/sci/ - Science & Math

I press them both

1

We could leave earth by then.

I press 1, of course.

There's a whole new world next door, and we know how to get there.

2
It doesn't matter if it's us or not.
As a matter of fact, our species kind of suck.
The important bit is that something good comes out of this rock.

200 is time enough.

>>3661168
>implying this rock is not one of billions capable of supporting life

1, no brainer

All 3 of them.

Those two buttons look like red pudding in a plate.
Am too hungry to press the button, the world can wait my digestive system.

>>3661167
>mfw it's gonna take you 500 years to terraform that world and you'll have to live in a silvery Russian cigarette.

second button
i will be remembered as the savior of intelligent life and worshipped like a god by the new race
lol, jk
the new race will be too intelligent to believe in a god

Option 1 would only work if everyone on the planet was aware of the choice you made so that they'd get their asses in gear. We won't be off this rock in 200 years unless some far-off life-threatening thing is discovered to speed up the process.

1) 200 years is not enough time to plan a long-term, deep space operation for ALL of humanity.
2) Though science has "proven" life can exist on other planets, we have not yet confirmed that by the time our space travel vessels break down we will have found or visited one.
3) Because of 2), we cannot confirm that there is another planet suitable for life other than Earth. It would be our inherit responsibility to make sure the only planet to harbor life goes on after we don't.
4) Button 2 also allows for the world to be repopulated. Within 20 years we can create a complete compendium of human knowledge from every corner of the world, create a means for the next generation of humans to find it and use this information to do things the right way. More so, the down time between human existence will get the damage we've done to it back to a minimal level, and stay that way in the there after due to aforementioned knowledge arc.

Coming to this deduction, button 2 would be the more predominant answer.

>>3661174
>implying every body chooses 1 because of their ego of humans

It's retards to fucking destroy something that took billions of years to form and also has other undiscovered/discovered species...regardless of other planets that may be the same...

>>3661186
< 100 years for largely temperate thick atmosphere with small oceans, < 300 years for breathable atmosphere, perhaps less.

>>3661280
>1) 200 years is not enough time to plan a long-term, deep space operation for ALL of humanity.

What?

1. The Martian humans will miss it, but we'll soldier on.

If you pick 1 you're basically the reason why humanity and the world in general sucks.
You're bending facts and blinding yourself with deluded hope to serve your own worthless interests.
By picking 2 there is nothing to lose. Another species would be as good as ours in the long run.
By picking 1 you're taking a huge gamble on everything we have just to save yourself.

>>3661391
By picking 2 you're an edgy aspie that hates everything

Problem?

>people picking 2

What happened to having some PRIDE in your species, son(s)?

Singularity is in 50 years, we'll become techno-gods who don't need a planet within 200.

>>3661391
>If you pick 1 you're basically the reason why humanity and the world in general sucks.
>You're bending facts and blinding yourself with deluded hope to serve your own worthless interests.
OK, so at this point I thought you were some kind of edgy nihilist, but then
>By picking 2 there is nothing to lose. Another species would be as good as ours in the long run.
>By picking 1 you're taking a huge gamble on everything we have just to save yourself.
You've still got a dogmatic "Your values are wrong, my values are right" thing going?

Even if you value all life according to its sapience, it could be a hundred million years or more before human-level intelligence reappears.

You sure we can't just pull off the singularity before then?

>>3661391

>he doesn't understand exponential technological growth
>laughinggirlseatingsalad.jpg

1) press 2
2) keep in secret
3) do whatever you want in 19 years

second button

it was a good life, i guess

>>3661412
MTV and Bronies took it away from me.

>>3661484
Oooh! Maybe if you press 2, MLP will happen IRL!

I changed my vote, I'm pressing 2.

>>3661427
Time is a non-issue as long as it happens, and it does according to the hypothesis.

Like I said, we lose nothing with 2, you risk everything with 1.
You're taking an unnecessary risk just because you value your life and your own community more than Life. It's not a rational choice. It's animalistic, instinctive behavior.
The "singularity" may not happen and then we're fucked. Even if it happens, it may not be enough. We'll just be smart enough to realize we can't do anything in the time we've left and then we're fucked. Even if it's enough and we get out of here, we'll lose most of the Earth's species and live in a hellish shithole like Mars for the rest of Eternity, thinking about that time were we had a cool planet but we sacrificed it because it was a generation of selfish assholes who made the choice.

>>3661524
>we lose nothing with 2
You lose hundreds of millions of years.

>>3661524
>live in a hellish shithole like Mars for the rest of Eternity
>implying we would be stuck on Mars forever, even though we were not stuck on Earth forever

You go on about being "rational", but your reasoning doesn't seem very impartial.

