When Did Stephen Hawking Become Such a DUMA$$?

Question

Seriously! Here is a guy that is a math whiz that can't seem to figure out that we will fly past 100 years in 5 generations or less. Nearly everyone reading this right now will one day meet many people that will be alive 100 years from now. I mean, I am only 30 years old and I was raised by a woman that knew DOZENS of CIVIL WAR VETS!! 100 years is a very short time, practically an instant when you think of how old earth is. Stephen Hawking really dropped the ball with this question.

Asking "HOW will the entire human race survive" implies that our survival is in question in as little as 100 years. Hell, even if there is a Nuclear holocaust, the Human Race will survive. What is wrong with him? And, no...a guy that is considered one of the greatest minds in the world doesn't get an intellectual break because he is handicapped.

To Engineer: for reasons I state above, it is clearly a dumba$$ question, not that I don't agree with it. Had he asked how we would survive the next 1000 years, it would have been a better question. I mean, anyone with any true intelligence would answer that question the same way: "The same way we survived the past 10000 years." I mean it is just a stupid question, and anyone that doesn't see that is a dumba$$ themselves, period.

Answer 1

Let me get this straight. You are calling Dr. Stephen Hawking dumb because you don't agree with the premise of his question. May I humbly suggest that it might not be Dr. Stephen Hawking that is the DUMA$$.

Answer 2

He asked the question because it is not at all certain that human beings will last 100 years. But it might have been better to ask how human society can survive the next 100 years without a crippling disaster.

Mankind is becoming more and more dependent on technology to survive. If something happened that caused a real drop in food production (not the standard yearly planting fluctuations and minor weather upheaval) in the United States or Europe, starvation would become a real possibility. If there suddenly was no oil modern society would crumble. If there were a full scale nuclear war (not likely perhaps, but what if) our civilization would die. Maybe it is probable that the human race will survive, but it is far less certain that modern civilization will.

Answer 3

Um, guys, it's not a math question.

This is an age where there is more hatred, more crime/violence, more poverty, more hunger, more technology to wipe out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people at a time, overcrowding, and such virulent diseases and viruses that are adapting to and/or becoming more immune to the drugs we push on people.

I don't mean to paint it that it's all bad, however that's the lean I think Professor Hawking was taking.

Besides that, he wasn't asking you to solve a problem that had a definitive answer. I don't think Professor Hawking was literally stating that the human race will be extinct in 100 years; and maybe he was. However, I think that he was simply asking the human race to collectively rally around that, and take it on. As in, "there's some serious sh*t" going down, so what can we as a race do about it?"

Answer 4

I can't agree w/you more. This guy is ridiculous, how the hell does he think mankind has survived since creation. It's called intelligence, creativity, development. I guess he's never heard of improvise, overcome & adapt, that's all mankind has ever done & that's what we will continue to do. I have an issue w/anyone that is a theoretician, they think that b/c they have a theory about something that it is fact. No it's not, a theory is an idea based on information that may or may not be correct. He may be right but I'll take the odds any day that he's wrong. Mankind will always find a way to carry on. The quality of life may be less than desirable but we will survive as we have since our creation.

Answer 5

There was this cool Pink Floyd song that suggested to people we need to "keep talking". It was Hawking (thru his voice synthesizer) who said it a couple times in the song. I don't think his point was to get detailed blueprints for Man's survival, he was trying to get us to do what he advised..."keep talking".
ANother thing to think about is the fact that some of the biggest social reformers or activists have been scientists. Why cause they understand what wonderfaul and potentially terrible things scince helps find for humankind. Einstein fled Germany not only because he was Jewish, but because there was no way he could speak out against Naziism in Germany or Europe--England was too close and he felt threatened even there. Because Fermi realised the potential destruction of an "atomic device" he got Einstein to sign a letter he [Fermi] drafted for FDR. Dr Carl Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot is filled with warnings of how humanity is screwing up the environment.

So, with all these potential problems, "How will mankind survive the next 100 years?"
Seems like a relevant question to me, but I realise how it wouldn't to some bump on a log who is too worried about more pressing things like getting a drink of beer cause they're thirsty.

Answer 6

He does not think that the world will end for humans in the next hundred years.

This is some small way for him to send out a wake up call, for people to think about how screwed up the world is, and that things need to change. If they keep spiralling in the same direction in 100 years our existance will be a miserable one.

We are on the brink of Nuclear war with Iran AND North Korea, and if Osama gets his hands on any, you can be sure he will do his damned hardest to get them to us. We are constantly on the brink of an epademic, or Dubbya's favorite a "pandemic". Our politics are worthless right now. Should I go on?

Basically, if we keep moving in the same direction in one hundred years it could be a post nuclear wasteland on the entire planet, or 90% or even more of the population of the world could be killed by a disease.

Answer 7

I will refrain from the name calling and just comment on the fact that you seem really angry about these postings.
You got so caught up in your own answer you didn't even realize what Mr. Hawking was asking. The key phrase being "how can we 'sustain'..."
If you'd like to continue being angry and think you've got it all figured out by all means please do, but if you'd like to learn something then read on.
I believe attitudes of quick judgement that cause people to miss the real issue have lead us down a path to the problems we face in the world today.
To sustain our present course in the world means essentially to continue doing what we are in spite of knowing that it is a bad decision and will ultimately lead to disaster.
Besides, there's a 'b' in the word dumba$$. So, maybe you ought to re-read his post and take a moment to think about why it made you so angry in the first place.
But I imagine you may just write back to this posting with more of that anger you've got. That is the easier thing to do isn't it?

Answer 8

Stephen Hawking is not really asking a question. He is suggesting that humans be destroyed, and that the few, the proud, the Nazi scientists that built NASA get themselves ready to blast off while 6 billion humans are subjected to nuclear terrorism and disease warfare, according the diabolical fantasies of the Antichrist that inspires Hawking to pose the fake question. He may be a fool, but he is not as stupid as one might suppose.

Answer 9

it seems to me that not only is he implying that human beings are the most destructive living force on the planet, but he may also be hinting at the fact that our capacity for said destruction has grown exponentially over the past 150 years.

think of the effort it used to take to kill a man:
with a knife?
a rifle?
a cannon?
a gattling gun?
a grenade?
a machine gun?
a bomb?
a missile?
an atomic bomb?
a hydrogen bomb?
a nuclear missile?

in a century and a half, mankind has gone from having to pack gunpowder and a lead ball into the barrel of a musket...to being capable of wiping a state off the map with the press of a button. what will we be capable of in the next hundred years? destroying half of a continent with a single explosion? a whole continent?

and even that fate is dependent on the Earth not falling apart on us naturally through earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, or even a giant hunk of space rock in the right place at the right time.

never a dull moment at least!

Answer 10

It's more of a question of if some thing catastrophic happens to the planet and it is uninhabitable how do we survive (not how long we live)? The answer being that we need to have humans living off Earth, build devices that protect the planet from asteroids or comets crashing into it, disarming all nuclear weapons, stop violence and slandering, so on and so forth.

Answer 11

Actually, it's one of the most intelligent question I've seen so far. The human race needs to ask itself some serious questions about where it's going, and how it's going to get there. Mr Hawking is simply trying to get people to think about some very serious issues, but apparently, some people just fail to listen.