Moontanman

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "Resource Animal" No resources will ever be transferred to the Earth From Mars, no significant number of people will ever be taken there. Please elaborate.

I am not sure I can agree with this, while I think Terra forming is probably not going to happen for many reasons the continued exploration and eventual exploitation of the solar system beyond the earth is going to pay off for everyone in the long term. New technologies, raw materials maybe manufactured goods as well. If we can build colony type artificial habitats orbiting the sun and utilizing the solar system as raw materials I can see reason to continue space travel, bringing things to the earth is much easier than taking them away. If we just gave up warfare we could do both at the same time...

I agree the big object would be dooms day but would the lions share of the debris orbit the moon or the earth? Could a moon form around our Moon? I think the 16 kilomter object would slowly degrade the environment over time as the debris made it's way slowly to the earth, if most of the debris stayed with the moon it might just be a few decades of super meteor showers and less solar radiation but if most of it came our way then a constant rain of rocks from the sky as objects too small to make it to the earth exploded and the resulting debris was slowed down the the atmosphere and fist sized rocks rained down on average of several per square mile per day, possibly over decades? I'm not sure there'd be enough mass ejected for that level of bombardment.

I was going to suggest a few more accurate parameters but the site I use http://www.johnbray.org.uk/planetdesigner/ is down. i was hoping for some ball park guesses, my vague guess is the lions share of material would be transferred to Earth orbit and eventually the surface of the Earth, over time scales we would notice... probably in both scenarios

I was thinking about what would it be like to see and what would happen if a really large body, like an mostly iron core asteroid hit the moon. First if the asteroid was in the few tens of miles range would it just be a fireworks show with nothing to worry about or would it be an earth shattering event? Would the debris impact the earth I guess is the question. Feel free to give your ideas but I also wonder if the debris cloud would orbit the moon like a ring or would it go immediately into orbit of the earth or impact the earth? Also if a really large object hit the moon, 750 miles in diameter, mostly iron, like a tiny mercury but with a thin rock / "ice" crust several miles thick (seems reasonable to assume), and it hit the moon could the debris form a new moon that orbits the old moon? (Similar to the process that is thought to have formed earths moon.) or would the debris form in orbit around the earth as a new moon? I would have to assume in the case of the larger moon impact the Earth would be messed up pretty bad no matter what? Just an idle question.... or two

Judging the evidence via empirical reality and being able to show others how to obtain the empirically real evidence would be the standard.

Another part of it is that so many people are blissfully unaware of just how much they are manipulated, From pop culture and entertainers to religion and politicians. So few people are aware of the huge amount of power the ones who have the data have.

Minks and weasels often do the killing for no reason other than it's fun or something like that. I used to trap minks for their fur, mean little bastards, it wasn't unusual to find dead muskrats and or their young after a mink had found them, just dead no attempt to eat the prey items at all. Then you have Wolverines.. super weasels, they run grizzly bears off their kills and then just piss all over it so no animals will eat it... their piss is a lot like skunk spray... mean bastards...

That we are being manipulated by people in power who have access to a outrageously large data base and the means to use that to manipulate people on large scale is the fly in the ointment. While war is less labor intensive than it used to be that fact is used by those in power to justify war. It's difficult to decide what to do when attacked, especially when so many in power make so much money off the aggressive pursuit of anyone who resists our culture. Can we continue to progress with such manipulation going on from the top? I think so, but it will be a struggle and so many people seem to want to be told what to do from day to day it's very scary.

I think our society is evolving toward a more "humane" goal due to pressures that select for individuals who do cooperate, who are social and can live in larger groups with less violence. At one time i think that selective pressures were less supportive of a large community and favored small family groups. But as humans grew into large populations the selective pressure for violence, stealing from individuals and from other groups resulted in large disruptions to society as these more selfish societies clashed. If you look back you can see how societies have changed from revolving around one or a few individuals who who just happened to be aggressive enough to make everyone do as they said. For a while these types of societies flourished but they were still violent to individuals, surrounding societies, and differing social systems, the idea of live and let live wasn't really a part of what was going on around us. It's been a long hard struggle but today societies do tend to favor the rights of individuals instead of the rights of a sovereign or some other selfish type organization. Free societies that respect the rights of individuals do seem to be gaining ground despite the efforts of those who think that all power should be concentrated in a handful people or a King or a god...

How so? in a few hundred million years the sun will consume the earth and all life on it, how is the presence of humans in the hear and now good or bad? We may be the harbingers of a new a expansion of the hominid line, multiple species that come about after the fall of civilization... or spread to the Stars.... There are no species that do not kill each other, human society is relatively non violent compared to Lions and a great many other animals. Equating Human morals and the morals of other species is problematic.

If we ever do "terraform" a planet it will most likely be far after we have colonized space. After we perfect space habitats, cylinder, torus, or however we do it, our future lies in the direction of space but at some point some agency or group might as a nostalgic after thought try to transplant life on Mars. I think in the end we will domesticate all of life and like we carried our cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, and goats we will take life with us into space, possibly space habitats that contain huge areas of tame wilderness...

How about it's just bronze age mythology?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_and_the_Dragon Sealed Room Mystery...

I like this version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jadvt7CbH1o Sweet dreams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJE_Sc1Wags

Cats routinely play with their prey, allowing it to escape and then pulling it back or injuring it just enough so it can't quite get away while the cat slowly kills it... not nice...

you have obviously never owned a cat....

Busted...

In keeping with the spirit of this thread i have faith that i am correct...

I would say more likely bacteria dominate most planets. Could you support this please? Why? Some evidence of this? Actually mammals did compete with dinosaurs and they dominated small body plans between arthropods and dinosaurs.

Coca?