Comments on: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humankind's ability to prevent a killer asteroid from killing us all?

By: esquire

esquire — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:21:00 +0000

The surprise is:

“The optimists were wrong… DUCK!!”

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:13:00 +0000

But if everybody’s super, then nobody’s super.

Or are you thinking we’d be differently supered?

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:10:00 +0000

Now people are one of the most cosmopolitan single species on the planet*

*On the dry surface bits of the planet.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:02:00 +0000

I have great faith that if this should ever come to pass, the people in our government would swiftly take bold action, and do whatever they could do to blame the other party for the problem.

By: kastyr

kastyr — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:01:00 +0000

Does anyone else see the second question in Comic Sans font? Because I think that might be a big clue as to what the quiz is doing, trying to undermine (or possibly establish?) how we determine credibility from sources depending on presentation. The book by an established physicist is sourced in Comic Sans and the no longer existing web source is cited in a more traditional font.

By: monstrinho

monstrinho — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:50:00 +0000

I’m sure the rich, powerful people of the world will club together their resources to….build themselves a bunker and leave us all out here to fry/freeze.

By: ImmutableMichael

ImmutableMichael — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:27:00 +0000

Herp derp herp.

By: cinilak

cinilak — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:23:00 +0000

My answer: Big asteroid comes, we die.
The time they give scientists in movies to build something for the job would never be enough for us to actually build it and use it – consider that when using many of these methods/tools the asteroid would need to be intercepted at a considerate distance from earth in order for them to work.

By: koanhead

koanhead — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:41:00 +0000

Much better for everyone involved.

By: koanhead

koanhead — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:39:00 +0000

What, someone cares what YouTube commenters think?

By: ScytheNoire

ScytheNoire — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:28:00 +0000

Asteroid is the least of my concerns. Mankind will destroy himself before any giant rock from outer space can.

By: Phil Fot

Phil Fot — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 10:47:00 +0000

I’m just hoping for a 300-mile diameter nickle-iron beast to slam into the earth tomorrow. Or Monday. It’s not that important, as long as it happens soon.

By: tristan eldritch

tristan eldritch — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:10:00 +0000

Place needs a little spring cleaning, anyway.

By: Michael Dolan

Michael Dolan — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 05:26:00 +0000

All this talk of an asteroid- it’s a liberal plot to undermine the United States. Just look at the phony “scientists” with their “telescopes”, claiming that an asteroid will hit the Earth and wipe out humanity- It’s all just a scam to increase their funding. There are plenty of scientists who haven’t seen anything in the sky.

These liberals just want to destroy our economy so they can redistribute that wealth by Building a nuclear warhead loaded rocket to destroy this so called “asteroid” and “save humanity”. It’s obviously a crock. Thank God we have our patriotic Tea Party representatives in Washington to put an end to this nonsense.

By: MarlboroTestMonkey7

MarlboroTestMonkey7 — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:49:00 +0000

Mr. Asteroid doesn’t care for your outlook or dinosaurs, period.

By: chenille

chenille — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:25:00 +0000

Just like how the several decades of warning about global warming gave everyone enough time to come together and…um.

By: chenille

chenille — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:20:00 +0000

That was before we spread everywhere, though. Now people are one of the most cosmopolitan single species* on the planet, together with the things that live alongside us. In a disaster, we have a much better chance than most to leave a few survivors.

* To anticipate the objection: things like beetles and bacteria are not single but countless species, and individual ones do come and go.

By: robuluz

robuluz — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:41:00 +0000

I just want to know when they are sending a probe to the other side of the sun, to make sure there isn’t a massive planet hidden there waiting to head for us on a collision course, and bum us the fuck out, for like, 3 days.

“It tastes like ashes!”

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:30:00 +0000

That’s what I tell my wife when I’m driving.
“Did I hit it? NO. Then what’s the problem?”

By: Randy Pollok

Randy Pollok — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:29:00 +0000

I answered that I was optimistic and very confident due to the wording of the question and the scenario presented. On a purely technical level, we have gone from having absolutely no defense to having the ability to observe approaching threats, creating bunkers to last humanity beyond disasters, and perhaps the ability to intervene in space. If the odds of any of that doing any good are a trillion to one, it remains infinitely better than the big fat goose egg we had before the present day.

By: Ernest Valdemar

Ernest Valdemar — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:16:00 +0000

What you mean “we,” H. sapiens?

Signed, your friend, H. neanderthalensis†

By: neurolux

neurolux — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:07:00 +0000

What good is having superpowers if everyone gets them?

By: George Herbert

George Herbert — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:53:00 +0000

It’s unlikely that there are any ecosphere-killer sized objects in the solar system that haven’t been spotted already. The caveat there is that hyperbolic comets aren’t precisely in the solar system, and big enough ones to kill the ecosphere show up (surprise!) from time to time. All it takes is one in the wrong orbit…

Once you drop below the energy level that the planet gets nearly sterilized, there are plenty at “dinosaur killer” levels. Which would be hard to save “all of humanity” from – it’s going to do a right number on the whole ecosystem – but it would be relatively easy to ensure that humanity, technology, and records survive afterwards. Decades worth of food and life support are cheap and relatively compact. Going underwater or underground or airborne are all possible. The global seed bank that Norway set up is an example of the type of thinking needed… just put things in very remote, hardened places, and wait. There are already things in places that would survive that would cover some of the necessary equipment and people. More would be deployable in a hurry if need be, once you knew which areas / hemisphere to avoid…

Deflection depends on how much warning and how big. A replica of Tunguska coming in? Relatively easy. A replica of the K-T / Chixhulub impactor? That’s going to be a real toughie…

By: Lithi

Lithi — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:50:00 +0000

Considering the state of the world sometimes, I would actually welcome this, even if I get snuffed out too.

By: Scott Elyard

Scott Elyard — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:39:00 +0000

Both, I think.

By: Richard Scott

Richard Scott — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:37:00 +0000

Me Personally like and love surprises,You know without surpise nothing seems good in my life so surprise is a really great surprise and shake for life
Except for that one kind of killer-asteroid surprise, which involves all the killing.

By: sam1148

sam1148 — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:33:00 +0000

If we had enough lead time. An Orion style impact ship could deflect, or a for a big one a fleet of them that would dock and put their ass end up to deflect with nuclear bombs as the mass driver. Old tech, and easily cobbled together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29
and a good way to use up excess nukes.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:27:00 +0000

Well that certainly was a short survey. I guess the “hidden question” is in the form of a question of epistemology or some nonsense. There wasn’t room for a teeny-tiny invisible button or a secret acrostic or something.

By: Anon Kopimi

Anon Kopimi — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:43:00 +0000

Barely counts. “Could have” doesn’t.

By: ganman

ganman — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:35:00 +0000

“I love surprises, even when they involve killer asteroids.”
Except for that one kind of killer-asteroid surprise, which involves all the killing.