persistant individual, I have to hope (must--find-- STRENGTH!--).[roll]

bobdrake12

This irresponsible complacency by the general population is of far greater concern to me than the actual risks we have discussed to-date


Geniuses work towards a world free of death. I'm optimistic that the dynamics will allow that to happen, that people are learning to think, get out of the way, and let the geniuses make them like gods. Still, the non-integrating masses present an impedence to this prospect, They empower the malefactors-- they who have learned how to manipulate, or "guide" others through their bicammeral tendencies, extracting an easy, cushy ride though life. Clever malefactors dole out usurped time and effort of sacrificed others (quantities of lives) to those with needs (needs = rights, automatically). They make bad seem good, good seem bad. They stir up envy towards business, and the masses rally behind them. Business and science geniuses who would give us immortality and leisure space craft are burdened with intrusive regulations, time wasting paperwork, support of a parasitic elite bureaucracy-- because of an uncomprehending, stupid society ( check out http://neo-tech.com ).

Here is some background on Jaynes' theory (he comes from the perspective the gods were schizophrenic type manifestations), one that Freer has mated with Sitchin's translated accounts from the Summerian record, one of day to day interactions and servitude to their flesh and blood Lords:

original text at
http://www.snowcrest...za/easyjayn.htm

Summarizing, Jaynes' Conclusions
Jaynes says

Consciousness is an operation rather than a thing, a repository, or a function.

It operates by way of Analogy, by way of constructing an Analog/-{SpatialModel} space with an Analog/{SpatialModel} " I " that can observe that space, and move Metaphorically in it.

It operates on any reactivity, excerpts relevant aspects, narratizes and conciliates them together in a Metaphorical space where such meanings can be manipulated like things in space.

Conscious mind is a spatial Analog/{SpatialModel} of the world and mental acts are Analog/{SpatialModel}s of bodily acts.

Consciousness operates only on objectively observable things. ...there is nothing in Consciousness that is not an Analog/{SpatialModel} of something that was in behavior first.

Conscious Awareness is a Metaphor/{SoundString}-generated model of the world.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Mind of Iliad
The first writing in human history in a language of which we have enough certainty of translation to consider it in connection with my hypothesis is the Iliad, regarded to have happened about 1230 BC, and written down about 850 BC.

No words for Conscious Awareness or mental acts. Words that later on come to mean mental acts have more concrete meanings in the Iliad.

No word for will. Iliadic men have no will of their own, and no notion of free will. Words for volition were invented later in Greek.

No words for the body as a whole, just different body parts.

There is no subjective Conscious Aware-ness, no mind, soul, or will, and no concept of the body as a whole.

Characters in the Iliad do not sit down and think out what to do; they have no ConsciouslyAware minds and no introspections.

It is a god who jumps in and tells men what to do, at every instance.

In fact, the gods take the place of Conscious Awareness.

The beginnings of action are not in Conscious plans, reasons, and motives; they are in the actions and speeches of gods.

The entire epic is the song of the goddess which the entranced bard 'heard' and chanted to his listeners.

Except for its later accretions, then, the epic itself was neither Consciously composed nor Consciously remembered, but was successively and creatively changed with no more awareness than a pianist has of his improvisations.

Who then were these gods that pushed men about like robots and sang epics through their lips?

They were voices whose speech and directions could be distinctly heard by the Iliadic heroes as voices are heard by certain epileptic and schizophrenic patients, or just as Joan of Arc heard her voices.

The gods were organizations of the central nervous system and can be regarded as personae in the sense of poignant consisten-cies through time, amalgams of parental or admonitory images.

The god is a part of the man.

He simply leads, advises, and orders.

The gods are what we now call hallucinations.

#48 bobdrake12

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Posted 27 January 2003 - 01:59 PM

Yet, succumbing to bicammeral tendencies-- deference to external authority-- can better be addressed as a personal honesty issue-- a software, not hardware problem, at least at this juction in time. Defaulting on the work of linking facts into proper context, in the face of the discomfort that this effort can produce, is the factor that speaks to your concern, what threatens our civilization with oblivion. Given back self-responsibility incentives, this stupidity tendency may be overcome by about any determined, persistant individual, I have to hope (must--find-- STRENGTH!--).


wannabe,

This concept just might be the core issue or at least one of the core issues.

As an aside, I received an email back one time that stated, "Why would I want immortality?" This begs the question: If an individual does not care to continue to exist (have the will to live), how can we expect a civilization (primarily consisting of such self-defeating individuals) to have the drive to do the same?

bob

Edited by bobdrake12, 27 January 2003 - 02:01 PM.


