Friday, June 16, 2006

BAD NEWS - HAWKING IS RIGHT

Stephen Hawking has caused a bit of a stir by telling mankind to inhabit the moon, Mars, and to start finding another place to live - and be quick about it.
The message from one of the world's brainiest men is simple - that one way or another technology, science, development, pollution, disease, overcrowding, religion or nature will destroy the earth.
The latter part of this theory is one supported in part by John Gray, in his insightful book Al Qaeda And What It Means To Be Modern. Gray isn't a scientist like Hawking, he's the Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. But don't let that put you off. While the book is already a year or two old, the predictions it makes are as up to date and as stark as ever.
With the population of the world not set to level off until it reaches the 10 billion mark, Gray argues that a scarcity of resources, combined with the clash between liberal evangelists and islamic fundamentalists will result in the huge devastation of societies and possibly the planet itself.
Drawing on conclusions such as that the Rwanda genocide was primarily fuelled by lack of water, that Gulf States have populations that double roughly every 20 years, that poverty, instability and faith create wars, and that no economic system recognizes a solution to finite resources and global warming, Gray argues that the modern world will be one of violence, corruption, and destruction.
The concept of a modern world as a better one is a relatively new one.
Gray proves that Al Qaeda and other violent factions are modern - funded by drugs, aided by the internet, and with access to weapons of mass destruction. The belief that this is a clash of civilisations is wrong. Al Qaeda are using the "modernity" of the West to try and destroy it.
That is not a clash, that is war, and war of the most modern kind.
One thing that Hawking doesn't explain in his statement, however, is how the conflicts of human nature on the earth will be eradicated in space.
For surely the voyagers upon his spacecraft to new worlds would be no more than supersonic versions of the pilgrims (and later, immigrants) that travelled to America and Australia to find a new beginning hundreds of years ago.
A new beginning which many Americans feel is superior to the established cultures of the past.
In Tasmania, Europeans slaughtered the aboriginies they found who had established a relationship with the earth that had maintained their existence, and the environment on which they survived, for thousands of years.
In America, the war with native American Indians again at best has brought European diseases of alcoholism, gambling, greed and war to peoples who had lived in relative harmony with their surroundings (though not necessarily with each other) for thousands of years.
And finally the violent society of America, the drug and gun culture of America, the paranoid foreign policies of American politicians, and the destruction of the planet through ever increasing consumption, IS America's brave new world.
And it will destroy it.
It seems ironic then, that the only country able to economically achieve Hawking's dream of inhabiting other worlds will be Americans.
Given their track record, maybe it's best that we all stay put.
What might be the best thing to hope for is that one of Hawking's apocolyptic predictions comes true - and fast.
Maybe that a meteor wipes us all out before we can set about fucking up another eden, another new world, or another bright new beginning.
Still, let's hope it waits til after the end of the footy. Sod's law is sure to mean that England will be 2-0 up against Brazil with ten minutes to go when the fucking thing hits.

11 Comments:

Blogger me said...

can't we just put all the fucked up people onto a fleet of spaceships and send them off into deep space?
it worked in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

stephen hawking. genius. and i reckon there is nowt up with him either, he is that clever he has got people waiting on him hand and foot!
now thats thinking!

June 16, 2006  
Blogger Matt Vella said...

Fuck, I hope I don't get stuck with the lawyers and telephone cleaners.

June 16, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

mabe we should all revert 2 breathin underwater
de evolution as tha new revolution

June 16, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with fiz.

Send the rich out into space.

Send the islamic sort to live on an islamic planet.

The christians to live on a christian planet.

I will stay here and chance it with the Irish and the Jews.

June 16, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He's a cunning swine that Hawkins.

He wants all the young, healthy, strapping men sent into space just so that he'll look more attractive to all the hotties that remain.

June 19, 2006  
Blogger Wrinkled Weasel said...

There is always a market for telling people what they want to hear, but strangely, at the moment, it is doom and destruction - due to our careless stewardship of the planet or shooting the wrong guy or turning whales into Sushi.

White Western Liberal Humanists feel so effing guilty about everything, and are just dying to be spanked.

Please don't write the obituary of Planet Earth just yet. I can just about remember when we were told to practice hiding under the kitchen table in case of a nuclear attack. It was at the time taken seriously, as it should, but since then, more people have died of dysentry than those killed in both world wars.

My point is that this sort of excitable pop-commentary on "life" distracts us from the job in hand, which is to get on with doing some good before we individually pop our clogs, or as Voltaire allows Candide to observe at the end of the eponymous book,"Excellently observed," answered Candide; "but let us cultivate our garden."

June 20, 2006  
Blogger ldbug said...

Interesting rant..must point out that due to an inability to properly cultivate the land, the Anastazi and Mound builders of the 10th - 14th centuries brought about their own demise nearly two centries before Columbus. Overuse of the land, clear cutting, and over hunting proved fatal to those cultures.

Ok, as to overpopulation of the earth, most civilized (for lack of a better word)countries are experiencing a stable population or a negative population growth, as in Germany. Also, I have to point out that there is a lot of world out there. I was born in a county that boarders the Bob Marshal wilderness, a land in Montana so emmense it has yet to be even acurately mapped! P.S. Your rants are fun to comment too, hope you don't mind!

June 21, 2006  
Blogger ENGLISH RANTER said...

Hey comment is all good! The population point is true of most countries except islamic and a few others where population growth does not slow at the same rate when poverty decreases as it does in societies where abortion and contraception are not crimes. Additionally there is absolutely lots of space - but energy resource and climate change will mean that poverty and destitution will be determined by location more than ever before - and immigration rules, protection of energy supplies and clash of cultures will make mobility for populations to transfer to those areas of the world where survival (or a maintanence of living standards is possible) will be harder than in the past. However, your point about previous cultures exhausting land is a good one - though this was likely to be down to a lack of knowledge rather than irresponsibility which appears to be the case today. But anyway, how is montana this time of year? ;-) E.R.

June 21, 2006  
Blogger ldbug said...

Ah, it's so nice here, apparently it smells of wet dog in Memphis! Good thing I got out!

June 26, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ATWATERSEDGE11 HERE,
Nice of you to lecture on class,poverty,and head in ass.
While all's not right in the world of english ranter's, America has not the time to brood over your lack of tech. ability to think or travel beyond your limit's...
While all of our Cousins across the pond, are not living in la-la land,as some(english ranter's do),
Please remind us again what suppressed people have accomplished? We here salute you
every 4th of July...

November 12, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ATWATERSEDGE11 HERE,
wE PLAN TO SEND THE REST OF THE LIBERALS TO THE RANTER'S,SO THEY CAN SAVE YOU ,HOW'S GORE WORKING OUT FOR YA?
TRY LOOKING INTO THE PROBLEMS THEY CREATE, POINT ..HOW DO YOU FIX THE USE OF FOSSIL FUEL, IF THE IDIOTS THAT DON'T WANT IT, HAVE NO CLUE AS TO HOW TO PRODUCE HYDROELECTRIC,
OR WOULDN'T ALLOW IT;S USE BECAUSE YOU MAY DISTURB THE RESTING PLACE OF A-ROCK THAT LOOKS CUTE?
OR, DON'T CLEAN OUT THE UNDERBRUSH IN THE FORREST,OR SELECTIVE CUT TREES IN ORDER TO KEEP STRONG FORRESTS ...AND KEEPS DEAD FUEL FROM CAUSING FORREST FIRES...
ENVIROMENTAL LUGNUTS, CAUSE MORE PROBLEMS THAN THEY FIX.

November 12, 2006  

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