"We cannont solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Albert Einstein

meteor

April 21, 2009

Musings, Society

4 comments

What if a meteor hit the planet?

I know there have been several movies about this topic, but really, what if?

What would happen to the planet and everything on it? Immediately there would be a lot of destruction, but what about later? What are the longer term effects of such an impact? What would happen to the planet in the time afterwards?

I started to think more about this topic after it came up in a car ride a few weekends ago. I wondered if there were people calculating very morbid things like how long it would take for all life on Earth to die after a meteor strike, or how different sized meteors would impact the planet, things like that. I found this article and these other interesting sites: Earth Impact Effects Program; impacts calculator.

Usually it takes some relatively big event in my life for me to realize what my priorities in life should be. Maybe the meteor is that for us as a community. As a species, we only seem to be interested in persisting at least at current levels of quality of life and satisfaction. Any actions we take are in self-interest. That instinct has helped us survive and out-compete other species for thousands of years, but now, at this stage, individual actions in self-interest are starting to add up towards our demise as a species.

Some people have pointed out that, individual disastrous events, such as an extra powerful hurricane or tsunami or earthquake, affect far fewer people but attract much more attention and support than continuous, ongoing conflicts and suffering like never-ending violence and hunger.

Perhaps there is the collective sympathy for victims of spontaneous and unpredicted events because we believe we could be in those same situations at any time and hope that we would be met with similar support.

If a meteor or object were to hit the planet, I have no doubt the planet would continue to exist just as it has for millions of years, but I wonder about the possibilities.

do what you want

April 13, 2009

Musings, Society

2 comments

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend. He is planning his wedding and they recently have been going to Bed Bath & Beyond to add items to their registry.
He told me about a few items that he saw while there: containers for a single slice of bread, and containers that have a built in ice pack in the lid.

That reminded me of an idea that I read about in The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (recently featured here for his 10 Theses).

Taleb discusses how in a study, when people were asked which was more likely, they would more often choose the second of these two:

  1. He was happily married. He killed his wife.
  2. He was happily married. He killed his wife to get the insurance money.

What this is suggesting is that, we, as humans, naturally want to find a cause and a story for anything that happens. Even though the first sentence allows for a wider range of possible reasons for the man killing his wife, the second one may seem more likely because it has a cause.

So back to plastic containers…
Are we suckered into thinking we need a container for every possible purpose out there? Are companies marketing to this aspect of human nature and taking advantage of some innate need for purpose and explanation? Do we really need an ice pack built in or a single bread slice container?

Continue reading →