#49 Lazarus Long

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Posted 27 January 2003 - 04:16 PM

We have taken a tangent to the curve that puts us in orbit above the problem. I wonder not at all what I will do if Freer's fears are correct. What I wonder is what "we" will do?

In the meantime I only want to add that maybe it would be the best thing for us as a species if we were under threat from an "Alien Force". Could we lose to superior strength and technology? Yes.

But also could it force us into joining forces among the warring tribes of man and collectively trigger a quantum leap, naturally cull the weaker members of us that cannot make the transition, and do so without making us collectively guilty of a misguided genocide?

Also yes.

Natural Selection is a bitch on a Cosmic scale. More so when we would only be left with Human Selection versus Annunaki Selection and either victor running roughshod over the natural variant.

It is often posited by rational minds that it woud be a good thing to play a hoax upon mankind in order to use our common fears to bring us together against a greater fear in common. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" begs this question.

Necessity is still the Great Mother of all Creation. If we better realized our collective "need" for one another perhaps we would be more considerate in our dealings with each other.

There is so much that I want to address in both your posts (Bob and Wannabe) but I only have a moment to add what I have already done.

Be well gentlemen.

#50 Mind

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Posted 25 February 2003 - 05:33 PM

If there was a NEO headed for Earth would you want to know? Here are the details of a recent controversy about NEO's.

***********************

By Robert Roy Britt

"Suppose a giant asteroid is heading toward Earth right now. Impact is certain. The consequences are expected to be globally devastating, with the human race among the casualties. The chances of doing anything about it are zero, the government decides.

Would you want to know?

Or would you prefer the Feds keep the information secret and spare you and your neighbors a bunch of pointless worrying?

In essence, the question concerns whether you'd prefer to die in ignorant bliss, or if you'd like some options. The alternatives might include dying in a panic, calmly making peace with your Maker, finally taking the kids to Disneyland or -- who knows? -- making a last-ditch effort to fight odds your elected leaders say are wholly against you.

More Stories


The Impact Debate Part 1: The Good News





Risk of Small Asteroid Strikes Lowered





NASA Scientists Call British Media's Asteroid Hype Unethical Rubbish





Why We Fear Ourselves More than Asteroids







For several reasons that will become apparent as you read on, the question is largely moot.

But that didn't stop it from coming up at a major science gathering earlier this month and generating a global round of conspiracy headlines. According to some articles, the U.S. Government has been advised to withhold information of a catastrophic impact, were one ever found to be imminent. The Times of London put this headline above its story: "Don't Tell Public of Doomsday Asteroid."

The media accounts centered around the words of one graduate student (the press variously and erroneously called him a scientist, a researcher and a government adviser). Geoffrey Sommer spoke as part of a seven-person panel Feb. 13 at an impact hazard symposium during a meeting of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), held in Denver.

Controversial words

Here are the widely quoted words, from an AAAS press release, attributed to Sommer (much to his surprise, he said later):

"When a problem arises with high uncertainty, there is an opportunity to spin the problem to avoid global panic. If you can't do anything about a warning, then there is no point in issuing a warning at all. If an extinction-type impact is inevitable, then ignorance for the populace is bliss."

Those words were taken "severely out of context" and "inaccurately described my position," according to Sommer, who says he was not advocating a position but rather discussing choices involving information disclosure that policymakers would face. Yet the press release was sent out with, effectively, an AAAS stamp of approval, and for several days, all Sommer could do was watch as the comments generated ire among readers and some frustration on the part of scientists.

However misconstrued, the quote seemed to stem logically enough from a case study that was part of Sommer's doctoral dissertation at the RAND Graduate School, operated by the RAND Corporation (the media inaccurately placed him as an employee of the RAND Corporation working for the government). The dissertation's topic: Low-probability, high-consequence threats and how policymakers might evaluate them.

Whatever the circumstances, Sommer received some vitriolic responses to his words, which many saw as downright wrongheaded and arrogant at worst, pessimistic at best. Here are reactions from three separate people, based on e-mails supplied by Sommer himself:

"It's rather arrogant of you to presume that not a single human would survive after a large impact. Perhaps no one would. If people don't try, the odds are certainly worse."
"One doesn't have to be a RAND 'expert' to realize that the world would rather go down fighting, than to be lulled into a false sense of security."
"You are not God, Mr. Sommer … I suppose if you were diagnosed with a rapidly progressing terminal illness, you would prefer to be told, 'All your tests came back OK, Mr. Sommer. There's nothing wrong with you at all.'"
The last note came from James Cass, who also told Sommer, "Your arrogance is pathetic." Upon reflection, Cass told SPACE.com: "I realize that some of my words were a bit acidic, but after I read Mr. Sommer's comments I was livid."

