Particles found to break speed of light
An international group of scientists have reported that numerous experiments over the last 3 years have shown neutrinos travelling faster than light.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/science-light-idUSL5E7KM4CW20110922
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
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Again, missing the point. The point is not the survival of life, but the survival of civilization.
Not always. Guns are cheap. Taking over a land is easier than starving.
The Atlantic Ocean. What happens when the starving ones are the Americans, after their previously fertile lands evaporate into dust? You want to fight off the Yanks?
Trust me, they have way better guns than we do.
Mountains: Caucasus, Alps, Carpathians, Balkans, etc.
And if you find yourself among those dying?
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I think I have a slightly better re-wording of the first one:
The bartender said, "We haven't had your kind around here before." A neutrino walked into a bar.
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Like it.
1: I wasn't attempting to say the civilisation of Rome literally survived at any point in this discussion. I've constantly been attempting to drive home the fact that it existence and destruction and its influence had a profound impact on most or all of the societies of today. The very catholic takeover you mention was precipitated by Rome. As was everything that followed. There is a distinct Roman flavour to many civilisations today. Latin, an effectively dead language, is still practised in formality. Any attempt to deny the distinct and direct influence of Rome on today's societies is ridiculous.
2: No more than I believe I'm the same person I was 10 years ago. I'm guilty of using a bad analogy here though, and believe we'll backtrack too far if we proceed along this course in order to define its origin.
3: So we had a few hundred bad years, so what? We never approached extinction, and tonnes of information managed to survive it.
The dark ages were a bit more than the collapse of a civilisation too.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
There were plagues, a possible strike from a celestial object, a possible major volcanic event, and possible dramatic climate change beyond the capacity of the civilisation to contribute to or prevent. All that in combination with the largest and longest religious conflict in known history combined to set us back only a thousand years. At a time when the average person was completely ignorant compared to the average person today. Even religious fundamentalists today have, on average, a far greater understanding of natural sciences than the people of the time. The entire medical sciences were still archaic and run by priests and charlatans. Physics was in its infancy. Micro-anything didn't exist. Metallurgy was just learning about iron and bronze.
There are no parallel risks of a similar dark age today as there were after the fall of Rome, with the exception of nuclear technology.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
7->4: And you're missing MY point. Our civilisation is not necessary for the future of humanity. It can be replaced.
5+: Then where are the African hordes? Don't try and tell me water or mountains are an impassable obstacle. In order to defeat your proposed threatening farmer, if all I need is a little water or a rock to keep him back then I'll never have to shoot him to defend my habitat.
6: Then I'll die too. Though a mountain or ocean wouldn't stop me from migrating either, so it's hard to say. As long as I'm better armed and more resourceful than my competition, I still have a remote chance of survival, and my survival instincts wouldn't let me lay down. But I'd be fully aware of how fucked I was, and wouldn't be very optimistic.
My death is inevitable anyway.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.