>>3661508

>>3661550
>>3661524
We need to modify Mars to not be a hellish shithole.

>>3661508

>>3661280
200 is certainly enough to colonize Mars, especially if the world is aware of the deadline, and all terrestrial resources are mobilized for this.

On the other hand, is it enough to transport all of the 7 billion, or god knows how much more it will be by then, to Mars? That's not so certain. Who do you leave behind? What if more want to go than can be sent? Hopefully, godfags will want to stay because they think it's god's will or some stupid shit like that, but if so then they'll probably complain that money must go to the infidels' futile act of defiance against God.

Resolve these issues, /sci/.

>>3661551

In all seriousness though

If no one but a select few believes this is happening, well, at least we'll all die without dread.

If everyone believes it, then we don't have to take 10 billion~ people to space, just institute a one child only policy and let the human population collapse from lack of reproduction, until the number is an acceptable amount.

Life existing is inevitable, bitches.

Listen up. If one presses button 2, then everyone dies in 20 years. That means all the accumulated neurological development, and cultural interpretation of that neurological development, will be destroyed instantly. Throwing away the possibility that a future race may be faced with this same choice, if even a small fraction of humanity survives to live in space, they will have with them an archive of human progress, and genetic material from most species, as per the advancement of hard drive space. This means that giving humanity a chance to seed another planet with a million year evolutionary head-start will cause a greater amount of progress than what would happen if we just let some other species do the job.

Thinking that we'll have the technology to sustain space-life is reasonable considering the accelerating returns we've seen in the last few decades regarding science, and having human colonists in space would still preserve the life and symbols of the planet earth, with which the space people can just colonize a planet.

>>3661598
200 years is plenty of time to figure out an optimal mix of intellectuals (professors, scientists, researchers), artists (actors, painters, poets, writers, photographers), professionals (pilots, engineers, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc), skilled laborers (farmers, butchers, drivers, delivery people, construction workers, etc), and a few unskilled laborers (trash collectors, ditch diggers, rappers, etc) for the future of mankind.

Keep out anybody who has ever been on welfare or declared bankruptcy. Keep out anybody with strong religious ties. Keep out anybody who lobbied for special interests. Keep out all bureaucrats. Keep out anybody whose GPA was below a 2.2. Keep out anybody who can't tell the difference between "their," "there," and "they're." Keep out anybody who majored in Communications or Women's Studies. Keep out anybody over the age of 45 or younger than 10. Keep out anybody with preexisting medical conditions.

That'll shorten the list very nicely. After that, just take a random selection. You want a little bit of random choice in the whole matter to keep things from unintentional bias points.

Who to actually send is a much simpler problem than any others in this scenario.

>>3661653
> Keep out anybody with strong religious ties.
I hope you're ready for a war.

>>3661653
>Who to actually send is a much simpler problem than any others in this scenario.
If you're the world dictator, sure.

>>3661601

why doesn't anybody respond to the less controversial sounding posts?


>>3661666

Chaptcha related

"shiptim Royalists"

>>3661680
I agreed and had nothing immediate to add, and trolls don't perceive you as a good mark.

1. Humanity needs all it can take.

2
I like the reset button

'Abort, Retry, Fail?' was the phrase some wormdog scrawled next to the door of the Edit Universe project room. And when the new dataspinners started working, fabricating their worlds on the huge organic comp systems, we'd remind them: if you see this message, always choose 'Retry.'
Bad'l Ron, Wakener, Morgan Polysoft

>>3661142
>>3661142
I choose to NOT choose, and nobody can MAKE me push one of those buttons -- and if they do, then it is NOT my choice. Deal with it.

>>3661731
The default is #2. Is this awesome (y/n)?

>>3661731
> not understanding the situation is a metaphor

1, because if i press 2 i'll die early

1. Any other option is for faggots.

>>3661142
picking one would force humanity to unite and work towards revolutionalizing space travel and living.
if they fail, humanity dies along with the earth.
sounds like a great idea to test the longevity and true value of the human species.

>Aspies pick one

>>3661731
failure to press the buttons causes the universe to explode.

2

I pick button one and will die before I see the consequences, no problem here. it's basically push 2 if you want to die in 20 years, pick 1 if you want to die at a later date.

>>3661757
However, if humanity fails, then you don't get the future chance for the non-human Earth sentients.

>>3661767
>he thinks earth is unique

>>3661757
>hurr durr instead i kill humanity off!! so edgy!!

Fuck you, if we can't have this earth, nobody can.

>>3661320
You're one of those that thinks the planet has more of a right to exist than us aren't you?

The planet doesn't care, honest, I asked.

If you want to blame someone for ruining the planet, blame those plants and their horrid oxygen pollution.

Last I checked, the planet does care. And since humanity is just a limb, She's more than willing to cut us off in order to survive.

>>3661794
Aspie.

>>3661767
and? if they fail, then the future was not viable in the first place.
their failure is a testimony to their eventual extinction by their own hand within the same time period regardless.
either way, humanity would leave it's mark on the galaxy and possibly even be discovered later by another sentient species.

>infinite universe
>earth exists, harbors life, majority of life is in the crust (98+%)
>thinks our limited technology could actually tell if other planets truly had life unless they had built huge cities with blaring lights and other near-impossible-not-to-notice irregularities.

>mfw when /sci/ would destroy the whole planet due to sci-fi-esque delusions
>ishygddt
>wtf am i seeing here
>2211

>>3661746
>not catching the legitimate ethical statement made on the nature of responsibility, and responsibility to intervene in hopeless catastrophes
You probably think utilitarianism-motivated murder is a no-brainer.

>>3661553
Source on that picture?

Press button one and watch us go fucking super saiyan to relocate another planet.

1. why would you want to destroy all this scientific history that took so long to get? there's no guarantee that the other species would obtain the same discoveries.

>>3661822
humanity will procrastinate until they have 20 years left, and the whole project will fail

>>3661839
>this is what furfags believe
stop projecting.

>>3661653
I like your proposal. Howeever the randomness of the selection bothers me. If your values, genes and character have made you eligible for this space ark then you deserve to go. It would be wasted potential.

>>3661794
The planet cares? How do you know? It's not sentient. It's not a "she", it's a rock.

It's only important because it's important to us.

There's no reason to choose the second option over the first.

>>3661794
Check again it's a rock that's had shit smeared on it!

>>3661903
mah nigga!

>>3661907
I like your description better than mine >>3661903

First option easily, We'd be doing future generations a disservice by choosing the first.

I saw the argument that suggested picking the first was risking everything and the second risked nothing.

The only reason the second risks nothing is because it assures our demise.

>>3661988
with such great risks comes the potential for catastrophic and utter failure or complete success.

what's to stop the species that comes after us from falling into the same pitfalls and petty wars?
nothing.

Not choosing one dooms not only your own species, but dooms another.

>>3661186
>mars
>terraforming
lol'd

First button.
Fuck earth. The Universe has billions of planets

both will happen anyway...

I contest the button's power!

>>3662010
Dooms another that doesn't exist yet. And wouldn't exist without choosing the second option. It's like saying

"Not having sex before dying not only dooms you, but dooms your child"

Fuck you, I'm committing sudoku.

>>3662025
>lol i didn't understand what you said so i'm going to use a strawman

What prevents the following intelligent species from not failing in the same way we as a species have?

>>3662042
Nothing at all.

How is that relevant? I'm not arguing for the second option.

>>3662071
I don't know, think about how that applies to the topic of the thread, specifically why in the world you pick option two?

stupid fuck.

>>3662042
>next species is probably going to die off for another like us
>better make the whole world collapse with it's hundreds and hundreds of species
>won't be any other race to fail in the first place
>not give them a chance

Hurr durr humans are special hurr

I press the top button and tell no one

Infinite choco tacos

>>3662080
It doesn't make me want to choose option two at all. In fact it seems like a reason not to.

Choosing option two doesn't mean the next species will definitely survive, so it's also a big risk, us sacrificing everything even though it's not a sure thing.

I would still hit button one.

>>3662084
Why would we give this next race a chance when we can give ourselves a chance?

>>3662103
humans by nature are socialist

>>3662084
>sacrifice all technology in favor of a new intelligent species that will have to reinvent everything.
>give them a chance
>whatthefuckamireading.jpeg

>>3662110
Socialism has no relevance. The scenario is about sacrificing ourselves for others, socialism is completely different.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you?

>>3662110
let's throw you out in the wilderness with ten other people, and provide you no with none of the technological marvels such as a metal knife.
see how quickly murder occurs over a simple meal, watch how men dominate society once again, remind me again how this is socialist.

>>3662103
>Give human race chance, unlikely to space travel in 200 years, killing ourselfs already, devided in countries when we're all humans, could work on establishing a knowledge deta base for other race to learn from our mistakes when they're ready....

=equals=

>Destroy the only life harboring planet in solar system and a bit further, includes other relatively intelligent creature, not as much as humans, undiscovered species also, took millions of years of evolution, billions to form....

>>3662155
it's easy enough to catalog the life of planet earth.
biological samples can be used to propagate the organism once again.

>>3662155
>unlikely to space travel in 200 years
Completely untrue.

>devided[sic] in countries when we're all humans
Irrelevant.

>could work on establishing a knowledge data base for other race to learn from our mistakes.
You're so quick to give up on us so soon. Don't do that.

>Destroy the only life harboring planet in solar system
What does that matter? If we survive then we could make other planets life harbouring.

>includes other relatively intelligent creature
We would save as many as we could/wanted to.

>took millions of years of evolution
It's really, really not relevant.

>>3662180
>mfw risking all species existence on earth for the probably of space travel capability in 200 years that will hold billions of people, let alone the time to construct the ship and planning

Top one. Because fuck dying in 20 years time.

>>3661601
>just institute a one child only policy and let the human population collapse from lack of reproduction, until the number is an acceptable amount.

why not just have a no child policy so nobody dies and nobody has to devote resources to colonizing a shitty planet

>>3662211
you do realize that in times of desperation and in the face of tremendous odds, humanity excels.
look at the world wars and see how technology was revolutionized every year as the war went on.
>billions
>why the fuck would you do that.
>misrepresenting the entire idea of a united earth for 200 years.

>>3662211
Yes, I would absolutely risk every species on earth if it would save humans.

In fact, if it assured the survival of humanity. I would slaughter every animal myself.

>>3662185
>200 years
>construct spaceship
>able to hold billions of people
>hold other animal species
>construction has to be done in space
>multiple lunchs for supplies
>planning on travel
>find another light sustaining planet
>probably light years away
>200 years
>200

>>3662243
*life

>>3662243
>i am a retard and believe that technology would not progress at all in the next 200 years.
>in fact, i actually believe that all humans on earth would have to relocated, instead of actually planning anything at all.
>just throw them all into a steel bucket and throw it at mars, those billions of people will sure be practical in the initial expansion.

1. in 200 years, we should be able to have a sustainable colony on other worlds. Plus, I doubt the next sapient creatures will be any better at not killing themselves or the planet

>>3662243
You think we'd do it all in one trip?

In 20 years we could have habitats on mars, have decent plantlife growing in those habitats within 30 years.

In fact, we would most likely send animals before humans.

Priorities involve being able to build more habitats from mars after earth blows up. And ensuring there is enough resources for everyone.

We'd have people stripping the earth for everyone, fuck natural reserves, we'd take all we could.

The transportation of the people is the shortest process.

>>3662243
>multiple lunchs for supplies
you're going to need a hell of a lot of lunches, faggot.

I expect we'll have a permanent colony on mars within 200 years anyway, so the first is the logical option, we'll just have to build more and larger colonies.

Every country either pitching in, or joining with another country, pooling resources.

>>3662254
That was the least of your worries.

>>3662302
unstoppable doomsday scenerio that isn't a threat caused by a particular nation would unite the world in an effort to survive.
the greatest minds would be pooled along with funding from the entire world.

>>3662327
Not every country would unite. I think that's unrealistically optimistic. The USA and Europe maybe, but I doubt China would join them.

I don't think there would be many splits though, and I don't think it would mean they would all become single countries for good once they got there, more, a temporary partnership that forever strengthened their ties and trust with each other. Each country still does like independence.

Hey faggots, let's make this interesting: Some faggot picked number 2. The authority conducting the button pressing announces it to the world. We will go extinct in 20 years, exact date and even time is known. No chance it won't happen, no chance to prevent it, no chance to escape.

After the ensuing bawwfest dies down, humanity now faces the task of leaving a legacy for our eventual successors, and cleaning up the world to ensure their success, all in just 20 years. How will this be done?

Consider:
- Human infrastructure, without constant attention, will fail catastrophically resulting in fires, nuclear explosions, and catastrophic pollution events.
- Human biotechnology, unattended and in the wild, could potentially cause ecological collapse.
- If human culture, history and technology is to be recorded for our heirs to find, it must be stored in a durable manner (perhaps in orbit?) for potentially many thousands of years. It must also be encoded in a way that a species with entirely alien mindsets would be able to decipher and understand to a meaningful degree (this part is the same as the "sending messages to aliens" problem). And at what stage should they become exposed to our knowledge? Would interfere with their biological and cultural evolution negatively if they found relics from our time, or outright "wills" of a whole species?
- There is the option of encoding our enormous amount of information on human biology and genome somehow, and humbly asking the species that replaces us to clone and revive our species. Surely their attitude to this would be very heavily influenced by our legacy.

Man, thinking about me makes me sad.

Button #2.

Because some day we'll be the ancient aliens.

