Thread: Gulf Oil Slick
View Single Post
Old 06-30-2010, 01:52 PM   #227
dreadgeek
Power Femme

How Do You Identify?:
Cinnamon spiced, caramel colored, power-femme
Preferred Pronoun?:
She
Relationship Status:
Married to a wonderful horse girl
 
dreadgeek's Avatar
 

Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Lat: 45.60 Lon: -122.60
Posts: 1,733
Thanks: 1,132
Thanked 6,841 Times in 1,493 Posts
Rep Power: 21474852
dreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputationdreadgeek Has the BEST Reputation
Member Photo Albums
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by cinderella View Post
My dearest Kam. You know I love you dear. But, as I've always said, if all the things you are predicting, or think will happen (and maybe they will), we cannot stop it. Do we launch a spaceship and go to another planet? Do we stay here, in our homeground and fight it out (if we can). It sounds like Armageddon indeed, in your view - maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. We, us humans, have had many times when we thought our time was/is running out. But somehow we've survived it. Only time will tell, dearest. It does nothing for you, personally, to carry on like this. Many will scoff and laugh. Please don't expose yourself to ridicule, because that is what you are doing, my sweet. We hear your words. If we choose to harken, or not, that is our choice. You have done the best you can, don't exhaust yourself any longer.
I'm curious--if someone was spreading false information, would you rather it continue to spread or would you prefer it be countered by facts? You're absolutely correct, the end has been predicted many, many, many, times before and every single time it has been wrong. That should tell us something. In the 19th century the Millerites thought the end was near--and it wasn't. In the early 20th century the Jehovah's Witnesses thought the end was near--and it wasn't. Throughout the 20th century this or that sect has predicted Armageddon or the return of Christ or the 'final alien invasion' and none of them have come to pass.

What I find most fascinating about this is that people will give any credence to the most wild-eyed fantasies of Armageddon or alien invasions but will scoff at real-world threats like climate change or an asteroid strike. Will there be an end to the world? Yes. Actually, there will. In about 5 billion years the Sun is going to start to die and expand out to about the orbit of Mars which, of course, will put Earth in the outer layers of the Sun. Good-bye Earth. That's 5 billion years from now, if we are still stuck on this planet without having flung our genes out to the stars we *deserve* extinction.

Before that happens, though, a big rock could hit the Earth and cause a really, really bad day for us. That happens periodically--we know that.

Chances are, folks who would accept an alien invasion would look at those scenarios as science fiction even though both of them are based in fact and one of them (the sun dying) is inevitable.

Cheers
Aj
__________________
Proud member of the reality-based community.

"People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up." (Terry Pratchett)
dreadgeek is offline   Reply With Quote
The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to dreadgeek For This Useful Post: