And The Answer Is…
Over on the Yahoo! Answers blog, the news is out that
Dr. Stephen Hawking?s question on Yahoo! Answers, “How will the human race survive the next 100 years?”, was resolved today, and the best answer is a thoughtful essay by Semi-Mad Scientist, a level 5 Answers user and self-reported avid geocacher. Congratulations!
Dr. Hawking also provided some of his own thoughts available on Yahoo! Video (and yes, outer space is in there).
Here?s the full transcript of Dr. Hawking?s thoughts:
How can the human race survive the next hundred years. I don’t know the answer. That is why I asked the question, to get people to think about it, and to be aware of the dangers we now face. Before the 1940s, the main threat to our survival came from collisions with asteroids such collisions have caused mass extinctions in the past, but the last one was 70 million years ago, so the likelihood that we will need the services of Bruce Willis in the next hundred years, is very small. A much more immediate danger, is nuclear war. America and Russia, each have more than enough warheads to kill everyone on Earth, several times over, and the same may now be true of China. The world came perilously close to nuclear annihilation, on more than one occasion in the last 50 years. With the ending of the Cold War, the threat has become less acute, but it has not gone away. There are still enough nuclear weapons stock piled, to kill us all, and their use might be triggered by an accident that convinced a country that it was under attack.
There is now a new danger from small and potentially unstable countries, acquiring nuclear weapons. Such minor nuclear powers might cause millions of deaths, but they would not threaten the survival of the entire human race, unless they sparked a conflict between the major powers.
These dangers of asteroid collision and nuclear war, have now been joined by a host of other threats to our survival. Climate change is happening at an ever increasing rate. While we are hoping to stabilize it, and maybe even reverse it, by reducing our CO2 emissions, the danger is that the climate change may pass a tipping point at which the temperature rise becomes self sustaining. The melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice reduces the amount of solar energy that is reflected back into space, and so increases the temperature further. The rise in sea temperature may trigger the release of large quantities of CO2, trapped at the bottom of the ocean, which will further increase the green house effect. Let’s hope we don’t end up like our sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees Centigrade, and raining sulphuric acid.
There are other dangers, such as the accidental or intentional release of a genetically engineered virus. Each time we increase our technological powers, we add new possible ways in which things could go disastrously wrong. The human race faces an increasingly dangerous future. There’s a sick joke, that the reason we haven’t been visited by aliens, is that when a civilization reaches our stage of development, it becomes unstable, and destroys itself. In fact, I think there are other reasons why we haven’t seen any aliens, but the story shows how perilous the situation is. The long term survival of the human race, will be safe only if we spread out into space, and then to other stars. This won’t happen for at least a hundred years, so we have to be very careful. Perhaps, we must hope that genetic engineering will make us wise and less aggressive.
Check out the Yahoo! Answers blog for more, and leave us a comment to let us know what you think.
Thanks all!
Tara Kirchner
Yahoo! Searchblog
Hey! Dr. Hawking included the points about genetic engineering I wrote in my answer. Check out the page 4, Batman answer! *jumping up and down*
*applause*
Thank you! … and kudos to Semi-mad scientist too…
Pleasure to answer a question for u… i am not qualified enough, but all ideas start as good ideas, right? I believe the root of all threats to mankind lie within the governments we have created. Look at the major powers in effect – they have the most nuclear weapons. Our fate rests in the hands of the few old school suits who still believe that the almighty dollar is the be all and end all. Unfortunately for us all, the entire planets’ lives depend on the decisions of the few – the people we have elected to provide us with the necessities of life also have the power to take that life. I just need to cite the senseless deaths in Iraq, or further back, Vietnam, etc. All through history, the few men in power have fought to get their way – at the expense of the ‘expendable’ ordinary people. I agree with other statements about renewable energy, and restoring the planet to its original, sustainable glory. This can make everyday life better, but the root of the problem is the few men who have the power to push that red button. All it will take is a trigger happy temper and its lights out for all of us. To ensure human survival, we MUST take the power from the few and put it in the hands of the many. Any idea on how to accomplish this goal is beyond my power, but united thoughts can create great actions. Thanks
I find it interesting that answers were culled and censored.
Mr. Hawking hasn’t stated anything new. In fact, he hasn’t said anything an 8th grader would have trouble understanding. I was truly disappointed in this useless exercise and Yahoo’s discriminatory selection.
Hello Tara,
I really fail to understand why is it so hard for Yahoo customer care to reply. I have sent 10 emails to them and I have received 1 vague reply from them. Cmon how hard it is for Yahoo to help someone whose account has been compromised? Also, why is it so hard for someone to retrieve his own password. Why so much information? Why can I retrieve my yahoo id so easily but why can’t I retrieve the password? Please help me. I will really appreciate it
Thank you,
Janak Kapadia.
P.S. I again apologise for putting this message here. But I am not receiving any help so I have no choice here.
… only with a lot of luck!!!
But it shall be useful do not to hate or harm other being living on this earth; also it can help to be vegan and meditate.
A lot of love from
franco
Mr. Hawking asks a good question.
It may be a bit simplistic to say it this way, but I think the answer to his question ultimately is deeply linked if not the same as the answer to Bono’s question.
We save ourselves by saving the least powerful of ourselves. By creating a sustainable global economy we can move the world forward technologically to a place where it is better able to disarm and conquer it’s own destructive tendencies. By creating more economic parity between nations and peoples, we lessen the tensions that bring about war.
I highly recommend “The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time” by Jeffrey D. Sachs.
The world can change for the better. In many enormous ways it has already. We just need to mindfully and actively pursue positive changes.
It is a valid question Stephen posts for us.But it is not technology and science that is desroying us,it is religion.
How the masses can believe in a non existant entity is mind bogling to say the least.
Also it is very disturbing to have a great mind like his sugest that we colonise space and other planets.
Mankind is a cancer destroying this once beautiful planet and the thought of spreading our cancer of greed and anger through the universe is very selfish indeed.Once again no thought is given for our need for death and destruction.
Let mother earth or some super powers destroy us before we get the chance to spread our vileness throughout the universe.
The main problem with our civilisation at the moment is the need for energy, I do believe that the USA invaded Iraq for oil, which shows how dangerous the situation is that we are prepared to kill eachother just for some oil. Our population is growing at an ever increasing rate, which means we need to find more sustainable power supplies, if we don’t that will mean the end of our civilisation as we know it as without energy the technology we have come to rely upon will fail and there will be chaos. The only way to solve this is to get the superpowers to pool reasources into developing renewable energy sources, which looks unlikely as Bush didn’t sign the Kyoto agreement.
Another sad fact is that our race is very good at destroying things, as can be seen in the 20th Century, our most violent one to date. I don’t know who said this but to quote him/her “As long as there are men there will be wars”, this is very true and unless we can change our viewpoint on every day life and our goals in life this will remain the same. I could ramble on for hours about different things, but it is up to each and every one of us to try and make a difference, otherwise our arrogance will turn around and bite us one day.
Hey, dunno if anyone else has already pointed this out but why is it automatically assumed that aliens are more advanced than humans?
Maybe they haven’t contacted us because they can’t, not because we are too evolved or not evolved enough.
I appreciate Dr. Hawkins’ summary and agree with his conclusions in short. I also believe that the future of this planet is not only dictated by the actions of the human race, but also by the power of a higher being. Whether you believe in a God or not, I believe that this earth will see it’s end at a time appointed by a being much more powerful than you or I. Until that time, I feel confident that humankind should do all they can to demonstrate love and respect to each other and this planet upon which we live.
Bishop.
I’ve found it really interesting considering the question in hand, listening to what Stephen has said and reading the replies here.
We’ll get through the next 100 years in the same way that we’ve managed to get through the last 50, by the skin of our feet and with dumb luck and optimism.
Everyone has focused on one thing or other, but it’s surely not about that. It’s the mix of it all and the human race’s ability to have blind hope and belief that we’ll all wake up tomorrow.
Dear Dr Hawking,
You have hoped that genetic engineering will make us wise and less aggressive. I do believe we will become wiser and less aggressive because of the next revolution which is awaiting us the spiritual revolution. After the industrial revolution and the information revolution, the next revolution WILL be the spiritual revolution. Whereas the industrial revolution enhanced our muscle power, and the information revolution the brain power, the spiritual revolution will touch our minds and spirits. And everyone will be much more spiritually evolved than we are and that will result in the future generation being wiser and less aggressive. The hatred and violence will end and love pervade. The world will survive not just another 100 years, but millions of years. I invite you to read my article on God and Religion A New Look (summary available at http://pukamble.tripod.com/gandrframe.htm, full article available at http://pukamble.tripod.com/godbigframe.htm), which will convince you that this will happen. This article is not religious, not science or philosophy, but plain common sense which analyses the past and extrapolates into the future possibilities.