Im living more than 20 years so button 1

One problem with option 1 if everyone knows about the deadline and is working towards preparing for it, is riots leading up to the deadline.

If there's even a small chance that some people are going to be left behind, they are going to flip their shit, and possibly attack whatever program is set up to take people to safety.

>>3662348
perhaps unity was the wrong word.
rather, they would be forced to collaborate to succeed

>>3662486
do you not think that martial law would not be instituted?
the entire human species is on the line, killing a couple thousand rioters isn't a problem to anyone wishing to perpetuate the species.

>press button 1
>proclaim to the world media, you pressed button one in some random test and humanity has 200 years to get to mars
>nobody believes you and eevryone disregards you as a loon

>>3662519
dont forget that muslims would mass suicide bomb the starship once it is complete.

ok, what would happen if we split earth in 2 and flew off with the smaller piece? would the larger part blow up on its own as it is ''earth'' or would both fragments blow up?

Press the shit out of 1. It will be like Exodus all over again and it will be fucking magnificent.

>>3662557
countries that are detrimental to the cause would be destroyed utterly by a global coalition.

>>3662568
christian radicals could do the same thing. like in that film where that chick goes in that machine that spins and shit.

>>3662578

You mean the one based on the book by Carl Sagan, right?

>>3662578
there are far less christian radicals, those stupid enough to believe that they should embrace the doom, let them embrace it early.

Why do people think we aren't capable of getting off earth in 200 years?

Does nobody know what China is fucking capable of? Anything China wants to have happen, will happen.

it wouldnt be difficult to create an artificial planet/ship.

All you would need is to make sure the hull is strong and secure enough to not be breached. You could just pick up country worth of dirt and rock and have ''open'' spaces. You would build mass residential bloks housing earth's population that are integrated into the hull. The open space can be used for farming. the suns light can be drawn into those areas to grow natural crops.

All you would need for maintenance is a TON of water, store oxygen (have trees too) and recycle everything.

Heck it wouldnt even take 100 years to achieve this. Then when we have this ship, we can just sail over to mars and send down a colonisation fleet to terraform it and send up raw materials. You can mine water from comets, metals from asteroid belts e.c.t

when mars colonisation is finished everyone can go live there.
fuck we could mine the moon for helium 3

>>3662506
Then yes, I absolutely agree.

>>3662611
or go to that moon around jupiter that has a huge sea underneath its icy surface. a freaking planetwide sea would do us fine for water and oxygen needs

All the pro-suiciders seem sure that we'd actually prepare for the next species to come along.

I doubt we'd do that at all. As a species I mean, I'm sure some will, but the majority will not.

2. Of course I wish it would be 1, but we ain't getting anywhere anytime soon.

I pick 2.

It'd be such a challenge to find a planet suitable for human life and then terraform it in 200 years. Or to provide a base with the tools to terraform AND support enough people.

At least with 2, our genetic cousins, our brothers on this planet, will inherit our legacy and one day take to the stars. It isn't even about protecting our species, it's about protecting this planet and it's many accomplishments. When the snakes become intelligent they'll weep over our sacrifice and devote everything to continuing our supreme mission of colonizing the universe.

HEIL GAIA

I wonder, would countries just stop paying for workers and just tell everyone they have to put in their fair share?

Even if there was no chance we could leave earth. I'd still choose 1. For the simple fact that I get to complete my own life.

>>3662660
>doesn't understand that this is the one opportunity in history for a particular set of countries to be remembered once humanity reaches the stars.
>doesn't understand that whoever opposes survival or hinders it, will be painted as an evil dictator and forever ruined in the history books.

>>3662672
I understand that completely.

Answer me directly.

>>3662690
as stated earlier in this thread, no.
that is far too of an idealistic approach to ever be a reality.
a successful reality anyway.

1.

Because being dead is the same as being unborn.

I press them both at the same time. YEAAAAAAAAAH.

>>3662463
Nobody cares then? I'll have a go myself.

This is assuming everyone on Earth is willing to go through with this, somehow.

* First off, from the beginning, an agreement must be made that everyone tries to make their contribution ASAP, and when they are done, they kill themselves. No sense wasting resources when your knowledge is committed.

* While recording and compiling proceeds, infrastructure is gradually rolled back, and production chains are dismantled after 20-year stockpiles of everything have been created. The very last remnants are rigged to explode seconds after our demise.

* World history and culture can be compiled through worldwide cooperation of historians, sociologists and so on, in a manner similar to wikipedia and that one gold disc we sent, with the Voyager IIRC.

