Stephen Hawking warns humans to leave Earth before ruling class destroys it

[HedgeWizard]

I thought this was an interesting comment from such a prominent scientist. Maybe his frailty allows him to have the nerve to step outside the political group think so many scientists fall into. Is a hundred years enough time to exact a widespread philosophical change? What are your thoughts?

 

http://theantimedia.org/stephen-hawking-warns-humanity-leave-earth-ruling-class-destroys/

[grithin]

It is amusing that first you have Elon Musk warning "elites" to move off the planet, and now you have Hawking warning plebs to move off the planet.  There are two things to note about this.

 

1. You can take a well meaning person, who does not have any particular speciality in the area, feed him a logical story, and that person will then, with a subset of the facts, have a strong opinion about something in that introduced area - and perhaps, as Hawking has, provide that opinion publicly.

 

2. The cost of leaving earth and maintaining a civilization in inhospitable space or on Mars will always be more than the cost of surviving a catastrophe that makes earth less hospitable.  It's simply a distance to resources and cost of maintenance conclusion.

 

None the less, the drive to do things beyond current capabilities has provided quite a lot of nice technologies, and if this new fear encouragement encourages investment in space x or the like, great.

[fezjones]

goes to show no matter where you come from, what worldview you have, how smart you are, everyone things the world is ending.

[AccuTron]

Professor Stephen Hawking, who cited “... global warming,.."

 

Somebody has clay feet. 

 

Taking that path first.  To know AGW is fraud, a person only has to sit and honestly look, and not just at the fraudulent sites!!!  This tells me Hawking is willing to make statements about which he is 100% clueless.  Careful of trusting the smart guys, who aren't infallible.

 

Which reminds me of those bumper stickers with a quote by Einstein, something like "You cannot simultaneously prepare for peace and war."  Uhhh, he's a mathematician (which is what physics is). Not a political scientist.  JFK, who may have simply been quoting somebody for brownie points at the moment, and Julius Caesar (translated) and some other figure I can't recall, possibly Churchill, all said something like "To preserve peace, you must prepare for war."  England was damn glad Churchill pushed for increased fighter plane production when the Germans hit (before the actual attacks, many Brits, including some military, were dissing Churchill and his fighters).  Bumper stickers are wishful thinking.  

 

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One thing I've seen is the notion, which I suspect is at least partly true, that some sort of elites, if that's even a valid word, are big on reducing the total planet population, specifically for the purpose of not completely trashing it with overuse.  Staying right here.

 

grithin's point #2 is powerful; seems a deal killer right there.  The only people who could afford (with much of other people's labor/money) to build and staff such things to begin with, are elites.  And how many people, thousands?  Enough for breeding stock I suppose...and there would or would not be Muslims?  Genetic defect sorting? -- it would be irresponsible to not do that in a seed population.  Scratch some Jewish sub-populations with MS genes.

 

If masses of people learned that elites are building arks, probably most wouldn't even care...notice how zilch notice Fukushima gets.  I mean, a non-stop triple China Syndrome can't get even the notice of a celebrity butt.  Others might riot, and we know how that usually goes.

 

 

If it's just a guy in a wheelchair venting his feelings, then bless him for doing so.

[Frosty]

I've always been fascinated with the Randian story of the elites leaving to start their own society free of the weight of the parasites, it was especially striking for me in Bioshock the game long before I knew the stories it was based on.

 

I find it funny that of everyone capable of making it off the planet the elites obviously stand a much better chance, it'd be like saying to the parasite classes that you just need to get out from under the elites...those who you tax to pay for all your stuff...makes no sense to me. Parasites want hosts to leech off, why would they want to leave?

[Thomasio]

I believe what Hawking means is not the elite leaving, but the workers.

If the ones who actually produce the wealth get rid of BOTH, the takers on the top as well as the receivers on the bottom, the working people could indeed achieve a much better society.

If I got that right, Hawking is afraid, the takers might destroy life as we know it, long before the workers could convert the corrupt system into a free society, therefore he suggests, leaving is the better option.

I'm not so sure how quickly this corrupt system will develop sufficiently secure space travel to make it possible, but given recent progress in science and technology, I can understand someone who believes space travel might be available before a free society could become a reality on earth.

 

I just imagine the faces of the remaining people, how they would look after the workers left and that alone is worth the thought, even if it doesn't come true.

[fractional slacker]

 

Stephen Hawking tells Google ‘philosophy is dead’

[tullworthington]

I think "sending someone to another planet" is an euphamism for the Final solution redux.