And I am not religious to believe that the concept of God and Religion will bring about the change. It is only making the world worse. I believe that the laws of spiritual space will be scientifically explained in the spiritual revolution, just as the laws of physical space have been mathematically explained in the previous eras. I use scientific within quotes because I believe that it is not the present day physical science and mathematics which will explain the laws of spiritual space. There will be an invention of new science and mathematics, (which for convenience of discussion I have called mentomatics in my article), which will explain the laws of Spiritual space. The future spiritual era will have advanced tools to take you within minutes to a high mental state, the state that the likes of Buddha and Christ reached. Man will be able to attain a mental state which is high on love, compassion, faith, etc. The spiritual revolution will see the end of religious divide and killing as the research of that era will make it crystal clear to the common man that all religions are only tools with a single objective that of spiritual upliftment.
I know whats in the readers mind. Sounds stupid! Right? All I will ask you to do is to transport yourself mentally to the stone age, and imagine that I am there too narrating to you stories of a future world having devices with which you can see and hear what was happening real time at the other end of the world, that you would have means to reach places several thousand miles away within hours, and so on. Your reaction would be the same sounds stupid! But all that has happened today you have television and aircrafts/spacecrafts which would have sounded like imaginations of a crazy mind to the Stone Age man. So do not discount what are the possibilities of the future. Whereas we are in the space age of the physical science today, we are in the stone age of spiritual science. You just need to let your imagination go wild to see what would be the possibilities when the world reaches the space age of spiritual science.
What we need to think is not whether it is possible, but how we can speed up the arrival of the spiritual revolution. In my article (at http://pukamble.tripod.com/godbigframe.htm), I have stated what are the first steps towards the invention of mentomatics, and what are the pitfalls we need to avoid. I have discussed how we come out of the spiritual kindergarten that we are stuck into because of our religious trance and graduate to higher schools of spirituality, how do we give up the baby walker that we are holding on to for too long even though we have already learnt to walk. And unless we give up the baby walker, we will not be able to sprint and run.
I presume most of these answers are from citizens of the USA. Your points are childish, innane and short sighted. Oh, and you haven’t learnt to spell yet. Perhaps the key to salvation is for Britain to colonise North America and create a foreign policy that will avoid alienating the entire Muslim world. Does anybody remember why we went to war with Iraq?? Well, according to the President of the USA, WMA (or, Weapons of Mass Destruction). Did they exist? No, not any, not anywhere. American incompetence and greed is antagonising and creating the only danger to world peace. All those who agree with American foreign policy should be ashamed of themselves.
We are humans live in this planet giving to us by our God who created us, but we have to accomplish our live with peace full life. We are bond to live and move on with a new life it will began to us and see the future how will it look like to us, we do not know the future but we do know the present we live and we must continue this life we have. Being alive is a incredible thing to you can do when you were born , you have a future and live and have fun and spend that all your life with happenies. As I know the future, but I can’t answer it because is no point to you people know it, if you want to know it than realize it and think, and you will know it if you have the gift on living. People are know are like beast and wild and monster, criminals and murders and robbers, this people has no future but only having fun killing people how they feel. This people wasn’t gifted by God, it was gifted by Satana. We are people and we have to understand what is good or bad. Remember live always.
Also America has no future but only war they can do well. America is a terriorist of the nation, they are beast and murderers, they have no future but only future for death. remember that!
Creating an atmosphere of fear and paranoia about our very survival is the reason why the race for nuclear capability came into being. It is the very reason why there is so much bloodshed in the world. There always has been and there always will be. I believe most of the American population, and lets not discount the British here because we are just as responsible for what has happened in Iraq, accepted the reasons proposed to us for going to war at the time. These reasons were based on fear for a our own survival which is one of the most primitive aspects of our nature. As long as governments and extremists manipulate this instinct then they will get away with murder.
Another point I would like to comment on is in response to someone who said that mr Hawking was delivered in a very simplistic manner. Well, all the answers are in a very simplistic mannert. If he wanted the viepoint of intellectuals only, then he wouldn’t have posted it on Yahoo.
Rgds
to Chris regarding scientific change, fusion generators are real and coming to a utility near you, more importantly the New world order we keep hearing about is not a geopolitical thing it is about economics pure and simple.The confrontations in the middle east will be the catalyst for change and we about to see the use of Hydrogen weapons in Global reorganization. In terms of survival of the planet the world is no where near critical mass and we need to realise that alien technologies and intervention have always been amongst us.The world is a great place and faith is a good start towards building a better planet for all of mankind rather than just a few zealots and tyranical people.