* Encryption is based on Mathematics, which are hoped to be self-evident and universal. The signal's "header" is something simple but distinct, like the prime number sequence in Contact. The message itself has straightforward encryption: First the message has a second header part, which encodes only the specs of the encoding scheme of the message itself. This second header itself is a black and white image, each pixel is transcribed as 1 or 0, the image is square and the dimension is a prime number, the last prime number in the header's sequence. By the way, the first header repeats the last prime number a couple of times to draw attention to it.

* Hopefully the successors will think of rendering the string of bits as a square image, and be able to understand that image, which begins by demonstrating basic arithmetic, then using that to explain a decoding scheme for the main "legacy".

* Our genome, and the plea for restoration, serve as the closing thoughts of the thing, after all our knowledge is explained, and all our history has been objectively laid out, our faults and our triumphs acknowledged.

>>3662785
>giving the knowledge of nukes to people with the petty conflicts of religion and organizations like the papacy ruling the entire world.
great idea

>>3662785
>No sense wasting resources when your knowledge is committed

>>3662785
Cont'd.

* The entire legacy of our species is safe to reveal once our successors have achieved space travel. Thus a satellite (or several redundant ones) seem to be the safest option, as well as a lunar satellite and several on the lunar surface. The locations of backups are described in all messages to avoid confusion.

* By the time they get to space, they will *probably* be mature enough to deal with nukes, if they haven't discovered them already, like we had. Our history will also hopefully guide them.

* Copies of the message should also be sent to space, just in case there IS life out there. I'm not sure if this part should be revealed to our successor species. All copies of the message mention in detail the peril of the cosmic philosopher which doomed our species, and could come for them.

Thoughts/additions, /sci/? I doubt we can just "disappear" from the planet, so our ruins will haunt them for much of their history. It seems careless to leave them no explanation until they can reach orbit. And what if they never do, especially with all the junk we leave in orbit?

>>3662802
They'll find out eventually. It's not that hard. At least this way, we can warn them about what happens.

>>3662814
This assumes 2 is picked and humanity is doomed.

>>3662855
What about leaving with them multiple sources of Human DNA. Who knows, maybe one day they'll want to bring their guiding fathers back to life

>>3662918
As I said, the entire diversity of the human genome, as far as it is known, would be attached to each copy of the message, along with instructions on precisely how to clone us and raise the first generation of children, perhaps with plans of surrogate-mother androids and specially prepared teaching videos, so the children can grow up without parents and not be just dumb animals.

I've said it's best to tell our history as it is, and hope they'll judge us worthy in the end, but there's also the possibility of doctoring our history, and making us look like angels. You REALLY would not want them to find out that one, of course.

>>3662954
Also, after some thought, we may not be able to simply shove every piece of data humanity produced on a hard drive and shoot it in space. We can barely compress it, since then there needs to be a layer describing the very complicated compression algorithm to a species which does not speak our language, and we risk them never figuring out how to read our message.

So what would we do? Should we leave them the best of our film, for example, or equally represent classic works of art, hollywood summer blockbusters and Youtube videos? Because while the latter may be odious, if we leave it out, it will be obvious we did because great art so often references the mundane. They will eventually catch on, and there will come up the question of why we omitted our less admirable work. They may think we wanted to fool them by showing just our good side, for example.

There's no such thing as a button capable of destroying the earth in 200 years or the human race in 20. This thread is bad and OP, like always, is a fag.

>>3662855
>the cosmic philosopher which doomed our species
You mean OP? I'd watch out for that guy too.

Bumping because, I'd still like to hear how /sci/ would deal with guaranteed human extinction in 20 years, or at least a detailed commentary on my program (>>3662785).

1 simply because there are other planets out their that can harbor intelligent life. I'm not a suicidal white guilted misanthrope like the /sci/ fags who watched zeitgeist too many time. Kill yourselves.

/sci/ believe that humanity is an especially awful species, when in truth /sci/fags are just especially retarded.

I'm back.
>>3661759
Fine. Let the entire Universe explode, killing everyone and everything -- including the asshole who is trying to force me to make a choice I refuse to make. If I lose, then EVERYBODY has to lose. Deal with it.

>>3663823
Well it's a symbolic choice, really. Think of it this way, runaway global warming has destabilized world politics, and things are worse than the Cuban missile crisis. You are the general in charge of authorizing the nuke. Minutes remaining in your window of choice, you realize something: The way the world is going, there's no hope- the ecosystem will irreparably collapse in half a century in the best case, and crumbling agriculture will bring humanity down soon after. The planet will take geological times to recover, but humanity will have a few decades to get out.

