Phi for All

Here's a nifty little tool, using Space Tracks data from the US military. Have fun! Wow, you're thinking of the Space Shuttle, iirc. That was 30 years ago, wasn't it? I remember a fleck of white paint poked through the outer layer of a window. Very scary. And the stuff they can track now has to be much bigger than that. Although I'm less worried about the pieces we can see, that we can track. It's the little bitty ones you can't see that will cause more problems.

I was going to start this thread, in response to a recent rant about annihilating the whole planet as an end to pain and suffering. Presumably, there's a difference between physical pain, which is actually beneficial in a lot of ways, and suffering, or emotional pain. We have a lot of ways to approach this discussion, physiologically, psychologically, philosophically (is life worth the suffering?). Physiologically (since we're in Anatomy now), it sounds like there are some overlaps with emotional distress. Pain can lead to suffering, or exacerbate it. We know that physical pain does lots of beneficial things (it makes you remove your hand from the really hot thing, it reminds you not to touch a hot thing like that again, and it keeps you from using the burned hand while it heals), but are there any physiological benefits to emotional pain?

What does this mean? Why do you have "no way to actually do this"? How much math and physics have you studied? Is it enough for you to be able to "tinker" with them? What does "theoretical" mean to you? Theories are the strongest statements science makes.

Even a bit of debris or a meteor the size of a hex-nut from a bolt can be devastating to a body in orbit. The impact usually vaporizes the small bits to plasma, which can damage onboard electronics. I attended a seminar a couple of weeks ago on Space & Disaster Risk Management. All satellites have a bit of maneuverability, and the various space agencies track meteor showers and compensate as much as they can. Still, while space around the planet is really huge, it's almost inevitable there are going to be collisions and impacts. The ISS got hit a few years back, a small bit of something put a chip in the outer of four panes of fused glass on the cupola. This was from a MMOD (Micro-Meteoroid and Orbital Debris) which was too small to track, but did visible damage nonetheless.

Simple. But not easy. Classic example. OK, now that we know what you want to do, we can start paring away at the task. Single-celled organisms, do you really think they feel pain? Or are you just wiping them out too because they might evolve into something that feels pain? In five billion years, before the sun goes red giant, that could certainly happen. Let's look at this from another angle. Removing the Earth as a habitable place is probably beyond your means. You'd have to recruit an army of minions who also hated life because of the pain, and would agree it's OK for you to make that decision for everyone and everything. Sooooo, if you could talk people into that, why don't you just convince all the people that life is too painful and we should all work together to destroy the whole planet? The toughest part would be historical precedence. What you describe is pretty much the definition of Evil, and I think people will be suspicious and defensive when you first start talking to them. DO NOT GET A CAT. Don't give up, and if you find a few people who think the pain is worth it, well, nihilism isn't for the faint of heart. I will say this, if you can't destroy the whole thing, don't destroy any of it. You'd just be creating more pain. Edit to add: Hey, if you're serious about this, have you researched pain at all? Do you know why we feel pain, why it helps, why it's absolutely necessary to human life, or have you just decided pain is only painful and unnecessary?

I thought you said you were serious about this?! Every answer you've had so far tells you the answer to these two questions. You're wasting time we could be spending at the beach, before the world ends. The only place we know for sure that life exists, and you don't want it around anymore, not even a speck of it. OK. You'd have to go with one of the more complete scenarios, something that prevents the planet from forming again. Something massive you could do in your lifetime. Do you have a limit on resources, or can we assume you've taken over the world and have access to everything? If you're trying to be remembered as the guy who destroyed the Earth and all its life, you may want to rethink this scenario. Leave some to tell the tale.

You've had several. Perhaps you could contribute a bit more, and clarify what you're really looking for. From the couple of bits you've posted, you sound like someone who's angrily walked into a pawn shop, red in the face, asking to buy a gun, and are demanding to be taken seriously. We know you have an extremely low probability of destroying the Earth, but I'd sure like to know I'm not helping to destroy even a little part. How about some serious clarification?

Your equipment limits your ability to provide links to evidence? That rather makes you inconsistent with our purposes. Considering your current reputation, I think this inconsistency is detrimental to any discussion in which you're involved.

Insult Vogon poetry.

In that case, I would prefer that Mr Rayon keep his underpants on.

I think he was just saying it wouldn't be a correction. It would be a comment on your statement.

! Moderator Note This thread looks like it's dying for lack of clarity. I suggest the OP get this under control, and provide at least some answers to previous questions. Without it, you'll get more and more frustrated replies. Let's stay civil, and if the clarity doesn't improve, we'll have to close this.