'Inconceivable'

Late last week, Sommer explained his true stance to SPACE.com. More on that shortly. First, the reaction of scientists -- most of whom were somewhat confused about what Sommer was actually trying to say -- shows how passionately they detest secrecy.

Across the board, experts in asteroid search efforts and death-by-space-rock risk assessment, collectively known as the Near Earth Object (NEO) community, contest whether secrecy could ever be warranted, let alone possible.

"It is inconceivable to me that anyone involved in NEO surveys and orbital predictions would want to keep the results a secret," David Morrison, who spoke at the same AAAS symposium, said in an e-mail interview. "It is also inconceivable that astronomers could keep such a secret even if they wanted to. A real impact prediction, even at low probability, would be known all over the world in a matter of hours."

That is true. In fact, dozens of amateur astronomers -- employed by no government or institution in their backyard endeavors -- help with the follow-up observations needed to pin down a newly discovered rock's actual trajectory. They work from data stored at two publicly available Web sites, one in the United States and one in Italy.

Journalists have frequently accessed these databases to fuel doomsday stories about asteroids that had long odds of ever coming in. In each case, the odds have dropped from highly improbable to zero in a matter of days or weeks.

The scare stories leave raw scars on the NEO community and its sense of credibility, perhaps making the researchers particularly sensitive to this latest round of doomsday headlines laced with suggestions of official cover-up.

Morrison, senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the Ames Research Center, called the whole affair a tempest in a teapot. He said there are no asteroids big enough to cause mass extinction currently in Earth-crossing orbits. Even a threatening comet, which by nature would start farther out in the solar system and might wander inward for the first time after centuries of deep space oblivion, would be spotted by amateur telescopes months before it hit, he said.

Real threat

Over time, orbits change, however. Asteroids that aren't threatening now might become so in a few centuries or millennia. All leading experts, Morrison included, agree that Earth will eventually get pummeled again by a 1-kilometer-wide (0.62-mile) object or bigger. Civilization might teeter. Odds are very slim, however, that it will happen in any given year or century.

It could come next year, or not for a million years.

(Scientists estimate there are 1,100 1-kilometer and larger NEOs; about 640 of them have been found. Hundreds of thousands of smaller objects roam the same region of space as Earth, so the impact odds for smaller, regionally destructive asteroids are greater in any given time frame. But the bulk of asteroid search funding and political discussion to date has focused on rocks above the 1-kilometer threshold.)

Sommer said that prior to his symposium talk, he had only two minutes to review the press release containing his comments, and it had already been distributed to reporters. At the meeting and in remarks since, he has worked to put it all into context.

"I don't advocate 'silence and secrecy' as absolutely as the AAAS press release indicated," Sommer wrote Feb. 15, two days after the symposium, in an electronic newsletter called CCNet, which monitors the science and politics of the NEO search and threat.

In the CCNet writings, however, Sommer did not appear to back down entirely from the idea that hiding information might be an option under certain circumstances in order to avoid social panic and the tremendous costs that might be associated with it (think looting, profiteering, and economic collapse, he says).

One point Sommer stressed is that the governments of this Earth need to get together and come up with a mitigation strategy -- what to do if an asteroid is found bearing down our pale blue dot.

Absent a plan to deflect or destroy an incoming asteroid, or to survive the hit, Sommer said policy makers might question the value of telling the public it is doomed.

CCNet is run by Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist who contemplates "neocatastrophism" in various forms. Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University in England, responded: "Even with little time left for mitigation, many activities could be taken by the world community to attempt human survival of such a global disaster."

Peiser agrees with Morrison and others that in the case of a huge impacting object -- a planet destroyer -- there would be a lot of time to prepare and no possibility for secrecy. Sommer made it clear late last week that he agrees with these points, too.

Peiser also said science has not even reached a point where it can state with certainty whether an impact would doom humanity. Further, if a gargantuan incoming object is detected, it would be weeks, months or years before a firm determination was made that it was going to hit Earth, or not.

For the record

After the CCNet exchange, we asked Sommer to clarify his position.

"I absolutely do not advocate government keeping secret news of any impending disaster that would wipe out the world's population," Sommer said.

"I take no stand on what the policymakers should do," he said. "I most certainly never advocated that information be withheld from the public. In the purely hypothetical scenario at issue, my point is simply that policymakers should weigh the plusses and minuses of telling people they were about to die and that there was nothing that could be done to save them. It is a value judgment for the policymaker to make."