On the other hand, you push that button, the nuke launches, the retaliation cascade follows, humanity is bombed back into the stone age. The fallout may be bad, but with practically all of the world's industrial capacity and population obliterated in moments, there will be at least some ecosystems left relatively unharmed, and they may even survive the fallout, somehow. Humanity, with its civilization gone, numbers dwindled and spirit broken, certainly won't, nor will you.

Still a million flaws in this but you get the point.

>>3663885
Wait, let me clarify, looks like there's actually two points:

1) OP's scenario may be implausible literally, but the dilemma illustrated is not inherently impossible.

2) The "choice" may be set up such that the very failure to act and precipitate A results in the default outcome B, precluding the "third option".

Option 1, regardless as to whether everyone knows or not, because I'm a dick.

If everyone were to know and believe it, I believe the world would probably pull together, maybe they would even include Africa, who knows. From there it would be relatively simple to allocate the workload to get us off of this planet. I'm not sure whether money would exist or not at this point, we could go all Star Trek, but I'm still going to use the term funds, whatever they may be.

1a. Funds are diverted into finding the best way to get a lot of shit off the planet, be it space elevator, railguns, launch loop, whatever. The math could be done to figure out which were the most realistic. Plans would be put into place and construction would hopefully be finished on an option or two within 20 years. In the meantime we would probably launch shit up the old fashioned way to get supplies up into space.

1b. An international "contest" would be put into place to develop the ships we would be using, they must be able to house the entire population of the planet and then some, multiple ships would be required. We would probably also develop other crafts that we would need, ship to ship transports, cargo crafts, flora/fauna ship, landing crafts, and whatnot. Designs would come in pretty quick I'd imagine, taking just a few years since it would be less of a competition and more of a group effort. Parts of the ships that don't exist would have requirements decided at this point.

1c. Labors are divided up to get everything done asap, mining/refining operations kicked into overdrive, food production managed to be most efficient, schooling changed so everyone has their path decided and they start education to become that job, no longer teaching everyone everything, just what they need to know. Research kicked into overdrive on what we know we need at this point.

Button one will not affect me.

Button two will kill me before I'm even old.

I'll take one.

>>3661142
Obviously the first... If you select the second you're mentally unstable.

>>3663996

2a. Once the planet to space launch infrastructure is in place, we could begin construction on the "space port" or facilities that would be required to build the ships we cannot construct within our atmosphere.

2b. Once the ship designs are decided upon and finalized, we could begin fabricating the parts we needed to use them. This would be done relatively easily, we know how to build a lot of shit fast, yay capitalism. We could then launch them into space to await their use. In orbit construction could begin on sections of the ships as the parts become available.

2c. Researching the parts that don't exist for the ships would be the most important thing for the intellectual community to work on, backup inefficient designs would be made if a breakthrough isn't made in time (ex. can't figure out radiation shielding? Fifteen foot thick outer walls of lead now line every craft). Engines would be the most difficult I'd imagine, gravity would be done by spinning probably, power generation would probably be fission if we can't figure out fusion in X amount of years.

2d. Keep everyone happy in the meantime.

I've no way to really guess how long it would take to build the ships, but I'd imagine that once the designs were in place and production of parts was in full swing, we could do it pretty quickly, we're pretty good at building stuff.

Everyone seems to assume that with everyone breathing down their neck, scientists would become more or at least equally productive. I guess you could say it worked at Los Alamos, but long term, large scale, when accusations start flying around that somebody "isn't working hard enough" or someone is "wasting money on blue sky nonsense", what happens?

Somehow, humanity managed to band together on either side for those 7 years in WWII, but can we postpone petty squabbles for 200 years?

>>3664046

Hopefully by year 120 we would have a ship or two in working order, by this time we would be really efficient at building them and all would be finished by 150. We would have collected most all of the resources we could by 180, and started disassembling and packing up what we needed, which would be shipped up and installed by 190. The armada would be 100% ready for life at 195, and global evacuations would begin by 198. Assuming everything goes well, by 199 we'll have everyone off of this rock and we can start heading to whatever area we decided would be safest to "drop anchor". In 200 the Earth explodes, and we begin our life as space gypsies. Where we go from there would be completely situational, maybe we found that colonizing Mars was realistic, maybe it wasn't and we've got to live on our ships. If that's the case we could anchor next to the Kuiper belt and begin harvesting resources to build stations orbiting whichever planets we decide. It's really difficult to say what would happen at this point, all I know is that we survived.

If I could somehow be guaranteed that we would be able to get away within the 200, then A. No contest
BUT
I dont think that's very likely. I'm not confident in humanity and given the option right now, B.

>>3664087
>space gypsies
I lol'd

How the fuck are you going to completely destroy the planet earth in at a time 200 years from now?

