Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking gave a lecture in Australia last week (although he attended by a remote link from England). In his talk Hawking suggested that humanity will probably not survive the next millennium. So he suggested that humanity must find another habitation somewhere in the universe.

I have little doubt that Hawking is a brilliant scientist but his occasional pronouncements about human life and humanity are naive. Let's examine the present suggestions.

I suspect that Hawking is probably correct that humanity is in a desperately declining situation on earth. If global warming and its consequent climate charge continue at the present rate. Humanity will be significantly stressed by the end of this century. Meanwhile, our careless style of life on this planet will continue to drive other animals into extinction. Given that, I am wondering why we should do anything to resist our own extinction. Why should humanity be special? We are, after all, just another animal species for which life on this planet is becoming impossible (ironically because of our own thoughtless behavior).

Hawking is by no means unique in suggesting that we should colonize another planet-like place in the universe. But no one ever seems to think about how this would actually be done. Of course, there is the technical problem, but everyone believes that can be solved. What is ignored is the enormous social problem. That is, who will go? Naturally, so far as our country is concerned, only the really wealthy dudes will get to go. 99% of Americans can just give it up. But who is to say that Americans have much to do with this. What about all the other people who make up "humanity"? And will this new habitation be populated with Christians or Muslims or Buddhists? Who gets to say what happens there? Frankly, we'd all be best off is religion is not allowed at all! Shall we take all our guns? Will we take some animals with us?

OK, I see a lot of space here for science-fiction writing, but I don't see our dysfunctional political world dealing with it in any rational way. If we can't manage our own nice earthly world, there's little hope for managing some substitute world.