Sommer said the whole example is peripheral to his main point, which is that warning the public of an impending disaster "is a social function, not just a technical function, and that the costs of warning (including false positives) must be considered in the calculus of resource allocation and program design."

Meanwhile, researchers are concerned over how media coverage surrounding the affair might tarnish the public view of NEO science.

Clark Chapman, of the Southwest Research Institute and another of the symposium speakers, worries about the collective damage to scientific credibility from coverage of the Sommer controversy combined with hype surrounding previous asteroid scares. Chapman said individual flames of controversy tend to be small, but they get fanned "by those who prefer to see conflict rather than convergence and consensus."

Like other NEO researchers, Chapman is concerned that the public will come to distrust serious asteroid science and the need to search for, catalogue and understand space rocks, as well as to begin looking into mitigation strategies.

Importantly, as Sommer points out, there is no strategy, in the United States or elsewhere, for what to do in the face of a natural threat from space. And that, several other experts contend, is a legitimate concern.

At issue is how and whether to deflect or destroy an incoming rock, something no one knows how to do. Similarly important is the need to develop plans for moving coastal residents to higher ground. Because our planet is two-thirds water, any impact is likely to be an ocean splashdown, whose greatest immediate effect might be tsunami waves that could destroy coastal regions on two continents within hours.

The panic myth

At the heart of Sommer's case is how people would respond to the knowledge of looming cataclysm.

Lee Clarke, who advocates asteroid-mitigation planning, spoke at the AAAS asteroid symposium, too. The Rutgers University sociologist studies big-time catastrophes and the supposed public panic that comes with them. He says the whole concept that everyone freaks out is largely a myth.

"We have five decades of research on all kinds of disasters -- earthquakes, tornadoes, airplane crashes, etc. -- and people rarely lose control," Clarke said. "Policy-makers have yet to accept this. People are quite capable of following plans, even in the face of extreme calamities, but such plans must be there."

A scheme for survival would require good international communication and ought to be discussed in the United Nations, so that poorer countries are not left out of any world blueprint for notification and mobilization, Clarke said. "Earth's history is filled with unanticipated catastrophes and their disastrous consequences. With appropriate planning, the human toll could be lessened."

Clarke figures the worst thing governments could do is lose public trust by withholding information. But he points out that secrecy might appeal to some public officials.

"Keeping secret something potentially very dangerous is an idea that would resonate very well with the current administration in Washington," Clarke said. "It would probably resonate with most high-level decision makers."

In that light, "Geoffrey Sommer did the debate a great service by proposing a scenario that needs to be talked about," Clarke said, adding that the discussion was and should continue to be an intellectual one, regardless of whether scientists disagree on various points.

"The issue is big," Clarke said, "but the individuals are not."

****************

#51 Lazarus Long

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Posted 25 February 2003 - 05:54 PM

Morrison, senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the Ames Research Center, called the whole affair a tempest in a teapot. He said there are no asteroids big enough to cause mass extinction currently in Earth-crossing orbits. Even a threatening comet, which by nature would start farther out in the solar system and might wander inward for the first time after centuries of deep space oblivion, would be spotted by amateur telescopes months before it hit, he said.


This is a classic example of disinformation and "Spinning" at work.

The premise of validity is based on demonstrably unverified assumption and presented as fact. Why?

Let's look at the evidence.

The comet that recently struck Jupiter was discovered on inbound trajectory and was unknown before the event.

Two of the recent near misses from asteroids were events that "Came of of the Glare of the Sun and both were previously unknown rocks whose orbits had never been mapped and occured within months of eachother and both were only discovered outbound after passing Earth Orbit.

Assess the odds of that last fact alone.

Three, the number of unknown and unmapped tragectories combined is well in excess of the "known" data in this respect and that is why we are conducting the astrophysical surveys in the first place.

The author is trying to spin a conclusion out of a question and it makes me more suspicious that the "cover up is already going on" than comforted.

And I will add that I am uneasy and unsure how accurrate assessments made only a "few short weeks" after a discovered possibilty, are possible themselves given the amount of data and subsequent observation required to obtain a sufficient informational database for making a valid conclusion.

Are you comforted by the trend of these article's Mind or are you added fuel to our fire?

I still say get ready to mine them :)

By the way, the fourth scenario has the inbound hit not only one done unawares, but one that triggers the " Failsafe" system and instigates a global nuclear exchange.

This too has precedent with one an event that did occur. When just such an explosion in the upper atmosphere took the world to high alert by making everybody believe that someone was making a First Strike.

