Sure, Earth Could Get Hit by a Deadly Asteroid–But There’s an Upside | Hacker News Reader

Sure, Earth Could Get Hit by a Deadly Asteroid–But There’s an Upside

smithsonianmag.com

51 pointsMz41 comments

I wrote a science fiction novel about an asteroid crashing into Earth, and did some extensive research on the topic (including how large an asteroid has to be to cause worldwide damage).

Regarding global unity, my book takes the opposite stance. In it, futuristic superpowers U.S and China squabble about who should do what, and global politics destroys any chance of stopping the asteroid in time. Of course, there's much more to the story, and there wouldn't be much of a plot if there was 'global unity' :)

I think you have the right take. Not sure if even with imminent catastrophe there would be any kind of unity.

What did you think of Seveneves, if you've read it?

I haven't read it yet. I want to read it though as I am working on my follow up book right now and one of the concepts is a 'human genetic database' managed by an authoritarian one-world government entity.

Speaking of global unity, the central premise of my book (and the series) is that without the asteroid, the world descents into an authoritarian quagmire with endless laws, taxes and regulations, and they use technology to control every aspect of our lives.

Ahh cool. I ask because Seveneves has a much rosier (overly so in my opinion) end game, in terms of world powers cooperating and most of humanity also doing so, despite knowing for certain that almost everyone will die.

Not sure if that's the case,

[Spoliers!] ###########

It's been a while since I've read the book, but if I recall correctly nukes are used against Venezuela when they disagree with launching supplies to the Ark project. There are further hints of looming conflict (e.g. Ivy's fiance mentioning the nuclear sub he was in was on high alert).

I also believe there were numerous delays of supplies and disagreements even within NASA / the U.S. space program. Not too certain of all the world powers cooperating, although admittedly their cooperation on the Ark project at all may seem odd, but doesn't seem out of place with the status quo and how world powers "get along" in regards to the ISS?

[Spoliers!] ###########

It definitely is better than GP's book, where the powers that be completely fail to work together - in Seveneves, the Ark project actually succeeds!

There is definitely some conflict, I just don't think there was enough of it. Part of it may just be the fact that there's not much focus on what's happening on the ground, so we just don't hear about how it's being dealt with.

I was most conflicted about how normal people would deal with it. Eg I would expect mass riots and looting, very little of which happens according to the book - only in Venezuela apparently. And the nukes are used on their military, about a few days before everyone is going to die anyways, so I don't really see it as that big of a deal - nukes just don't mean as much in such a scenario.

I'm also surprised at there being only a single Ark project - I'd have thought at least one nation, say China, would want to strike out on their own.

Somewhat related, I remember reading some research that talked about how during natural disasters you get very little in the way of riots and looting. Rather people have a strong urge to cooperate [1].

It doesn't mention it in the linked article, but I also remember hearing that the idea that people get very violent can cause serious issues as resources go into military-police rather than relief efforts.

It makes sense when you think about it evolutionary. The groups that fell apart when the going got tough were not the ones that survived!

[1] http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/31/how-disasters-bring-ou...

Thanks for the article, it makes a lot of sense. Note that in this book, the doomsday scenario is predicted to happen 2 years in the future, so it's not quite the same as a natural disaster that has already happened. So I don't think it would look quite the same in terms of violence and how we've evolved. It's more like, imagine 30% of the population suddenly lose their jobs or something like that, you could probably see riots happening today.

I don't know, if we knew for certain the world was doomed, I would expect at least a substantial fraction of the world to spend their last years working towards the small hope of salvation rather than giving in to complete despair.

I agree, but I also think a significant fraction would not. I'd expect a lot of markets to crash and burn, as people quit for various reasons, with a lot of knock-on effects. I'm not sure how it would turn out, I just feel like the world would be turned upside down.

Now it could end up being like war-time economies which boom due to high demand for military goods, in this case for all the work needed to build a space colony. But in a war, at least people can hope to live on.

Very good book.

Published? Link?

Sorry didn't want to spam. Book is called "The Final Six Days", just search on Amazon.

Thank you guys for the support. I'm also giving away free pre-release copies of book 2 in the series for people who join the email list on http://www.timecrossers.com

Or look in his profile.

Don't worry, we appreciate the work of others, and a link is always welcome :)

> Yet these threats also present an unusual opportunity for nations to band together

My cynical prediction: "Phew! Okay, that was intense. Good job everyone. However, now we aren't 'due' for another impact that size for, like, thousands of years, right? Plenty of time to go fight my neighbor!"

Would we want to band together to fix it anyway? I would have thought smaller teams from US, Russia, China and EU could all come up with independant solutions and see which works.

If an asteroid is hurtling and don't want people fucking around in committees.

