Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/23/the-events-that-could-kill-us.html
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That never works in the movies.
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One of which is guaranteed to kill us in our lifetimes, but ZOMG! Asteroids!
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Is a Right Wing Nazi President, not the USA’s, Brazil’s Bolsonaro burning the rainforest to the ground in there? Cause it should be…
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You need Bruce Willis to do it. Then it will work. Accompanied by some bad Aerosmith music.
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As for cooling super-volcanoes, I think it would be more feasible to extensively tap them for geothermal heat until the solid rock layer above them thickens enough to be considered safe or safer.
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I get the feeling that the end of life as we know it is going to be slow, gradual and not at all exciting, just miserable.
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not with a bang but a whimper.
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It is a mathematical inevitability that we will suffer another asteroid strike. But the thing is, it’ll probably come from the direction of the sun and we’ll never see it coming. That’s why it’s scary for me. We keep seeing these asteroids and meteors whizz past us and the first we know about it is like a week or two before it happens. Sometimes we only notice a day or two beforehand.
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yearning 
Actually I thought this topic was about driving a car any day of the week…
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Do I have to read the book now?
Is it OK to wait for the movie?
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reminds me of this 24yo(!) piece from the good ol’ wired days: https://www.wired.com/1995/01/shitlist/
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The question is: How long would you like to know about an inescapable doom? Some days? Some weeks? More? What would be the consequences? If it’s an asteroid, I think it would be best if it is a sudden and unexpected strike. The aftermath would last long enough.
I read very little SciFi, but recently listened to an audioplay based on
It’s really a great thought experiment, if mankind knew centuries ahead about its annihilation.
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There’s a series of books about the societal impact (pun not intended) of an inescapable asteroid on path to Earth - Ben Winter’s “The Last Policeman” and its sequels. Society is collapsing in the months before the asteroid hits because people are leaving their jobs (because why spend your last days at work?) and the main character is a police detective who still wants to resolve murder investigations when nobody else cares anymore.
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I read way too much SF and I enjoyed that one and it’s prequel quite a bit.
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What, you don’t wanna miss a thing?
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Well, The past is gone; it went by, like dusk to dawn
(and that was actually from some good Aerosmith music!)
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