We were saved by not having a First Strike level of status on most sides as an option at the time and in the time it took to figure out what did happen, we were able to take the time it took to NOT kill everyone on Earth.

However all bets are off if it happens during a heightened state of Global Warfare readiness and hits a major (now more commonly available due to global urban sprawl and current events) population unawares.

The abyss stands before us all and only being able to fly gets us across.

Quantum Leap my fellow Humans. [ph34r]

#52 Lazarus Long

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Posted 25 February 2003 - 07:39 PM

Ahh synchronicity...

It doth so add flavor to our poisons [ph34r]

Here is yesterday's news.
Article and Links

End of the World Is Nigh, Says Long-Dead Scientist
Mon Feb 24,10:11 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Armageddon is just 57 years away, by the calculations of Britain's most famous scientist, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Saturday.


Sir Isaac Newton, the 17th century scientist and theologian, wrote thousands of pages of notes in his attempt to decode the Bible and pin down the date of the apocalypse, said the article.

"But until now it was not known that he ever wrote down a final figure," Malcolm Neaum, who has produced a BBC documentary "Newton: The Dark Heretic," was quoted as saying.

"What has been coming out over the past 10 years is what an apocalyptic thinker Newton was," he added. "He spent something like 50 years and wrote 4,500 pages trying to predict when the end of the world was coming."

The handwritten manuscripts bearing Newton's calculations were discovered by researchers in a library in Jerusalem, following their sale in London to collector Abraham Yahuda in the 1930s.

Newton, who died in 1727, is best known for discovering gravity -- supposedly when an apple fell on his head -- and is credited with being the forefather of modern physics.

#53 Lazarus Long

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Posted 12 August 2003 - 02:34 PM

Here is a current analysis that mimics some of the discussions that Bob and I had a while ago. The warning hidden in the text is that don't assume that tech advances will outstrip unintended consequences or unforeseen events. There is no reason to put all our "faith" in tech any more than religion.

In a recent chat I heard discussion of the Aztecs that didn't really have a grasp of their history. That period of domination by the more savage militants was brought about because of the social collapse of the more "civilized Maya/Toltec" creating a power vacuum into which the more savage elements of society moved successfully.

Sound familiar?

It should we are not so far from these risks as we would like to hope.

http://www.ajc.com/n...26archmaya.html

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 6/26/03 ]
Maya mystery solution may be warning
By MIKE TONER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON -- Images from space are providing scientists with new clues about the mysterious collapse of the Mayan civilization of Central America and some hints about the fates of other ancient civilizations that tried, and failed, to manipulate their environments with massive public works projects.

Analyses of satellite images by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and others suggest that, at least in the Petén region of northern Guatemala, the Maya made major ecological mistakes. Those, in turn, led to the collapse of what, around 800 A.D., was one of the most densely populated regions of the New World.

"By about 900 A.D., these people had all but disappeared, and we think we're beginning to understand why," NASA archaeologist Tom Sever told the World Archaeological Congress in Washington.

Aerial surveys of the region were performed by Charles Lindbergh more than 70 years ago, but new space-based sensors are enabling scientists to see through the dense jungle growth. "We have been able to see things that have never been mapped before," Sever said. "Some of these features are so subtle that even if you chopped away all the vegetation, you couldn't see them."

A mirror of modern worries

From hundreds of newly discovered cities and towns, fields, roadways, canals and man-made reservoirs, researchers are beginning to see the rise and fall of Maya civilization in a new light -- one that strikes a familiar chord in a modern world that worries about water wars, drought and overpopulation.

The Maya civilization originated in the Yucatan and eventually occupied much of what today is southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador and northern Belize.

The Maya initially prospered because the region was dotted with small lakes and ponds. As the population grew, however, the Maya rapidly deforested steep slopes to make way for crops. The resulting erosion clogged streams and rivers with silt and turned the lakes into seasonal swamps.

To supply the water that once had been stored naturally, the Maya built hundreds of man-made reservoirs. For a while, engineering seemed to be the answer. But with a population density equivalent to that of China and every arable acre under cultivation, there was no cushion for bad years.

Sometime between 800 and 900, a series of severe droughts devastated the region. The reservoirs dried up and the crops failed. "Within 100 years, 95 percent of the population was gone," Sever said.

The analysis isn't as advanced, but researchers say space-based and aerial images are beginning to suggest that a similar fate may have befallen the Khmer empire, which ruled much of Cambodia between the ninth and 15th centuries.

Similar hints in Cambodia

Rediscovered by French missionaries in the mid-1800s, the Angkor region's archaeological sites have been celebrated primarily for their lavishly decorated temples and stone sculptures.

