http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece
i guess one side effect of being a sc-fi lover happens to be dealing with thinking numerous ways we can get obliterated :D
m glad that a scientist as eminent as Stephen hawking is moving this concern beyond the realm of sci-fi though... the analogy he has drawn for relations bw aliens with us and native Americans with Columbus is hardly an outcome of some conspiracy theory and beyond possibility of probability... i definitely believe there are aliens out there... and i can bet my life that they are not all carbon based life forms... and I am not even going to discuss Drake Equation or Fermi's paradox in that context...
I think one of the biggest mistakes our scientists have been doing for very long time have been to search for extra-terrestrial life in form of 'life' as we see 'life' as... which is a grave mistake... same units of life form can be based on Silicon... or Iron in some unique bonding which we might not be aware of... already in last 5 years, we have come across several forms of extremophiles which have changed our thinking of life... and that's just on our planet...
if u think of life on this planet and think of how many ways we can get annihilated, perhaps you will bend down on ur knees and start kissing ground when the realization dawns on how lucky we are to be alive... and how our small inconsequential worries matter zilch when it comes to the big cosmos...
our planet is in peril... its a precarious territory...
i know for what i m about to say i may be ridiculed, and justifiably so... and yeah, we can all put everything on shoulders of 'God' and give up saying 'what is gonna happen, is gonna happen'... before m labeled as 'depressive soul' or 'negative thinker' or a 'doomsayer' let me assure u, m not... but at same time i also believe in being cautious and i think there r things which shud genuinely worry us and we shud think of what ever we can do about them.... and yet m positive that our survival over last millennium is no mistake... future is going to be exciting with many great things which are ready to explode and unfold in coming few years... n each of us need to be ready for making it better and making sure our probability of survival is as much as possible...
i fervently believe that future belongs to science... if u look at the sci-fi movies like 2012, independence day, deep impact... one concept is central to all of them... in any impending gloom the governments around the world are going to do their best to make sure human race survives... and they do so by choosing 'few'... what r chances of getting picked among those 'few',,, well for one - either u need to be filthy rich like ambanis or offer something valuable to human race... be an eminent scientist, an eminent engineer, an eminent doctor, an astrophysicist, a neurosurgeon... (an eminent dancer? probably not).... yes, i know we cannot be that now... its too late for us... but this is not about us... this is about the coming generations - our children, our grandchildren... you want them to survive and carry on their shoulders the beautiful memories of this dying planet... they need to be 'best' n they need to be 'useful'... doesn't mean kids cant have fun... in fact i think no one has more fun than some1 who is involved in science n technology... they don't need to give up on waltz or music lessons... but we need to show them beauty of finding unknown...
as for ourselves... there r things we can do... i for one have been very cautious on use of plastic for long n try to use them minimally... n m going to minimize it further... its always sad to see whales washing on beaches, dying and having 10 gallon worth of plastic inside them... its always sad to see that there is a continent of plastic as big as Texas floating in pacific ocean... n not to talk of numerous ways global warming is effecting India and the whole world... it pains me to see a common man struggling to survive in the sweltering heat n ppl queuing up for mile for water which is rationed on daily use... n i have some other plans, which m not gonna divulge because they r too crazy to be disclosed :D
but somehow i feel safe too when i see likes of great leaders like dean kamen, ray kurzweil, al gore, narayan murthy, bill gates n so many others working and struggling to give us all a fighting chance to survive... when all of us are totally unconcerned n take everything around us for granted... we are safe because of ppl like them... n someday i wud like to see our children join ranks of such eminent ppl - who think of it as 'gaia' and love it as "na'vi" people did of Pandora...
yeah... its a lengthy diatribe... n probably m somewhat crazy :D
but well i cant shut up :D
so all the ridicule is formally invited... :D