Why do you think that individual smaller efforts are more likely to succeed than a single unified global effort. I see no evidence to support that. We're obviously going to spend a few years researching this before we start figuring out how to stop the asteroid to determine if we should be fighting this asteroid menace as a whole, or individually.

There's no guarantee a "single, unified global effort" will be better than multiple different efforts though, plus it sounds like putting all your eggs in one basket.

If events in 2016 has shown anything, it is that people are naturally divisive. We all live in our own bubbles and want to do things our way all the time, win all the time and be right all the time. Unless you're willing to compromise, it'll be hard to just tell people to team up with you and do things "the global way".

There's no guarantee they won't interfere with and nullify each other. For instance, one team lands a big ion thruster on the rocket to push it out of the way. The next detonates a nuke next to it. They screwed up the positioning so it didn't deflect the asteroid enough, but did wreck the ion engine. Oops.

At the very least you need some communication between the "competing teams".

Because "all of us", collectively, is usually stupider than "any of us". It's hard to beat small focus'd tactical teams. Large committees get bogged down.

Even way back when there were few commercial incumbent interests in web standards a the W3C or IETF being this way or the other, and the groups were small, focused and collegial, it took a fair amount of patient doing to achieve outcomes. For something more global and "significant" -- getting the respective rep teams of 10-large banks to agree on technical standards for money transfer -- oh, boy....

You've clearly never worked in anything dictated by multiple voting parties with different interests.

There would be no such thing as a 'global unified effort' in this scenario. There might be a 'global effort', but it will be dragged down by countries arguing over which will provide what resources and for what reward.

I don't think it would even get as far as thinking about the "thousands of years" bit. $WE would just think, "OK, we survived, but our neighbors were already weaker than us before, so they're bound to be in really bad shape.".

(I have a pessimistic view of humanity. Individual humans are actually usually pretty nice, but we're just too easily led and since 'leaders' tend to have traits that are antithetical to general well-being...)

> There’s another factor that makes the threat of asteroid impacts a unique opportunity for global unity. Unlike some more localized natural hazards, like volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, these kinds of impacts are theoretically preventable. “It’s the only natural disaster that we really have the ability to—at least in principle—prevent,” says Barbee. “That creates a certain type of international collaboration that is very unique.”

The desire the unify the world is powerful. It might even be deeper than any surface issues. Sometimes I wonder whether, if we invented some machine that quickly and easily pulled carbon out of the atmosphere, people would adopt it or still continue to push for a global agreement. I think they'd adopt it but then they would look for other ways to unite the world.

  some machine that quickly and easily pulled
  carbon out of the atmosphere

I want this so we can colonize Venus.

It's pretty simple really - just put back all the binding energy we gained from burning up that fossil fuel, minus what earth was able to absorb in the meantime. Hint: Start as early as possible, because the risk for positive feedbacks to nullify your efforts grows every year.

Isn't Venus almost devoid of hydrogen? We're going need a lot of it to make water.

I wish I lived in your world. Mine only seems to be getting more and more divided. None of the leaders of the free (or unfree) world seem to have any desire right now to 'unite' it

Leaders? No. But many people do.

I thought it was the other way around? Until this year, all the leaders were all in on globalization, more open borders (in spirit if not in name) and huge free trade areas. The people revolted and put nationalism in charge in the forms of Brexit and Trump.

Global unity sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me. Are you sure you're not projecting here?

Present day reality lives like a dystopian nightmare to me. Pretty sure I'm not projecting. (God I hope I'm not!)

Global unity sounds to me like world peace. Maybe not every individual would be peaceful, but we could finally put away our silly flags.

Who rules this global unity? A government in Washington? London? The UN? People in different cultures want different things from their country. Just look at the US right now. Split down the middle between what kind of leadership there should be right now. And the US is fairly simple in that most people are happy to pigeon hole themselves as either liberal or conservative. On other countries things are more complicated. Ethnic groups who hate one another. Opposing Religions. Separatists. Unionists. In many countries there are separatist movements who want to split the country into smaller countries, because they don't feel like they are adequately represented in the majority.

It's a lot more complex than ditching the silly flags.

If the present day is a 'dystopian nightmare' to you, then I'm pretty sure you're projecting. Out of interest, if you feel we are in such a situation now, what would you classify the Soviet Union between the fifties and the eighties, or Nazi Germany, as?

> Yet these threats also present an unusual opportunity for nations to band together

Yes, that has worked so well for climate change.

An asteroid is a lot more of a concrete threat than climate change, and there's no economic upside to getting hit like there is for CO2 emission.

But there is a "everything's fine, no need to worry, I can't admit the horrible truth to myself" aspect that is similar in both circumstances.

We'll probably have politicians blatantly denying the existence of the meteor despite the fact that it's literally right above us.

Or complete chaos. Pillaging, plundering, and warring.

Well, 2016 couldn't get much worse, so bring it, Universe!

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