In recent years, however, archaeologists have mapped an extensive network of roads, canals and reservoirs. The latest radar images by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory show networks of canals and square-cornered reservoirs -- many too faint to be seen from the ground -- that cover more than 300 square miles.

Archaeologists now estimate that the population of Angkor may have reached 1 million at its peak. They don't yet know why it collapsed, but an eco-disaster like that which befell the Maya is one of the leading possibilities.

#54 advancedatheist

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Posted 12 August 2003 - 03:17 PM

New Zealand could become the first industrial society to collapse from resource depletion. It has experienced trouble keeping its electricity online because its major natural gas field is nearly exhausted. New Zealand's geographic isolation and few resources make it especially vulnerable to a disruption in the supply of fossil fuels.

Refer to:

Shell stops exploration in New Zealand
http://www.stuff.co....50a6425,00.html

and,

Fast-rising power prices give big businesses a jolt
http://www.nzherald....ion=electricity

#55 Lazarus Long

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Posted 12 August 2003 - 03:36 PM

I have been following your posts elsewhere on this Marc and while I do believe a certain level of the current global crisis is intentionally exaggerated (and manipulated) by all the many parties to make political hay, the basic notion that we are observing an increasing number of complex problems that are simultaneously increasing in complexity is also apparent.

Socio-Techno-Eco-Collapse is one that has very good historical and pre-historical support and one that is counter intuitive to the average human that is hard wired to believe that what is, always will be. Climate shifts with BOTH tectonic and a very temporary (less-predictable) short term pace. The irony with this as I hope Mind will chime in, is that almost all our recent modeling (until very recently) has been focused on what was the least predictable aspect of weather; today & tomorrow's "forecast".

I say ironic because the research that has given us models to look at accomplishing this are now faced with the dawning reality that we are able to extrapolate large scale forecasting models that are refined with incoming data about paleo-climatology to create very powerful predictive models about long term trends in climate with possibly remarkable accuracy. The problem is that the data from these models is highly controversial as it has profound ramifications for socio-economics.

The problem is that people are being inundated with "chicken little" hysteria instead of a serious reality check that would involve some very profound changes on a global scale. These gloom & doom reports are having the counter productive effect of inuring the average person to the reality of the risks by generating a sort of "crying wolf effect" balanced by the "Ostrich effect", both of which contribute to making things worse for trying to make them better.

There is a third more sinister effect however and that is the "I'm getting mine while the getting is good effect" and this one is fueling {pun [":)] } the crisis too.

These three popular attitudes alone (and there are more variations on this these three themes) are a daunting majority of popular awareness that far and away tends to overrule the minority that are trying to rationally study these serious threats with an objective eye to both comprehending the risks and determining responsible courses of action for mitigating the threats.

#56 kevin

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Posted 17 April 2004 - 07:00 AM

Link: http://www.earthinst...ry04-16-04.html



Earth Institute News
posted 04/16/04

Contact: Mary Tobin
845-365-8607 or mtobin@ldeo.columbia.edu


How Long Can Earth Continue to Sustain the Human Race?
NOVA Television Program Uses Experts from the Earth Institute to Probe Surprising Population Trends and the Future of Humanity

Posted Image
Children collecting floating waste for recycling, Manila Bay, Philippines. Over the next fifty years, 98% of population growth will occur in the poorest regions on earth — where resources are being consumed faster than they can be renewed. Image Credit: H.Schwarzbach/UNEP/Peter Arnold

It took all of history until the year 1804 for human population to reach its first billion. Now a billion new people are added every dozen years. In the industrialized world — Japan, Europe, and the United States — birth rates are falling steeply while the senior citizen population is booming. NOVA explores these and other trends in the relationship between people and the planet in World in the Balance, with interviews with Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, and Joel Cohen, director of the Laboratory of Populations at the Earth Institute and Rockefeller University. This two-hour Earth Day special, airing Tuesday, April 20, 2004, from 8 to 10pm ET on PBS (check local listings).

With moving personal stories from India, Japan, Kenya, and China, World in the Balance gives an up-to-date global snapshot of today’s human family, now numbering 6.3 billion and likely to increase to nearly 9 billion by 2050.

Paradoxically, the world is now careening in two completely different directions. By 2050, the average age across Africa and the Middle East will be twenty-five. In Japan, Europe, and Russia, it will be fifty. And in the United States, it will be forty. Many experts argue that these demographic disparities could have severe global repercussions. NOVA explores how decisions made now will affect the United States and the Earth over the next fifty years.