What is conservative about championing equal rights? I guess it could be argued that inalienable rights just make a basic, foundational sense for a government, and should be championed on principle. But most of my championing these days is in direct opposition to the behaviors conservative males have inflicted upon the population. And why aren't Republicans and conservatives still supporting this mighty conservative policy? If they've dropped it, it must not have been very successful for them. I would like to hear why you think there are any successful policies that have come out of modern political conservatism. Beyond things like "Taxes are bad except when you need to pay for things", is there really any substance to requiring that everybody has to do the conservative bootstrap-pull in order to be worthy in your eyes? Most conservatives I know are just afraid people on welfare are out jet-skiing all day (which has been proven false) while they work hard, and they're convinced others are getting something for free that they aren't entitled to because they're the good guys doing it right. Corporations love using that fear to change regs and social programs for their benefit. So what happened? Did the people who's rights you used to champion change? Did they fail to pass the humanity test, or at least the conservative version of it?

A rock and a dead human body both exist. I think life needs to be in there somewhere. Life is the ticket to get into the show.

! Moderator Note I realize English is not your native language, but none of the above makes sense. You are using words like "body" and "death body" in unfamiliar ways. You mention things being "one" and "two", which is also unfamiliar. You mention "truth" like an absolute, while it's actually very subjective. This can't stay in the mainstream sections like Medical Science. It sounds like you're saying theories like evolution and the Big Bang are wrong, so you should start over, please use better definitions, and put your thread in Speculations if it's not mainstream science. I've got to close this one, sorry.

We know this product doesn't exist in functioning form, so it couldn't have EVER worked properly, so you must be trolling. I was willing to believe there was a language barrier, but I can't see how there is any confusion about your above statement. Please don't open any more threads about this.

IIRC, when the sun goes red giant, its equator will be well past Mars. But it's not going to do that suddenly, and part of that process will cause the sun to lose a lot of mass, so it's likely the inner planets (OK, probably not Mercury) will spiral outwards and may survive being totally ashed. Still, we'd be too close to keep our oceans. Without them it's highly unlikely we could sustain life as we know it. On the other hand, when this happens, for the brief hundred million or so years the red giant is burning helium, the Goldilocks zone for the whole solar system will be extended, warming up some of the icy planets and moons, providing water and possible new homes for life. Whoa, let's step back a moment and put our rational scientist lab coats on. There is absolutely no testable, repeatable evidence that Earth/nature has a consciousness of its own, outside the individual species that make it up. It's a very common thing to tell ourselves, we as humans love to anthropomorphize just about everything, imagining other parts of nature having the same kind of intelligence we do. But there's no evidence for it at all, nothing science can observe. Earth is a big biological system with an unbelievable amount of diversity, all developed by evolutionary processes that slowly change every species on it. It's amazing, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of overriding consciousness guiding everything. Trillions of little bits of life taking advantage of the way this world works, and the humans trying to figure it all out. Btw, "all animals came from plants" is incorrect. The protozoan lineage (leading to fungi and animals) and the algae lineage (leading to plants) both had a common ancestor.

Usually I hear "Darwinism" used by deniers, in an attempt to deride the theory by pointing out shortcomings in its earliest observations. Evolutionism was a new one for me. It sounds like it was coined by someone who thinks science is just another religion, which is a popular recent stance.

Has it ever worked correctly before?

No cause for alarm, or no cause to upset the profit infrastructure prematurely? That's where their fear lies, so they spend a lot of that money getting people with opinions just like yours to post on discussion forums, to sew fear and doubt about new technologies and costs and taxes and unemployment and immigration and abortion and robots and terrorism and regulations and Communism and welfare and Socialism. And the anti-AGW folks aren't just saying there's nothing to worry about. They're misrepresenting the solutions, making people afraid of doing something now about a problem pretty much the whole planet agrees is getting worse. Unfortunately, they found the corporate conservatives had beaten them to it. It's my understanding that the anti-AGW lobby has a firm contract with the fundies and a non-compete clause. That's OK, fear is your weapon, not mine. You stick with the heart on this one, and I'll use my mind.

When "-ism" is used after a word (from ancient Greek -ismós), it means "the practice of" or "the belief in". Since evolution is a fact of life, there's no need to "believe" in it, like it was a religion or a practice with followers. In scientific discussions, it's not referred to as evolutionism, it's called the Theory of Evolution. That's where it's constantly changing and being updated as new information is discovered. Evolution happens, it's a fact, and the Theory of Evolution describes its mechanisms and processes.

Person 1: "I know you, I recognize your face but can't remember your name." Person 2: "It's Jane." Person 1: "No, that's not it." In a search for Truth, you overlook a lot of facts.

Cool, creepy, and erotic in equal measures.

! Moderator Note Perhaps we need to re-word that rule, but it's intended to stop opening posts from taking us offsite to look at concepts for discussion, or videos which are difficult to skim for relevance. We encourage links to supportive evidence when assertions are made during the discussions, and appreciate it when the links show some rigor, especially when also linked to peer-reviewed studies.

You were using this hoverboard for 3 months, McFlying around until the magnet broke, and haven't been able to hover for the last 6 months, is that right? Is this what you're saying?