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Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards

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In article <nluj4k$mg6$8@dont-email.me>, nad318b404@gmail.invalid 
says...


> 
> On Sun, 10 Jul 2016 12:32:31 -0700, Checkmate, DoW #1 wrote:
> 
> > In article <nlu3tr$t8v$1@gioia.aioe.org>, kkensington01@gmail.invalid
> > says...
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >> On 09/07/2016 5:15 PM, Nadegda wrote:
> >> > On Sat, 09 Jul 2016 14:01:38 -0700, Checkmate, DoW #1 wrote:
> >> >> Here's what it boils down to:  The human species will destroy itself
> >> >> with its own hubris long before those answers are forthcoming.  Life
> >> >> carries no more importance than we choose to give it... then we die.
> >> >> Meanwhile, I'm just waiting for a spontaneous Universal phase change
> >> >> to be the next DoW.  (for those of you who "get" that)
> >> >
> >> > Pessimist.
> >> 
> >> Higgs field collapse in our lifetimes is *highly* improbable. If
> >> natural forces (e.g. supernovae; energetic events around neutron stars
> >> and black holes; etc.) could trigger it the odds of it happening within
> >> any particular narrow window of time are tiny; more likely it happens
> >> long after we're dead or would have happened long before humans even
> >> evolved than that it happens in the next, say, 50 years.
> >> 
> >> As for artificially triggered, if it hasn't happened naturally yet it's
> >> hard for even very high energy events such as the astrophysical ones
> >> noted above to set one off, and nothing in our technology is projected
> >> to be able to throw that kind of energy around in the foreseeable
> >> future. That leaves only the option of "it takes finesse": what random
> >> high energy particle-crackups takes many billions of years to
> >> eventually accomplish by chance can be accomplished quickly, reliably,
> >> and at much lower energy by doing something precise and tricky.
> >> 
> >> In that case, setting one off would be like building a Toyota: no
> >> matter how many times Fords are crashed into lampposts you won't see a
> >> Toyota spontaneously assembled from the parts, but if you set about
> >> crafting one intentionally, it's not that hard. But if that's possible
> >> with a Higgs collapse, to set one off we'd probably have to know enough
> >> about quantum gravity and grand unified theories that we'd *know that
> >> was the consequence* of whatever we were doing. You can crash a Ford
> >> without knowing much about how to build cars, but you can't assemble a
> >> Toyota without that knowledge.
> >> 
> >> So, the only way it's likely to happen within our lifetimes is if
> >> someone sets one off *on purpose*, rather than as an unintended
> >> consequence of a physics experiment. Meaning some doomsday cult or
> >> something. But I'd bet on germ warfare as the biggest threat from those
> >> sorts of l00ns, not high energy physics stuff we haven't even invented
> >> yet. And likely won't -- unlike nukes, this hypothetical thing would
> >> have no potential use as a weapon of war, as its use would be suicide.
> >> 
> >> Its only possible use would be as a terror threat used as a deterrent,
> >> but the downside if it accidentally got triggered is so huge no sane
> >> country would build one for that purpose. And before you say "Dr.
> >> Strangelove", keep in mind that if any *other* civilization out there
> >> had built one and set it off anytime in the past 13 billion years, we
> >> wouldn't be here having this discussion right now, so the odds are it
> >> either can't be done or won't be done even under fairly broad
> >> assumptions about the psychology of those with access to the big red
> >> button (broader than even the assumption "has *human* psychology").
> > 
> > I realize it's the longest of long shots.  We'll destroy ourselves long
> > before the next rogue doomsday asteroid is even likely to do it.  I'm
> > betting on a plague, or as you mentioned, germ warfare. It's probably
> > more likely that a nuclear-disenfranchised nation can develop or steal
> > biological WMDs more easily then they'll be able to obtain a lot of
> > nukes or a way to deliver them.
> > 
> > It's a sad commentary on the nature of Man, that we conquered smallpox,
> > yet still keep that shit around... "just in case 'they' try to use it on
> > us".
> > 
> > At any rate, I have to laugh at scientists who constantly discuss how
> > we'll eventually go out and colonize Mars, or any other location... as
> > if we're going to be around long enough to make that practical.
> > 
> > Technology has become our master, rather than the slave we envisioned
> > back in the 50's and 60's.
> 
> Pessimist.

ITYM "Realist".

 
> And backpedaler, from "Meanwhile, I'm just waiting for a spontaneous 
> Universal phase change to be the next DoW."

An obviously factious remark, but I suspect you already knew that.  
Still, I'd find that scenario "interesting"... for about a nanosecond.


> <snicker>

<snicker>



-- 

Checkmate, AUK DoW #1, new Honorary FNVW of AUK, and Fakey's master
AUK Hammer of Thor award, Feb. 2012 (Pre-Burnore)
Destroyer of the AUK Ko0k Vote  (Post-Burnore)
Originator of the "Dance for me" (tm) lame
Copyright © 2016 
all rights reserved 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdyBYSuqQBQ&feature=youtu.be

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Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "Sir Gregory Hall, Esq." <greghall@yacht_master.fake> - 2016-07-01 19:42 -0400
  Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "Checkmate, DoW #1" <Lunatic.Fringe@The.Edge> - 2016-07-01 16:53 -0700
    Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Janithor <Janithor@comcast.net> - 2016-07-01 16:55 -0700
    Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "Sir Gregory Hall, Esq." <greghall@yacht_master.fake> - 2016-07-01 20:20 -0400
      Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Janithor <Janithor@comcast.net> - 2016-07-01 17:59 -0700
        Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards BBB DoW #14 <r0llinThru@none.invalid> - 2016-07-02 22:11 +1000
      Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "Checkmate, DoW #1" <Lunatic.Fringe@The.Edge> - 2016-07-01 20:26 -0700
        Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards BBB DoW #14 <r0llinThru@none.invalid> - 2016-07-09 19:21 +1000
          Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> - 2016-07-09 09:36 +0000
            Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards BBB DoW #14 <r0llinThru@none.invalid> - 2016-07-09 19:52 +1000
              Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "\"Fakey's\" dogwhistle holder living at 5907 Stanton Ave., Pittsburgh, PA (aka Teh Mop  Jockey), socked up as 5907 Stanton Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206-2117" <root@127.0.0.1> - 2016-07-09 12:16 -0400
              Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Nadegda <nad318b404@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-09 20:30 +0000
        Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "Checkmate, DoW #1" <Lunatic.Fringe@The.Edge> - 2016-07-09 14:01 -0700
          Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Nadegda <nad318b404@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-09 21:15 +0000
            Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards kensi <kkensington01@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-10 14:24 -0400
              Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "Checkmate, DoW #1" <Lunatic.Fringe@The.Edge> - 2016-07-10 12:32 -0700
                Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Nadegda <nad318b404@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-10 22:44 +0000
                Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards "Checkmate, DoW #1" <Lunatic.Fringe@The.Edge> - 2016-07-10 15:53 -0700
              Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Nadegda <nad318b404@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-10 22:42 +0000
                Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards kensi <kkensington01@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-11 05:39 -0400
                Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Nadegda <nad318b404@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-11 20:45 +0000
                Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards kensi <kkensington01@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-12 05:23 -0400
                Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Nadegda <nad318b404@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-12 20:19 +0000
  Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards kensi <kkensington01@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-05 11:03 -0400
    Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards Nadegda <nad318b404@gmail.invalid> - 2016-07-05 21:32 +0000

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