In the first hour, The People Paradox, NOVA investigates three countries where social and economic forces have produced starkly different population profiles. In India, women still bear an average of three to four children. Within a few decades the country will overtake China as the world’s most populous nation. NOVA interviews a young Indian woman who nearly died delivering her eighth baby. Three of her children have died, and another pregnancy may jeopardize her life. Nevertheless, her husband and mother-in-law want her to try for another son—a highly prized asset in traditional Indian culture.

While India’s population pyramid has the classic shape of a triangle resting on a wide base—with large numbers of youth at the bottom and a small number of elderly at the top—Japan’s population pyramid is shifting to look like a triangle standing on its head. There are now more people over sixty than under twenty in Japan. Concerned about paying pensions and decaying economic productivity, the government is using incentives such as bonuses to encourage women to have more children. Yet increasing numbers of Japanese women are declaring their independence from marriage and motherhood to pursue professional careers.

Posted Image
In Haikou, China, a man transports plastic bottles and containers for recycling. About half of China's plastic waste goes uncollected. Photo Credit: REUTERS/China Photo

Meanwhile, the population pyramid in sub-Saharan Africa is beginning to resemble an hourglass. Adults between the ages of twenty and sixty are dying in the prime of life, largely due to AIDS, leaving the very old and young to fend for themselves. In a powerful personal story, NOVA interviews a nineteen-year-old Kenyan woman who suffers from AIDS. Her parents have died, and she is raising her four brothers and sisters, as well as a nephew. Like many teenage girls in Africa, she is a victim of predatory more sexual behavior by an older male, through whom she contracted HIV. Funding cuts in family planning assistance from the United States are putting many young women at risk for unwanted pregnancies, HIV infection, and illegal backstreet abortions.

In the second hour, China Revs Up, NOVA takes the pulse of China’s hyperactive economy, which is the fastest growing in the history of the world. During the last two decades, China clamped down on its population growth through its controversial one-child policy, but in recent years, it has relaxed those rules, moving in the direction of more reproductive freedom.

As the sprawling country develops from a poor nation and aspires to a more middle-class lifestyle,

China’s air, land, and water are beginning to suffer. Already, a massive dust cloud of eroded soil from Mongolia has darkened the skies over North America, and air pollution from Beijing and Shanghai regularly wafts as far as California.

The prospect that all Chinese will strive to live like middle-class Americans is daunting, since it has been calculated that if all the world’s people had an American standard of living, two more planets the size of Earth would be needed to support them.

But one planet is all there is, and World in the Balanceshows that it will take our best scientific and technological efforts to make this one do for all its inhabitants—present and future.

The Earth Institute at Columbia University is one of the world's leading academic centers for the integrated study of Earth, its environment and society. The Earth Institute builds upon excellence in the core disciplines — earth sciences, biological sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and health sciences — and stresses cross-disciplinary approaches to complex problems. Through its research training and global partnerships, it mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world's poor.

#57 theseed

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Posted 22 July 2012 - 12:56 PM

a timeless topic... So though it's been 8 years since posted, i'm giving my 2 cents worth:
Since 2008 i've done a lot of research on a lot of things. Fulltime research, but it's not just about quantity, it's about quality: can your mind HANDLE the research and then continue on from there to do more research and THEN continue on for years outside of the mainstream? Such has been the last 4 years, added on to my life's attutide of not caring what's popular or politically expedient.

My own YouTube introduction to TEOTWAWKI may serve to illustrate the argument i'll post below.
Many ancient records tell of just a handful of people surviving this recurring event, often as little as one man and one woman (and how many people survived alone but left no descendents to tell their tale?) If some people survive by shere luck, they will likely not last very long. There could be millions but their numbers will work against them; the 'zombies' and cannibals [military research suggests it takes 15 days of starvation for people to go cannibal] live day-to-day, destroying their own future just to survive for a few more days. The ancient reports tell of parents eating their children and of brothers turning on brothers.

It's mainly pure logic and common sense that make the science interesting: there's no logic behind mankind popping into existence a few thousand years ago. Our civilizations should go back hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps millions, not a few thousand. WTF?!
The science then gives us answers (to that rhetorical question): various scientific disciplines, independent of each other, discover a 13,000 or 11,500-year cycle of destruction consuming the planet. Civilizations don't survive it. The few individuals that do, fall back into a stone age. After all, would YOU know how to make iron, rubber, paper, glass, etc. etc. etc.? [btw, I do]. Almost no one knows anything about the basics to civilization, and that's just talking about technological aspects, let alone the psychology.

