5 ms·

I'd be interested to know how people (humanity) would feel if it were known that the universe would just come to a hard-stop in a million years. In practice, i

by SamBam 5y ago

I'd be interested to know how people (humanity) would feel if it were known that the universe would just come to a hard-stop in a million years. In practice, it should make no difference. That's already much, much further than any of us can comprehend. It's a hundred times the length of recorded human history. What would it really matter? On the other hand, it would seem so short, I think a sense of nihilism would already take hold.

ant6n 5y ago
So uh another million year wait for Jesus?
- dekken_ 5y ago
  or maybe you're Jesus?
jrochkind1 5y ago
We already have so much nihilism, it's hard to imagine it being possible to turn the dial up further.
- CDRdude 5y ago
  I don’t see this. Many people in my country are religious, and believe that God (the Christian one) has a plan for them—-the exact opposite of nihilism.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    This does often manifest in what is essentially nihilism, though — e.g. “I’m not taking the vaccine; if God’s will is that I die from COVID then so be it.”
    - CDRdude 5y ago
      That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered that.
      - antifa 5y ago
        Also, the rest of us have to actually live in the world the planless plan-believers have created for us.
  - firebaze 5y ago
    Isn't this the core of nihilism, just framed differently?
awb 5y ago
Tech moves so fast, I can’t think of a termination event that couldn’t be solved with 1M years of exponential growth. Even with the Big Freeze or Big Crunch of the universe, there’s at least some hope that some currently unknown science, energy source, etc. might be accessible to us in 1M years that could delay or reduce the severity of the event. But, let’s say there’s a an event that will somehow destroy our entire solar system in 500 years, that would certainly divide people into two camps: one hell bent on escaping the solar system at all costs and another determined to enjoy every last moment before extinction.
- stormdennis 5y ago
  500 years is too long, 100 more like. Live but don't have kids
- lordnacho 5y ago
  On the other hand, 1M years is so far away, everything can be put off to be dealt with later. There's at least one or two issues that we maybe should think about addressing before it's too late.
- bl0rg 5y ago
  Tech moves so fast now. While I don't believe we'll be leveling off anytime soon, it's worth considering the possibility of it.
  - city41 5y ago
    There's also the pessimistic view that we will actually lose progress and regress over time. Jonathan Blow has an interesting talk on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      In the micro sense we see this all day every day. Restaurants start good but aim for max profit and become garbage. Apps/websites start great then keep adding cruft while removing features. Capitalism. Housing. All we do is advance to regress and repeat ourselves over and over.
Out_of_Characte 5y ago
Its more like the entirety of humanity is frozen in time. 13.7 billion years ago the universe began, life was 3.8 billion years ago, the first telescope was 405 years ago. The only way to see how stars and planets develop is by taking thousands of celestial bodies and figure out the rules of the universe.
eloff 5y ago
If civilization lasts a million years it would be an accomplishment. I think the likely answer to the Fermi paradox is that civilization is but a short lived spark on evolutionary timescales and self destructs.
slickrick216 5y ago
I like to think it’d be something like the planet Kricket https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Krikkit https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Krikkit
EMM_386 5y ago
> I'd be interested to know how people (humanity) would feel if it were known that the universe would just come to a hard-stop in a million years. I see what you mean by setting a hard stop, it does mean little in the end. The Wikipedia timeline, which makes a lot of assumptions, show galaxy formation stopping at 100 trillion years from now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future We're human beings who only came on the scene around 200,000 years ago. It's impressive that we can work out the math and physics to try to comprehend 100 trillion years, but it is impossible to even imagine where conscious life would be at that point, if it exists at all.
divbzero 5y ago
I wonder if a hard-stop could actually focus our attention on a concrete goalpost: instead of having an indefinite future, we would have a fixed timespan before us that’s much longer than our current planning horizon.
audit 5y ago
I am studying Torah these days (just reading BeReishit slowly, and picking Rabbi and Sages interpretations on things that are totaly unclear). One Rabbi's explanation using a very nuanced analysis of verbs in the chapter about creation [1]. Is that the two things that will remain forever are: light and a human. Not Earth, not animals, or anything else that was mentioned.. but just those 2 things: Light and Human. What form this will be in, how -- we do not know. In early sections, until Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden -- they did not have skin, so it is understood that they were souls. May be that's the form that humans will be in ... , do not know. --- The analysis he was using was around how a verb (in ancient Hebrew, not in translations) was used to indicate an 'Intent' and then how another verb used used to declare 'completion' of a task. The 'completion' in that section was described for different things differently: ' it was so', 'it was good' , or no completion was explicity stated. There was also difference in 'initiation' verbs for example: 'Let there be', 'let us .. ' I do not remember all the combinations. But the Rabbi said that only two things had the 'initiation' and the 'completion' patterns that indicated that those things would last forever. It was light and a human. Sorry could not offer bette recollection here. [1] https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/jewish/Chapter-1.htm https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/jewish/Cha...

by SamBam 5y ago

ant6n 5y ago

So uh another million year wait for Jesus?

dekken_ 5y ago
or maybe you're Jesus?

jrochkind1 5y ago

We already have so much nihilism, it's hard to imagine it being possible to turn the dial up further.

