10 ms·

As a non-astronomer, I hadn't thought of that but now that I read the abstract, it makes complete sense (assuming evidence supports the thesis) - Might be rela

As a non-astronomer, I hadn't thought of that but now that I read the abstract, it makes complete sense (assuming evidence supports the thesis) - Might be related to why moon's surface is so scarred and yet in many centuries of recorded (astronomical) history (since the invention of telescope) we haven't seen any major lunar impact events. - Also I was reading the other day how our solar system is going through a local "bubble" (region of unusually low interstellar density) but is heading towards a certain G-Cloud. Mind blowing stuff. I guess once we have fixed the planetary mess (climate change) and biological-aging, we'd have a serious type-I [2] problem to worry about (and we can't even handle/track the inner solar system objects yet, NEO, asteroids, etc). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System#Galactic_context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System#Galactic_context [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

bamboozled 9y ago
What needs to be fixed about biological aging exactly?
- fizixer 9y ago
  Ehh ... it needs to be eliminated? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension
  - mirimir 9y ago
    The Great Common Task :) > Fedorov stated that the struggle against death can become the most natural cause uniting all people of Earth, regardless of their nationality, race, citizenship or wealth (he called this the Common Cause). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov
  - bamboozled 9y ago
    Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? It would make the population boom of the last century and associated wide-spread destruction of the natural environment look like a picnic. I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals.
    - fizixer 9y ago
      > Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? I would say we're going to need all the human ingenuity and hard work to tackle the issues we're facing. Yes, these are very difficult problems, but the reward would be well worth the effort! > I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals. I'm all for that technology to be developed in parallel.
      - bamboozled 9y ago
        Ingenuity is one part of it, large scale behavioural and societal changes are what's really in-order though, the less individualistic view. Rich countries sharing the wealth with the poor, investing your money in banks which don't fund exploitative and harmful projects, changing how you travel etc. This is the work that also has to be done by each of us. We always seem to lean on developing new technology to solve our problems and technological development is wonderfully successful, it's a good thing, a fine thing, but we don't use it very well. For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It's all common sense though really.
        fizixer 9y ago
        It's funny I seem to have expressed my thoughts on this very recently [1]. Also a FAQ that you might be interested in [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 [2] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
        Arizhel 9y ago
        >For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It can't be done really. We've been trying to for decades, but famine isn't caused by a lack of resources, it's caused by political problems. Western nations have been sending food and supplies to impoverished African countries for ages, and it just gets stolen by their leaders and doesn't make it to the people who need it. The only way to fix this is to militarily invade and occupy these countries so we can run them properly, but we can't do that because it's imperialistic. The fundamental problem as I see it is that there's a huge amount of undiagnosed sociopathy in human societies, and most of them are run by people with at least some degree of sociopathy, because they're uniquely skilled at working their way into those positions. The only way I see to fix this is to genetically engineer humans to remove this problem and make them more empathetic. This fix would then have to be forced on everyone somehow, perhaps with a virus.
  - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. Imagine a world with essentially no children. No generation of young adults growing up and spurring change in the world. I think it would not just take away a crucial part of the human experience, but our entire economic system would collapse. There's just too much of it tied into the constant churn of people. (Of course, you might imagine indefinite life extension springing into existence only after we've started rapid colonisation of space; a pipe dream if I ever saw one. Even then, Earth would still be holden to what I describe.) In two-three generations, most everyone alive in the countries where life extension was widely adopted would be old farts that didn't want to take up much further debt, with few new ideas and not much drive left in them. "Science advances one funeral at a time", as do many other fields key to human progress. Meanwhile, the countries too poor to see mass adoption of life extension would out-grow and out-innovate our collective asses faster than you can say "collapse of Western civilisation". So you'd live forever, but in increasing poverty (due the countries that produce most of the things you buy having much higher growth than yours) in a stagnant, crumbling society. If we were to invent indefinite life extension that was affordable beyond the 0.1%, I think it would be the ultimate tragedy of the commons.
