A Sci-Fi Veteran Tells His Own (Earthling) Story | Hacker News Reader

A Sci-Fi Veteran Tells His Own (Earthling) Story

nytimes.com

36 pointsokfine12 comments

Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and all of this... all of this... was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.

I don't think you'll find any scientist that will predict that the sun will burn out in a hundred years :-)

Fairly sure several races in the Babylon V universe were entirely capable of killing a star if they really wanted to, so I’ll try and forgive JMS the poetic license.

Despite my quibble, I find the sentiment to be very poetic and inspiring.

I wouldn't interpret it to mean literally one hundred years. The progression of hundred to thousand, etc, seems to be saying 'whenever it does happen...', the sun will go cold.

Those stars will also grow cold and die out. Entropy is a bitch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question

> But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on [...] eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out

No. Every scientist will probably agree that this is a highly likely outcome. But every rational scientist would also acknowledge we currently have no way of predicting future engineering or even - with certainty - the fate of our universe.

This article didn't mention he (J. Michael Straczynski) wrote a movie directed by Clint Eastwood in 2008 that starred Angelina Jolie. Really versatile writer, remarkably so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling_(film)

Can’t think of many people who have given me such lifelong entertainment, from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors onwards.

JMS's story arc for Babylon 5 was amazing. It is so unfortunate that the suits at Paramount refuse to allow that property to be refreshed or expanded upon as a new series or rebooted one. Such great writing. I enjoy his comments on twitter as well.

"The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language." --J. Michael Straczynski

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