Thats pretty interesting i dont agree much with genetic engineering i go more towards revelations in the bible and how this was predicted in revelations and how its all supposed to happen. Aliens dont exist so thats why we dont see them. But ppl need to start realizing that there is more to life on earth and that we all need to stick together and help ppl. Help ppl come closer to God b4 its to late,.
Wonderful question. My first reaction is that if Mr. Hawking does not know the answer then perhaps there is none.
Ok here is my 2 cents….. Yes, I think we will survive….at least our DNA will. Certainly we did not originate from earch but arrived here by some means. As to the question will our race survive that is a little more difficult. I think that by the time our governments take seriously the effects of global warming, nuclear weapons ect both will need to practically freeze/burn them. That leaves the collective of individuals who inhabit our planet. We are far to comfortable to risk changing anything yet. We need to suffer. I know that this sounds sad but the inhabitants of North America have forgotten what our ancestors knew of war and struggle. I do not mean to overlook the tremendous human suffering associated with the present war or with 911. Do not mistake me nor my feelings toward those who have experienced struggle. It’s just that we have lost the bone deep need for survival over the years while enjoying trips to Micky D’s in our SUV’s. We are no longer as a society “hungry” or desparate enough to drive us to make the changes needed for survival. Once we feel the pain of potential annilation then and only then will we turn our collective intelligence and love toward finding the answers to what ails us. Unfortunately that will leave us deplorably short of time. However, we may just make it in the end. It certainly is and will be a mathematical equation for all time…..will the human race survive? I personally don’t have enough “RAM” in my cerebral computer to compute the odds but perhaps, by way of this discussion, one of you good people will find the answer.
Thanks for asking,
Carol
Dear Dr. Halking
Where the ansures to this question are will be debated and studied long after they will mean anything to the current inhabitents of this wreckege of the industreal revelution. By whom or what I don’t know but if my opion is worth anything I would say that the distruction of the world as we know it came about because for some reason man got it into his head that the problems that our inventions have created can be cured not by abandoning them but by keeping them going with more inventions. for example if we find were using too much electricity we just look for more ways to generate more power insted of looking for ways get along with less . If we are short of gas do we stop driving SUVs and overpowered cars. no we kill people who have oil and wont sell it to us at a price we can live with . the world is already dead right now were just looking for a place to burry it.
One aspect of Mr. Hawkings question bears consideration in this way; If the vast majority of us cannot embark on the “human race lifeboat”, will enough of us support the creation of it, since it would require significant resources of public funds (asuming the Gates foundation is not interested)? I believe the apparent simplicity of Mr. Hawkings remarks belies the intelligence behind it. Genius is often best demonstrated in the ability to reduce a problem to its’ simpilest form, and then the solutions become self evident from that new perspective.
Personally I feel that our species is deserving of being preserved, and though I have written of significant investments for its’ survival, this amount should be compared to the sums we are prepared to spend on things like seeing movies such as ‘Armegedon’…How many million was that?
I will make my small contribution to a possible interum solution by describing in short what I would call ’sustitutional economics’, which is not a revolutionary way of reorganizing our economic system, but does recognize the bases of many of our present ills in the current system as it is applied. For instance the substitution of the U.S.’s and others domestic energy supplies (preferably using green solutions) for foriegn ones would have a ripple effect across the globe. It would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, improve the foreign trade deficit, create employment in new and well paying industries, encourage the creation of new industries while improving the efficiencies of existing ones, improve the level of health in cities by the reduction of harmful pollution, reduce the need for military interventions when the ‘public good’ is being threatened by potential energy disruptions, and stabilize the ‘costs of production’ of domestic industries and household energy expenditures.
If a global calimity is on the horizon for the human race, then it is only reasonable that a less interdependant energy system would alleviate much of the suffering that would accompany it.
This small solution would have a great benifit to many poor nations of the world, since they can ill afford the expenditures of precious foriegn capital on something that is ultimately burned up, and leaves no long lasting returns to these nations peoples.
Unfortunatly the spectre of a global plague whether it is man made or natural, is highly likely and with the human species not being genectically diversified in its’ makeup there is little biological protection available to us unless it is created in the lab. Presently our intercontinental travels on a massive scale results in our lack of protection from geographic isolation. So the importance of potentially isolating populations in a time of crises becomes even more important.
One final thought is this; If for some improblable set of circumstances the earth and the human race is virtually alone in the Universe, then should we really be so cavalier in the preservation of it. Should we not hold to a higher duty to protect one of the rarest jewels in all of creation?