    - bamboozled 9y ago
      I know what you're saying, natural death from aging could be seen as a solution just as easily as it can be viewed as a problem. If anything we should get better at it, for example, educate people more about aging and talk more about death and the benefits of caring for yourself in your youth so to age well, it doesn't really have to be sad.
    - fizixer 9y ago
      > I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. I'd say admitting an inability to understand something is a good first step towards making progress. Don't lose hope. Here's something to read in the meantime [1] [1] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
      - 9y ago
  - legulere 9y ago
    It is kind of silly to talk about life extension, when we have cardiovascular diseases as the number 1 death cause which are around 90% preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease
    - fizixer 9y ago
      You got it upside down. It's silly to "talk" (talk as in communication in the medical research community) about deaths due to preventable diseases, which should be left to social scientists, politicians, celebrities, advocacy groups etc. If science and medicine has given you a solution and you don't apply it in your life, it's your problem not of the scientific community.
- terryf 9y ago
  The fact that I'm going to die. It's really annoying. Also, ageing effects on the body, like brain plasticity reduction and various other bits that really suck when you get up in the morning and remember how easy it was 20 years ago. Life is so totally freaking awesome, I want more of it.
  - milquetoastaf 9y ago
    >Life is so totally freaking awesome, I want more of it. Life is amazing because it's finite. The sense of urgency, the foreknowledge of limited time, trying to get the most out of each moment but at the same time striving to enjoy the simple things, these are all incredible motivators. Take away death and what do you get?
    - ajuc 9y ago
      > Life is amazing because it's finite. How do you know that? Some pretty miserable people had finite lives too. > Take away death and what do you get? I don't think they'll forbid people to die. It will simply become optional. As for more practical objections to your opinion - when you're young you live like you're going to live forever. I don't think kids and young people live less happily than old people.
      - milquetoastaf 9y ago
        >I don't think they'll forbid people to die. It will simply become optional. You can't even euthanize yourself in most states. If you want to die, people consider you 'insane' and you get locked up at the govt's (and your) expense. Life extension / artificial age reduction will purely be a benefit for the rich - the poor will just get injections so they live longer and work harder for their ageless overlords. It's not gonna be good.
        hfsktr 9y ago
        You sort of described the plot of the movie In Time. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/ Just because you can't age doesn't mean you can't die. I think if people started living forever there would be a lot of rebellion from the people who are not given that access. Assuming at that point they can't just use brute force to protect themselves from the masses.
- panzer_wyrm 9y ago
  Ask me in two thousand years
widforss 9y ago
> Might be related to why moon's surface is so scarred and yet in many centuries of recorded (astronomical) history (since the invention of telescope) we haven't seen any major lunar impact events. Except for that 1178 event then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno_(crater) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno_(crater)
- throwanem 9y ago
  ...half a millennium or so before the telescope was invented?
  - kyberias 9y ago
    We can assume events of this magnitude can be seen with naked eye. It the the Moon after all. Apparently this is based on recorded eye witness testimony.
  - badosu 9y ago
    I can't comment on this specific event, but there are many accounts of astronomical events visible to the naked eye that were proven to be a useful resource for contemporary astronomy [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054#Chinese_astronomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054#Chinese_astronomy
- JetSetWilly 9y ago
  If you read the section you linked it has some very serious - I would say fatal - objections listed to the theory that the impact occurred in 1178.
Tepix 9y ago
Are you familiar with the theory of the Late Heavy Bombardment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment
- koheripbal 9y ago
  The predominant theory, though, is that the bombardment was caused by changes within our own solar system, not from outside - per your link
koheripbal 9y ago
I find it interesting that the public has a good understanding of our solar system, and recognizes images of our galaxy as a whole, but if you ask them anything about the layout of what's in between, they have no clue.

