Op wants the d...eGrasse

Don't be silly. The answer is simple: Space lasers! Shoot asteroids and meteors before they reach the atmosphere. Split big ones into smaller pieces so they burn in the atmosphere.

Why wouldn't this work? (well, maybe not just now but if not then in the sort-of-near future) :(

This is actually a way the government is planning to stop colliding asteroids. The lasers burn into the asteroid which causes it to heat and set fire (not actual fire because there is no oxygen, but like the sun's fire), which causes the asteroid to change direction and travel away from the earth. I saw a documentary about it once. It was really boring, but the remote was on the other side of the room and I couldn't be bothered to leave my couch

Pic sort of relevant, the burn on his head was caused by a laser

I just said it in a way that was easy to understand, and i said "not actual fire". There's no need to be a dick about it.

if millions of small sized debris where to enter the atmosphere it would heat the globe immensly, now that is a problem

yes but that is after they hit the ground, i'm talking about when they burn in the atmosphere

Agree. I don't think Dr. Tyson is being entirely fair here. How the hell is foresight supposed to help us at the current level of technology?

PS - I actually met Dr. Tyson several years ago. He was a pretty funny guy, and it's really weird to see how popular he's become in the internet....

because if we foresaw a meteor say 5 years before it hit us, if we ALL worked together thats way more time then we would need to find a solution. but as it is now, we cant work together and we compete like ancient alchemists and its getting us little progress slowly

How does 'working together' help us 'progress' faster? Scientists all over the world already can, and do, collaborate. What more can be done? If you are talking about financial 'working together', then how do we decide what to finance? Also what if this doomsday scenario doesn't arise in the next 5 centuries and we used up resources preparing for it that could have gone to other more pressing issues?

thats the magic of foresight, you wouldnt build against a giant meteor for no reason D:

and before you say it my other comment (#122) dealt with the planning problems.

because although there is some collaboration, we also keep most findings secret from separate governments and global funding? damn man that would make so much work done in so little time, you would get a larger more able workforce :D

"Foresight (psychology), ability to predict or plan for the future"

Yes being able to predict the future would be very magical. Do you know anyone who can do that? :p

predicting or planning, the future is not hard especially not in this case, look through telescope see big rock headed our way... i think its gonna hit us guys

You underestimate the wonders of technology my friend.

Well......most certainly not with that attitude.

If we have the foresight and the time to see a meteor on its way to earth, and theres about 6 months time depending on the side of the meteor, then we can send up a sort of "satellite" to orbit the meteor so that over time its gravitational pull will influence the meteor to go ever so slighty off course from earth. I'm sure there are other ways but this was one that I remembered.

laser ablation.

Why not try to space travel to another planet?

Even if we were successfully able to do that we would only be able to move 1% of the population and that's a generous estimate, because mars, even with some attempt at terraforming the planet wouldn't be able to support that large of a population and leaving the solar system would be such a massive undertaking that there would be no way we could construct a ship with the time and resources we had at hand to take everyone, so most of Earths population would die. In desperation however, leaving could be the only way to make sure the human race survives.

We could easily have a colony on Mars by now if we could club together like $20bn

you play too much skyrim bud

....well that one was new.

I've never played Skyrim.

wat

Naw man, Harrison Ford and Areosmith

We are the product of a lifestyle obsession. We are Jack's smirking revenge.

Atheists have never had the authority to look down on religious people
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtyYlAH0f_M&list=UUUnjDt3PO4OTCwQFW3N4aIQ&index=12
Oh, I remember the days when the atheist club reserved the right of admission, now it is full of rethards, XIX century, when are you coming back?

thanks for making me feel more insignificant

The music in this reminds me of runescape

Minecraft world

Wut?

Now i see my head a wonders illustration where the first thing they ever learned of us was a such practice.

At least it wasn't about furry porn this time, amirite?
funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4423010/WHY+DO+YOU+TAUNT+ME+WITH+YOUR+DARK+MAGIC/231#231

Well, IF we all worked, and "all" I mean all countries, maybe by now we will have spaceships capable of travel from moon to earth more often and maybe a fully funtional station or moon bases. But no, each country decide to make his own space program, scientifics of their home countries decide to help his own country, just to prove what country is better than the others and the rest of world just do nothing about it. I think the only ones in the space things, is US, Russia and China.

the day when we can travel to the stars is the day when we will have a united world, all of us seeking the same goal, meanwhile we are stuck in our home planet

Yes but it's also ironic that our major breakthrough in space travel was because of competition in the cold war. But so far we got Europe, U.S.A, Canada, Japan and Russia working together on the International Space Station. Only major power needed is China

I know because the space station even has renewable food sources and spending time in a low gravity environment has no negative side effects

that's fcking scary D:

10/10 would accept BJ.

Looks like a fucking Collector

He's smart, but I don't think he's half the philosopher that people make him out to be. As has been said, many of his quotes are just him complaining about humanity's flaws. Give the human race a break, we've only been civilized for the equivalent of a second in the grand scheme of the universe and we're in fucking space.

You also forget that these quotes are responses to questions people asked him at conventions and the sort. And he's not trying to say we're bad, he's trying to motivate us to do better.

Fair point. I shall go investigate the context of these hence forth. Until then.

He studied/ went through college

That doesn't make someone smart. The will to learn makes someone smart.

There are many who go to college just because their parents said so.

wasn't that the same time when he told the host that the earth in the background was spinning the wrong way?

I think he's done it on several occasions

But we could at least do better than dinosaurs.

I believe we have.

Our lives are much greater than theirs...relatively speaking of course.

We live in an age where we need not worry about survival, and where we mostly focus on what pleases us (excluding 3rd world/poverty). Our journey was a good one, one that may be out of our hands to end... such as it was for the dinosaurs...

It only takes one catastrophe to change the world.

It's not a question of how we can avoid it.... but when it will come.

The fact that your name is ninjabadger is both amusing and fantastic

You are correct we can't escape our doom. But it never hurts to keep that doom a little further away.

If he'd only added "known" between "history of" and "life" it would be okay.

We can assume that whoever typed this up missed a word, right?

Then yeah, it's a pretty good quote