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Comment by orthecreedence | Hacker News Reader

I think the funniest thing is that sure, we can detect an asteroid barreling towards us, but what the hell are we going to do about it? Maybe it's better not to know. Some things are so completely out of our control that knowing it's going to happen could only cause more suffering.

I think the problem is that humans (or most animals, I guess) are just reacting to stimuli around them 99% of the time. So if something bad happens, we tend to waste time and resources making sure that same exact thing won't happen again when life is adapting so much that chances are something new will happen next time.

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There's plenty we could do about it if we knew an asteroid was coming. With years of warning, we could use nuclear explosives to deflect it. With days of warning, we could at least evacuate affected areas.

In fact, we are plenty good at imagining disasters that could conceivably happen. Most of them never do; if we put our efforts into imagined disasters, we wouldn't have time to do anything about the real ones. The way we tell which is which is, necessarily, to wait and see what actually happens, then take steps to guard against similar disasters in the future. Reality is smarter than we are. We need to pay more, not less, attention to what it tells us.

In some cases there are things we can do, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_tractor

For example in this situation, warning could be issued to get away from windows and cover you in big octopus that will absorb all glass shards.

Something like this.

This happens once every 100 years.

The cynic in me thinks it's cheaper for society to just let it happen instead of using tons of money on teaching citizens to get away from windows in the unlikely event of a meteor.

How many citizens do you think would get away from windows if they receive an SMS telling them to? And how many who weren't at the windows would go stand in the window to look at the great shiny thing?

You sir, nailed every concern on the head. Same with fighting drugs, climate control, that shit eats money like there is no tomorrow and no effect.

Eventually when technologically we will be advanced this will/can be prevented.

Same with toilets, few hundred years ago we had none in apartments, now without one someone might die :D

I might be one of these people who would make whatever means to see meteor after warnings/announcements to go in underground bases(aka evangelion).

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