bamboozled 9y ago

What needs to be fixed about biological aging exactly?

fizixer 9y ago
Ehh ... it needs to be eliminated? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension
- mirimir 9y ago
  The Great Common Task :) > Fedorov stated that the struggle against death can become the most natural cause uniting all people of Earth, regardless of their nationality, race, citizenship or wealth (he called this the Common Cause). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov
- bamboozled 9y ago
  Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? It would make the population boom of the last century and associated wide-spread destruction of the natural environment look like a picnic. I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals.
  - fizixer 9y ago
    > Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? I would say we're going to need all the human ingenuity and hard work to tackle the issues we're facing. Yes, these are very difficult problems, but the reward would be well worth the effort! > I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals. I'm all for that technology to be developed in parallel.
    - bamboozled 9y ago
      Ingenuity is one part of it, large scale behavioural and societal changes are what's really in-order though, the less individualistic view. Rich countries sharing the wealth with the poor, investing your money in banks which don't fund exploitative and harmful projects, changing how you travel etc. This is the work that also has to be done by each of us. We always seem to lean on developing new technology to solve our problems and technological development is wonderfully successful, it's a good thing, a fine thing, but we don't use it very well. For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It's all common sense though really.
      - fizixer 9y ago
        It's funny I seem to have expressed my thoughts on this very recently [1]. Also a FAQ that you might be interested in [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 [2] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
      - Arizhel 9y ago
        >For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It can't be done really. We've been trying to for decades, but famine isn't caused by a lack of resources, it's caused by political problems. Western nations have been sending food and supplies to impoverished African countries for ages, and it just gets stolen by their leaders and doesn't make it to the people who need it. The only way to fix this is to militarily invade and occupy these countries so we can run them properly, but we can't do that because it's imperialistic. The fundamental problem as I see it is that there's a huge amount of undiagnosed sociopathy in human societies, and most of them are run by people with at least some degree of sociopathy, because they're uniquely skilled at working their way into those positions. The only way I see to fix this is to genetically engineer humans to remove this problem and make them more empathetic. This fix would then have to be forced on everyone somehow, perhaps with a virus.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. Imagine a world with essentially no children. No generation of young adults growing up and spurring change in the world. I think it would not just take away a crucial part of the human experience, but our entire economic system would collapse. There's just too much of it tied into the constant churn of people. (Of course, you might imagine indefinite life extension springing into existence only after we've started rapid colonisation of space; a pipe dream if I ever saw one. Even then, Earth would still be holden to what I describe.) In two-three generations, most everyone alive in the countries where life extension was widely adopted would be old farts that didn't want to take up much further debt, with few new ideas and not much drive left in them. "Science advances one funeral at a time", as do many other fields key to human progress. Meanwhile, the countries too poor to see mass adoption of life extension would out-grow and out-innovate our collective asses faster than you can say "collapse of Western civilisation". So you'd live forever, but in increasing poverty (due the countries that produce most of the things you buy having much higher growth than yours) in a stagnant, crumbling society. If we were to invent indefinite life extension that was affordable beyond the 0.1%, I think it would be the ultimate tragedy of the commons.
  - bamboozled 9y ago
    I know what you're saying, natural death from aging could be seen as a solution just as easily as it can be viewed as a problem. If anything we should get better at it, for example, educate people more about aging and talk more about death and the benefits of caring for yourself in your youth so to age well, it doesn't really have to be sad.
  - fizixer 9y ago
    > I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. I'd say admitting an inability to understand something is a good first step towards making progress. Don't lose hope. Here's something to read in the meantime [1] [1] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
    - 9y ago
- legulere 9y ago
  It is kind of silly to talk about life extension, when we have cardiovascular diseases as the number 1 death cause which are around 90% preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease
  - fizixer 9y ago
    You got it upside down. It's silly to "talk" (talk as in communication in the medical research community) about deaths due to preventable diseases, which should be left to social scientists, politicians, celebrities, advocacy groups etc. If science and medicine has given you a solution and you don't apply it in your life, it's your problem not of the scientific community.
terryf 9y ago
The fact that I'm going to die. It's really annoying. Also, ageing effects on the body, like brain plasticity reduction and various other bits that really suck when you get up in the morning and remember how easy it was 20 years ago. Life is so totally freaking awesome, I want more of it.
- milquetoastaf 9y ago
  >Life is so totally freaking awesome, I want more of it. Life is amazing because it's finite. The sense of urgency, the foreknowledge of limited time, trying to get the most out of each moment but at the same time striving to enjoy the simple things, these are all incredible motivators. Take away death and what do you get?
  - ajuc 9y ago
    > Life is amazing because it's finite. How do you know that? Some pretty miserable people had finite lives too. > Take away death and what do you get? I don't think they'll forbid people to die. It will simply become optional. As for more practical objections to your opinion - when you're young you live like you're going to live forever. I don't think kids and young people live less happily than old people.
    - milquetoastaf 9y ago
      >I don't think they'll forbid people to die. It will simply become optional. You can't even euthanize yourself in most states. If you want to die, people consider you 'insane' and you get locked up at the govt's (and your) expense. Life extension / artificial age reduction will purely be a benefit for the rich - the poor will just get injections so they live longer and work harder for their ageless overlords. It's not gonna be good.
      - hfsktr 9y ago
        You sort of described the plot of the movie In Time. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/ Just because you can't age doesn't mean you can't die. I think if people started living forever there would be a lot of rebellion from the people who are not given that access. Assuming at that point they can't just use brute force to protect themselves from the masses.
panzer_wyrm 9y ago
Ask me in two thousand years

widforss 9y ago

> Might be related to why moon's surface is so scarred and yet in many centuries of recorded (astronomical) history (since the invention of telescope) we haven't seen any major lunar impact events. Except for that 1178 event then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno_(crater) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno_(crater)

throwanem 9y ago
...half a millennium or so before the telescope was invented?
- kyberias 9y ago
  We can assume events of this magnitude can be seen with naked eye. It the the Moon after all. Apparently this is based on recorded eye witness testimony.
- badosu 9y ago
  I can't comment on this specific event, but there are many accounts of astronomical events visible to the naked eye that were proven to be a useful resource for contemporary astronomy [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054#Chinese_astronomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054#Chinese_astronomy
JetSetWilly 9y ago
If you read the section you linked it has some very serious - I would say fatal - objections listed to the theory that the impact occurred in 1178.

Tepix 9y ago

Are you familiar with the theory of the Late Heavy Bombardment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment

koheripbal 9y ago
The predominant theory, though, is that the bombardment was caused by changes within our own solar system, not from outside - per your link

koheripbal 9y ago

I find it interesting that the public has a good understanding of our solar system, and recognizes images of our galaxy as a whole, but if you ask them anything about the layout of what's in between, they have no clue.