Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: existential risks – Page 102

Humanity’s ‘Final Institute’ (Part 1)

The concern for the future of humanity is becoming more imperative as exponential technology brings us to the brink of the most fragile time in human history. Existential risk is a matter that is necessary to contemplate proactively rather than in a reactionary state, especially if intentions are to ensure continuance into the far future; a sort of insurance for humanity. However, what is mankind really trying to do? It is commonly advised to begin with the end in mind, however, there doesn’t seem to be a legitimate end goal besides a desperate cling to survival. Living without a purpose is simply existing, which seems to be the current state of our species. What are we existing for?

If we are referring to the whole of mankind rather than the specific individual, it can be commonly agreed upon that we simply have no concrete conclusion for why we are even here; or why anything should exist at all. This is in part due to the fact that we don’t even seem to have a complete understanding of what the universe actually is; why things behave the way they do. The fact that this is unknown would, by definition, imply that the relevance of everything that we do is also currently unknown. Thus, the logical progression would begin with acquiring the information necessary to discover what this nature is that existence seems to abide by. Then we can assemble the right question pertaining to the reason behind this phenomenon that we refer to as the “universe.”

By starting with this end question in mind, we can identify to the best of our current knowledge, the information that would be necessary to know before answering it. Regardless if it seems possible or not, we must consider it necessary for the time being. This would likely result in a series of questions, pushing the boundaries of our scientific and philosophical capabilities. This process would certainly be subject to change as new breakthroughs advance our understanding of the universe. However, the fact of the matter remains; it would be the most efficient direction relative to our maximum capability.

Endless Energy and Black Hole Bombs

A spinning black hole could provide enough energy to power civilization for trillions of years — and create the biggest bomb known to the universe. Using the rotation of a black hole to supercharge electromagnetic waves could create massive amounts of energy or equally massive amounts of destruction. Kurzgesagt explains what it would take to harness a black hole and the potential risks of the process.

Weekend Asteroid Flyby Confirms We’re Worrying About the Wrong Space Rocks

This asteroid flyby was so close it was about halfway between the Earth and Moon. How’d we miss THAT? #SCINow

An asteroid approximately the size of a football field flew close by Earth only a day after it was first spotted this weekend. This near miss is a perfect example of an argument I’ve been making for some time: These are the asteroids we should worry about, not the so-called potentially hazardous rocks being tracked by NASA and periodically hyped by panicked headlines.

NASA scientists first observed the asteroid, now called 2018 GE3, on April 14, according to a database. It ventured as close as halfway the distance between Earth and the Moon, and was estimated to be between 47 meter and 100 meters in diameter (~150 and 330 feet). This is smaller than the asteroids governed by the NASA goal, which is to track 90 percent of near-Earth objects larger than 150 meters (~460 feet) in diameter. Nevertheless, it still could have caused a lot of damage if it had hit Earth.

If you read tabloids or Google news headlines, you probably hear about “potentially hazardous asteroids” all the time. But, like we’ve said before, those are not the asteroids you need to worry about. Potentially hazardous asteroids are those that NASA has determined could possibly hit the planet in the distant future, generally those within 20 lunar distances of Earth and 140 meters in diameter or larger.

Either Planet X Will Kill Us All on April 23rd or the Rapture Can Happen Any Time, Take Your Pick

Maybe one of those times where you shouldn’t have consulted a numerologist?

Silly fringe theories about Planet X—an imagined planet typically named Nibiru that is on course to hit or pass by Earth with disastrous consequences—are the kind of thing normally relegated to vanity press-published books or those tabloids you browse in the supermarket checkout aisle. On Wednesday, they made it into Fox News, with the added caveat that maybe some other Biblical catastrophe could surprise us instead.

The Planet X theory first emerged in 1995 and is usually evidenced by tortured interpretations of religious texts, with vague suppositions that NASA either hasn’t detected this ominous celestial body or is actively covering up its existence to prevent widespread panic. In an article filed to Fox’s website on Wednesday, this time the prophesied doomsday comes courtesy of an article in British rag the Daily Express citing numerologist David Meade’s interpretation of the Bible’s Revelation 12:1–2:

Is The Rapture finally here? One Christian numerologist says a biblical sign strongly suggests it.

The passage reads: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.”

Humans are going to infinity and beyond (or at least the moon) with Boeing’s Starliner

NASA wants to go to Mars. SpaceX wants to go to Mars. Michio Kaku wants humanity to go to Mars so we can avoid extinction. The rest of us just want to see our species actually set foot on Mars. But first, the moon.

Think of the moon as a launchpad for the Red Planet. As LiveScience found out, Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner is going to take advantage of our satellite as a blast-off point for the next frontier. Starliner (the name is about as sci-fi as you can get) is what happens when Boeing, which probably makes everyone think airplanes not spaceships, joins forces with NASA to develop a reusable space capsule that will be able to fly up to seven astronauts to the ISS. It will also be the world’s first commercial space vehicle.

Starliner is even autonomous. Meaning crews will spend less time on training and take off sooner. It only needs one astronaut to fly it, or more like assist it in flight, using tablets and touch screens.

Elon Musk: We Must Leave Earth For One Critical Reason

In its early life, the Earth would have been peppered nearly continuously by asteroids smashing into our young planet. These fiery collisions made our world what it is today. It may seem like things have changed since then, given the vast assortment of life and wide blue oceans—and things have indeed changed. At least in some respects. However, Earth still receives thousands of tons of matter from space, but this is in the form of microscopic dust particles (as opposed to recurrent, energetic collisions).

Fortunately, in modern times, a large asteroid colliding with the surface of the Earth happens only very rarely. Nevertheless, it does happen from time to time.

As most are probably already aware, it is widely believed that an asteroid initiated the dinosaurs’ extinction some 65 million years ago. And more recently, the Russian Chelyabinsk meteor hit our planet in February of 2013. It entered at a shallow angle at 60 times the speed of sound. Upon contact with our atmosphere, it exploded in an air burst. The size of this body of rock (before it burned up and shattered) is estimated to be around 20 meters (across) and it weighed some 13,000 metric tons.

Mars Colony Would Be a Hedge Against World War III, Elon Musk Says

Humanity’s brutal and bellicose past provides ample justification for pursuing settlements on the moon and Mars, Elon Musk says.

The billionaire entrepreneur has long stressed that he founded SpaceX in 2002 primarily to help make humanity a multiplanet species — a giant leap that would render us much less vulnerable to extinction.

Human civilization faces many grave threats over the long haul, from asteroid strikes and climate change to artificial intelligence run amok, Musk has said over the years. And he recently highlighted our well-documented inability to get along with each other as another frightening factor. [The BFR: SpaceX’s Mars Colony Plan in Images].