will humanity ever be able to stop cosmic events?

[Dhrizzle]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardas...zation_methods will be able to do it.
If we live for long enough to reach it.
I'd be happy with type 2 within my life time. But type 3 will requires thousands or tens of thousands of years of development, unless an ASI would have all the answers for us.

We'd be lucky to reach type 1 in our lifetimes, type 2 might not be obtainable within the lifetime of the sun and type 3 might as well be fantasy.

That's a very big assumption. I don't see anything remotely like that happening until we master genetics and literally breed it out of ourselves.

Are you kidding? The vast majority of human beings are more than capable of getting on with each other without fighting.

[Akka]

I literally used the word upscaling, which indicates that it wouldn't actually need changes, it would only require to be larger.

Yes, and my answer was about how this reasoning is completely absurd.
Let me repeat it (and just read this thread to confirm it) : most people have absolutely no idea what the scale of cosmological stuff really means. They just think "it's big" and see a bunch of zero. But they don't realize.

[Deleted]

We are the creators of this universe in the past living now for fun...

[Felicia]

I'd like to think so at the rate our technology grows every decade... but the powers involved would have to agree on a course of action to take... and actually agree on it first. Sometimes not doing anything can be your own worst enemy, and in our case... their inability to agree would be the same as inaction... for the most part. The only thing limiting humanity is humanity itself.

[Adam Jensen]

CMEs happen all the time. There's no real reason to stop them currently.
Black holes could theoretically be diverted using a gravity tow. Ditto asteroid (although there are other ways to do this, there's literally a planned asteroid capture mission now, though for study, not to divert disaster).
The ability to stop a near earth supernova: probably not. Definitely not in our lifetimes.

CME's are a threat, we just almost never get hit by a strong one directly. In the 1850s we got hit by a very powerful CME that, if it had hit today, would have knocked out satellites and done serious damage to the power grid.

As to supernovas, there are no stars near enough to earth that will go supernova with enough of a blast to be an issue for us.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

We'd be lucky to reach type 1 in our lifetimes

Exactly. I have doubts that we will. I think if our forward thinkers were in charge it would be SLIGHTLY possible. But money is what's in control and a lot of money is made keeping us in type 0. But to think we will jump from zero to 2 in a single lifetime is comical. I think it would take something along the lines of alien up lifting to accomplish and even then it would be questionable. It's taken all of our history to see 1 is even possible. The jump between 1 and 2 is just as big if not bigger. While I see technology accelerates itself over history to expect say a million years to be compressed into a hundred for example and that is if we woke up on Monday to find out we were type 1 and truth be told I feel we aren't even to the point of that being realistic. I mean we still kill each other over what ancient book is right about the invisible man in the sky and who controls the dead plants and animals from the past to burn for inefficient power. We got a long ways to go.

[Deleted]

Yes, and my answer was about how this reasoning is completely absurd.
Let me repeat it (and just read this thread to confirm it) : most people have absolutely no idea what the scale of cosmological stuff really means. They just think "it's big" and see a bunch of zero. But they don't realize.

Well that is also why I used the term theoretically. We do have the knowledge, resources and means to produce things that could stop or at least prevent some level of the disaster of some of the things that OP mentioned. I say theoretically, because we can also level an entire nation and plaster it all with asphalt, it is theoretically doable, but it isn't something that can be done without great effort.

[Thoughtcrime]

Are you kidding? The vast majority of human beings are more than capable of getting on with each other without fighting.

I always find the sentiment that humans are somehow inherently violent and prone to war confusing as well. People talk about it like war is human nature and not a human construct that developed VERY recently in anthropological history. Also despite what the news may try to convince people of, it's clear that we live in by far the most peaceful era in human history.

[Shadowferal]

I always find the sentiment that humans are somehow inherently violent and prone to war confusing as well. People talk about it like war is human nature and not a human construct that developed VERY recently in anthropological history. Also despite what the news may try to convince people of, it's clear that we live in by far the most peaceful era in human history.

It's not about war. It's about violence. And that is indeed a part of human nature as it's been since humanity ever existed.

[Thoughtcrime]

It's not about war. It's about violence. And that is indeed a part of human nature as it's been since humanity ever existed.

What I was quoting was itself a quote of someone directly talking about war. Violence can't hold back humanities progress. People fight all the time, and you can't change that. War is different.

