A privately funded killer asteroid spotter | Hacker News Reader

A privately funded killer asteroid spotter

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48 pointslxm33 comments

Bolide events are turning out to be far more common than had generally been accepted.

For example, it turns out a strike only 12,800 years ago wiped out cultural development in North America, along with 30+ genera of large animals including horses, camels, and mammoths, with direct effects proven as far as Chile, South Africa, and Syria, and triggering the 1200-year Younger Dryas return to Ice Age conditions.

The fact was hotly disputed by geologists for decades until the smoking-gun layer of platinum-enriched dust was demonstrated.

https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/695703

Google Earth has been instrumental in revealing numerous newly-identified impact craters.

Wholly modern humans are known to have been on earth for hundreds of thousands of years (was 200k, latest evidence 300k). The great mystery is why it took until just a few thousand years ago for civilization to arise and stick. Our ancestors were not less intelligent than us, or less bold. We know people were sailing deliberately out of sight of land 50,000 years ago, because they colonized Australia. We find evidence of common cultural elements spanning thousands of miles and tens of thousands of years.

We don't actually know how old many of the megalithic constructions we inherit were built; we know only that they are at least as old as known people who used them.

There are literally 1M+ square miles of what was rich bottom land during most of that time now deep under the sea. We don't have any idea what was built there.

I don’t think colonisation of australia is a good example for ‘water travel over the horizon’ - people literally walked there.

My understanding is that while there were substantial "land bridges" at the time Australia was initially colonized, nevertheless sea crossings were still required. But it's a bit tough to follow honestly, do you have a clearer picture?

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

There has never been a land bridge to Australia. Getting there involved many sea crossings, no matter when you place the event, no matter how low the sea level fell as water was locked up in glaciers.

Look up "Wallace Line". Animals, likewise, could not walk from Australia to Asia, for the same reason. Thus, we do not have kangaroos and wallabies in Asia, though they are in New Guinea.

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

Better distract ourselves with the 'one day it will happen' rather than deal with what's on our doorstep now which we are causing and we can control, but won't.

https://explosm.net/comics/the-future#comic

Maybe all existential risks are bad?

Then the nature of the universe (so far as we understand it) is "bad".

True.

This is a weird line of thought, but I'll bite.

The universe it constantly trying to kill us all. It's entropy. Life is fundamentally fighting against that entropy to keep itself well, alive.

So yes, in our "living thing" world view the whole universe is always trying to kill us (life) and we (life) are locked in a constant existential battle with entropy to stay alive.

So to oversimplify it yes, we (life) are good and the universe is evil in this thought experiment.

There is no "fight" against entropy, there is just the evolution of a deterministic wavefunction over time.

Aren't things like the poleo vaccine or penicillin that? We could let the universe do its will, or fight against it.

The same could be said for ants building rafts to survive a flood. That seems like life fighting against entropy to survive to me.

Entropy (like the house) always wins. (Unless we're wrong about physics.)

If I remember correctly, life actually increases the rate of entropy. So, conceptually, the more life, the faster the universe approaches heat death.

Thank you both for this.

It turns my world view upside down, but that's good.

I've been seeing it as the universe tearing us down this whole time. Really it's us tearing the universe down.

Somehow this is much more comforting to me. Thank you!

Except that all of those things merely arise from the deterministic evolution of a wavefunction that is subject to the laws of thermodynamics.

"inventing the polio vaccine" was just a set of deterministic interactions between atoms in Jonas Salk's brain. During that entire process, entropy only increased, the universe further unwinds itself.

That isn't usually a useful perspective for an agent to take.

It is the perspective that is consistent with how we know reality to function, its usefulness or lack thereof doesn't play in.

this reminds me vaguely of the "soul growth" concept, the idea that the universe is a place for beings to grow by means of struggle and trial.

Shows up in Christian Orthodox theology, IIRC.

I literally cannot understand your though processes. Perhaps you can help me; which is is preferable to you

1. a lightly grazed knee

2. being left mangled and paralysed in a car crash

Uhh 2? what is your point?

A grazed knee is bad, being mashed in a pileup is bad. There are degrees of badness, which seems something you have ignored when asking "Maybe all existential risks are bad?"

Perhaps I misunderstood you?

Existential risk = extinction of humanity.

I'm not sure how there are degrees of extinction of humanity that are bad.

I misunderstood you, apologies, point taken.

But not agreed with. 'Asteroid sometime' != 'climate change happening now'. So degree is not in size but likelihood.

Also climate change is independent of phat rock from space, it does not exclude it.

I agree with you, but I don't think spending a small amount of resources on a less likely but still 1% in next 1000 years existential risk is a bad resource allocation or a "distraction"

so "1% in next 1000"? No, I still don't get you, I mean that figure's blatant nonsense, it would just about have guaranteed a hit in the past million years (0.99 ^ 1,000 = chance of not being hit ~= 4.3E-5).

from wiki "a comet of sufficient size to cause human extinction could impact the Earth, though the annual probability may be less than 10 ^ −8"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophe_scenarios#A...

You're absolutely right - a total brain fart, I was thinking of the risk of an Aphophis style collision [0], but this would not be existential at all.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

It happens, no worries!

Maybe a culture of interest in all of them could be conducive to acting to deal with all of them.

The unfolding catastrophe of Global Climate Disruption is one among many existential threats. Addressing just any one is an insufficient response, but maybe addressing any adequately would unlock attention to the rest.

It's essentially a post-processing step using government data, so a supplement to the government funded programs.

Didn't expect Tito's to have donated a million bucks to this!

The founder of Tito’s, Bert Beveridge, has a background in geophysics, and he’s a billionaire. I’m sure he thinks it’s money well spent, to which I’d agree.

Bert Beveridge, founder of a beverage company? That's some solid nominative determinism right there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism

Existential risk is a threat to their bottom line!

Real startup trying to save the world probably will never even make 0.01% of the richest man in the world’s wealth

I mean, it’s probably worth watching “Don’t Look Up” to see what the best case scenario is for this.

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