CDRdude 5y ago
I don’t see this. Many people in my country are religious, and believe that God (the Christian one) has a plan for them—-the exact opposite of nihilism.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  This does often manifest in what is essentially nihilism, though — e.g. “I’m not taking the vaccine; if God’s will is that I die from COVID then so be it.”
  - CDRdude 5y ago
    That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered that.
    - antifa 5y ago
      Also, the rest of us have to actually live in the world the planless plan-believers have created for us.
- firebaze 5y ago
  Isn't this the core of nihilism, just framed differently?

awb 5y ago

Tech moves so fast, I can’t think of a termination event that couldn’t be solved with 1M years of exponential growth. Even with the Big Freeze or Big Crunch of the universe, there’s at least some hope that some currently unknown science, energy source, etc. might be accessible to us in 1M years that could delay or reduce the severity of the event. But, let’s say there’s a an event that will somehow destroy our entire solar system in 500 years, that would certainly divide people into two camps: one hell bent on escaping the solar system at all costs and another determined to enjoy every last moment before extinction.

stormdennis 5y ago
500 years is too long, 100 more like. Live but don't have kids
lordnacho 5y ago
On the other hand, 1M years is so far away, everything can be put off to be dealt with later. There's at least one or two issues that we maybe should think about addressing before it's too late.
bl0rg 5y ago
Tech moves so fast now. While I don't believe we'll be leveling off anytime soon, it's worth considering the possibility of it.
- city41 5y ago
  There's also the pessimistic view that we will actually lose progress and regress over time. Jonathan Blow has an interesting talk on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
  - effingwewt 5y ago
    In the micro sense we see this all day every day. Restaurants start good but aim for max profit and become garbage. Apps/websites start great then keep adding cruft while removing features. Capitalism. Housing. All we do is advance to regress and repeat ourselves over and over.

Out_of_Characte 5y ago

Its more like the entirety of humanity is frozen in time. 13.7 billion years ago the universe began, life was 3.8 billion years ago, the first telescope was 405 years ago. The only way to see how stars and planets develop is by taking thousands of celestial bodies and figure out the rules of the universe.

eloff 5y ago

If civilization lasts a million years it would be an accomplishment. I think the likely answer to the Fermi paradox is that civilization is but a short lived spark on evolutionary timescales and self destructs.

slickrick216 5y ago

I like to think it’d be something like the planet Kricket https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Krikkit https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Krikkit

EMM_386 5y ago

> I'd be interested to know how people (humanity) would feel if it were known that the universe would just come to a hard-stop in a million years. I see what you mean by setting a hard stop, it does mean little in the end. The Wikipedia timeline, which makes a lot of assumptions, show galaxy formation stopping at 100 trillion years from now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future We're human beings who only came on the scene around 200,000 years ago. It's impressive that we can work out the math and physics to try to comprehend 100 trillion years, but it is impossible to even imagine where conscious life would be at that point, if it exists at all.

divbzero 5y ago

I wonder if a hard-stop could actually focus our attention on a concrete goalpost: instead of having an indefinite future, we would have a fixed timespan before us that’s much longer than our current planning horizon.

audit 5y ago

I am studying Torah these days (just reading BeReishit slowly, and picking Rabbi and Sages interpretations on things that are totaly unclear). One Rabbi's explanation using a very nuanced analysis of verbs in the chapter about creation [1]. Is that the two things that will remain forever are: light and a human. Not Earth, not animals, or anything else that was mentioned.. but just those 2 things: Light and Human. What form this will be in, how -- we do not know. In early sections, until Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden -- they did not have skin, so it is understood that they were souls. May be that's the form that humans will be in ... , do not know. --- The analysis he was using was around how a verb (in ancient Hebrew, not in translations) was used to indicate an 'Intent' and then how another verb used used to declare 'completion' of a task. The 'completion' in that section was described for different things differently: ' it was so', 'it was good' , or no completion was explicity stated. There was also difference in 'initiation' verbs for example: 'Let there be', 'let us .. ' I do not remember all the combinations. But the Rabbi said that only two things had the 'initiation' and the 'completion' patterns that indicated that those things would last forever. It was light and a human. Sorry could not offer bette recollection here. [1] https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/jewish/Chapter-1.htm https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/jewish/Cha...