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Re: WINNERS - June 2016 Usenet Kook Awards

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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").

-- 
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain
the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." ~David Brooks
"I get fooled all the time by the constant hosiery parade
in here."                                                     ~Checkmate

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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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