[Trassk]

we can't even stop global warming, so.. no.

[Shadowferal]

Mideast is always at war, with their neighbors, within itself...
Heck, India still thinks it could win a nuclear exchange with Pakistan (over Kashmir), but they aren't oblivious to the real enemy; China.
The Ukraine is still worried over Russians pissing over the border...
And should we even mention Islam all over the EU?
And that's not even getting into any of the African nations...(although there are quite a few that seem very pleasant compared to their neighbors)
I don't believe that there are many in the world singing Kumbaya...

A meteor right about now might appear a literal godsend for many.
And I believe the only nation that might be able to do anything immediate would be China. (That's a hunch)

[Donald Hellscream]

Maybe asteroids and shit like that but supernovas? I wouldn't count on it, in a few billion years the sun is gonna run out of juice and that means goodbye earth. Now of course there is no telling what the world will be in a few billions years but I doubt we will ever be able to do anything about the sun burning out.

[unbound]

that is to say stuff like coronal mass ejections,near earth supernova,earth ending asteroid,etc. by deploying technology to either redirect it,absorb all or some of the effects to lessen or negate the effects of it,or stop it completely or use of a whatever element or molecule or particle is a repellent to the threat at hand or combination thereof? (excluding black holes not sure anything can stop those.) what would be needed for that to happen? will it happen in our lifetimes? (the ability to counter these threats not the threats themselves.)
i know nasa has a working plan for asteroids but not aware of anything for the others and congress had a hearing on hardening the electronic systems.

Not for a very, very long time for most of those. In the meantime, we have to make sure we don't kill ourselves or our habitat (i.e. Earth) because of our insatiable greed and ego before we get that far.

Diverting asteroids can be done with current technology if we see it far enough away.

A direct CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) like 1859 would be severely crippling today, but we would recover; I would suspect that sometime in the far future, we will probably look to harvesting CMEs for energy. You don't see any real efforts towards hardening electrical systems because it would negatively impact profits. Only once we experience a direct CME will we likely do anything about it. (FYI, for those unaware, there are about 30 CMEs a year, but a CME directed at Earth is about a once in a 100 year event that we probably haven't experienced since the 1859 storm)

[poser765]

We never traveled beyond our moon and did not travel to equal distances in decades. We should have visited mars by now for years already. Means we lost some of our capabilities by now.
I would love to see humankind live on space stations orbiting Jupiter and Saturn to study their moons. But we have to leave the boundaries of solar system one day.

"Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever." Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky

We didn't LOSE the capability...we lost the will to pay for it. We could probably have someone on the moon before summer if we really needed to and on mars in a year or two. The problem is funding. Right now there is very little immediate financial return for a huge expense to get there. The problem is economics...not capability.

[May90]

Depends on of what scale events we are talking about. Stopping relatively small asteroids is, probably, doable even now, with proper investment. Stopping a small star flying in to form a binary system with the Sun would be extremely difficult, borderline impossible, with, pretty much, any tech, since we just don't have enough material in our system to possibly stop that. And something like a heavy neutron star passing by... We are dead meat, no matter at what technological stage we are.

[breadisfunny]

That's a very big assumption. I don't see anything remotely like that happening until we master genetics and literally breed it out of ourselves.

with countries becoming more and more interconnected i think we will eventually enter into a state where war is a disadvantageous idea for either side to engage in.

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we can't even stop global warming, so.. no.

we can stop it we just don't WANT to.

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You will need Draenei technology for that

never. their satanic evil technology will only corrupt the minds of the innocent.

[frogger237]

We didn't LOSE the capability...we lost the will to pay for it. We could probably have someone on the moon before summer if we really needed to and on mars in a year or two. The problem is funding. Right now there is very little immediate financial return for a huge expense to get there. The problem is economics...not capability.

Yeah and this is prob why we never will get to the point we can stop cosmic events. Unless of course we start another space race.

And even then by the time we get the technology to do so we most likely wont be called humans anymore.

[Kofisan]

Just remember: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

[Mormolyce]

I don't think any of those things are cosmic events. Celestial maybe? :P

Even redirecting an asteroid would be difficult with our present level of tech. As for "ever"... well that's a big word. Maybe in the distant future.