For a few years now i've been collecting what it'll take to surthrive what may very well come. There are a number of aspects to all of this:
- will it happen in 2012?
- does it matter?... Are you prepared if our brief/young civilization comes to an end? Where's your civilization insurance?!
- have you read Paul LaViolette, Patrick Geryl, Robert Felix, Zecharia Sitchin, etc. etc. etc., understanding that not having read even one of these independent researchers may fundamentally undermine a well-rounded and complete view of mankind's future?
- it's not just about surviving the event; living as a caveman afterwards is neither acceptable for you personally nor for mankind's future generations

We are living in 2012. Already. Now. The time to do the research was in previous years. Will you chance it? Is that the gist of your life? Chance? The 'slave' lives by chance. People whose lives are determined by the victim attitude are ruled by chance.
This forum is based on the concept of immortality but you possibly won't even live through the year if my data, logic, and sense pan out. Is being such a complete and utter failure, personally and as member of our civilization and species, an acceptable option for you? It is not for me. My life is not ruled by chance. I prefer an easy life, just like the next bloke, but if the times i live in demand certain investigations, i will do the work. I had to learn how to eat properly because my culture didn't even supply this information, just as western culture cannot even supply nutritional foods or safe water anymore! My emotional and intellectual freedom has led me to all kinds of knowledge, insights, and ideas,, like that of physical immortality. It has also led me to the research and logic about possible 2012 scenarios.

I have what i believe to be among the safest locations on the planet. You WILL NOT be able to survive on the continental US, for example. Forget it. Ancient accounts mention a few people surviving IN THE MOST PROPITIOUS regions. The time to relocate is now. The time to find out what ARE safe locations is TODAY.
Have these discussions taken place 13,000 years ago? Did they sit back and wait? I'm guessing the outcome [i.e the stone age of our ancestors] was "Yes!"
You are a victim in principle or by content, i.e. bad luck happens [content] but living by luck is the principle of the victim/self-fulfilling prophecy life. Neither my age, my culture, nor my own life situation dictates my choices. I make my own choices based on my own research. Unfortunately, you don't have the luxury to do your own research anymore so you must choose: risk [i.e. chance, i.e. live as a victim] death blissfully ignorant along with the billions you share the planet with or accept the only authority in this matter on the planet today: challenge my authority. It is not power-based, like the so-called authorities that rule NASA or the govt. Test my logic, my data, the common sense i present. Then accept that you have found an authority to lead you, a REAL authority.
You may be confused about a freedom to be ignorant and die. You may think that having no authorities is freedom, as if Einstein never lived, without whom we would be lacking much applied science. We live our lives by the gifts handed down to us by competent-based authorities. You risk your life by not acknowledging all of this and acting on it. Risk. It is not an option to a free man or woman. Risk is the tool of the oppressed. It is a self-fulfiling prophecy: "I live by grace and am a victim to chance, therefore i do not act".
Life is about choices, not about chance. You have the choice to acknowledge the data, logic, and sense that this person is offering you. You are not here by chance but by choice. Use this or risk death.

#58 Smarter

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Posted 21 September 2012 - 07:08 PM

I think our greatest threat is ourselves...

Human society is based around money/wealth.

Wealth and money are both generated by the destruction of resources, and converting them into currency.

As the population grows, resources are depleted quicker.

Society is designed as a race to the end...

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#59 theseed

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Posted 22 September 2012 - 09:42 AM

dear 'Smarter', i'd say:
not "our greatest threat is ourselves", but "our greatest threat is mankind's negative potential",
not "Human society is based around money/wealth", but "INhuman society is based around money/wealth",
"Wealth and money"... etc., but "In this (inhuman) society" plus your statement,
not "Society is designed as a race to the end", but "THIS society is designed as a race to the end".

Research into psychology and such reveals that present day society is fundamentally inhuman. It is unnecessary, unnecessarily harsh, and undesireable.
Know thyself and know whom you face; about 150 years of research into mankind cannot be ignored if intelligent opinions are to be formed. The following research is BASIC to understanding what's ruling the planet and what COULD rule it:
- Alice Millier on Black Pedagogics
- Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man
- Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid
- Stanley Milgram's Milgram Experiment
- Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' 5 Stages of Grief
- Thomas Harris' I'm OK, You're OK
- The Celestine Prophecy's 7th Insight
- Maslow's pyramid

Almost all of this research is mainstream. Many are best-sellers. You can't ignore the reality about mankind and form an intelligent opinion based on feelings alone. If you don't have an informed opinion about mankind, you're basing both your opinion about yourself and that about mankind on ignorance, assumptions, and speculation. Mankind's possibilities are very different from modern possibilities that are dictated by a disturbed culture and even more disturbed politics.

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