Destroying planets ain't easy bro. Sterilized is doable, but destroyed ain't happening.

>>3664109
Death star OBVIOUSLY

>>3664109
or vogon constructor fleet, yes I like that better.
OPTION ONE NOW CAUSES AN INTERGALACTIC BYPASS TO BE BUILD THROUGH OUR SOLAR SYSTEM IN 200 YEARS TIME.

lol wtf.

so /sci/ somehow knows that in 200 years we will be able to colonise other planets? because obviously our sci-fi projections of the future have historically proven accurate.

if you're not choosing B you're a fucking moron, unless of course you have an actually viable reason.

>>3664201
Well 200 years ago, we couldn't fly, we relied on wind to sail, we didn't have railroads, cars, electricity, antibiotics, hell even the industrial revolution was new and we barely had any science. Who knows what two centuries will bring? This isn't that implausible.

I mean, colonizing Mars can probably be done today if you assumed Earth was fucked anyway and started testing nuclear-powered spacecraft.

Button one is exactly the kind of stimulus humanity needs.

>A, I won't even live 200 years so it won't affect me

if this was your reasoning you are a fucking psychopath, in theory anyway. you are dangerous and probably need to be killed lest you get into a situation where you could benefit by causing immense, passive harm to others

however A does some appeal. assume that humanity -knows- and fully believes which button was picked. if they know they will only live another 20 years, they will do whatever the fuck they want, and probably end up destroying the whole planet in a massive party

pick A, and assuming people fully believe it, and don't just meh it off like environmental issues, and assuming there really exists an upcoming singularity, some good stuff could potentially be done.

however, to the moral solipsists that picked a), i hope you realise that your life will be constant hard work with this option, compared to 20 years of partying with option b) ;)

>>3664248
Yeah, collapse of civilization will be one big celebration.

>>3664258
well it wasn't specified in the question how it would happen, but it seemed to imply an instantaneous destruction once the time was up

so yeah, pretty much :S

ITT OP is "the one." Or, singularity has happened and OP is an undercover computer AI trying to discover how humans will behave so they can decide whether to construct the Matrix or not.

Second option. Humanity can go to hell and I will be their judge.

>>3661168
I disagree.
The important thing to *me* is that I get to enjoy a long and happy life.
So, 1.

Will anyone know the world will be destroyed in 200 years?

never said when I had to press the buttons :0

When do I have to press the button? If I have to press it can my skeleton do it? I would get the guys who do human body plastering. Make my choice and have a delayer which delays it until the entity making me choose has come to see the response then the trigger will snap the answer which has been delegated to my peers. Since I made the choice to delegate to them, they can contrive the best answer and it was still my doing.

I would die if I didn't press the button 1, so it's obviously that one. What do I care about the planet if I can't enjoy it?

1.

Humans have accomplished amazing things before, they can do it again. Seriously, when you tell a nation "do or die", they'll put all their resources into the cause, it's like a total war effort, only you buy space bonds and your bacon grease becomes rocket fuel instead of bombs.

My bets are less than 100 years before giant ships with self containing ecosystems launch outward in all directions...and less than 30 years before the moon is colonized and becomes a construction platform.

what if you press both at the same time?

>>3664559
do you really think people would believe you? you'd have no proof it would happen, you'd be like the niribu people and ignored. even if you had proof of impending doom many wouldn't listen e.g. climate change. and some republicans wouldn't care its the rapture huray.

Press 2

TIME TRAVEL

Fuck squid bitches

>You have to press one of these buttons.

FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME

I'll press 2. I don't hate humanity or myself. I just think condemning a whole planet and its life forms just so to force humans to colonise another world is more cruel. Plus, what? Do you think that out of the billions that inhabit the planet the majority will be able to leave for a new world? Only the rich and intellectual elite will go leaving billions behind.

>press two and then re-define humans as a species of canines

>Option One

Two centuries is not a lot of time. But look at today, compared with the year 1811. The technological wonders that we have now would be enough to intimidate and impress anybody living two centuries ago. In another two centuries, could humanity dedicate their time and resources to evacuating the planet, and colonizing another world? Where would we go? Surely a galactic calamity that could take out Earth would also take out Mars or the Moon or any other solar body. What, then?

>Option Two

If we could somehow be guaranteed the foreknowledge that there would be another sapient species--maybe another of the Great Apes?--that could come along and pick up where we left off...well, that's hoping for rather a lot, for even if they discovered humanity's traces and remnants, would they be able to decipher any of it? Who is to say that their psychology would be like ours, or enough like ours, for them to understand it? Without any language to clue them in to ours...how could they ever learn from our mistakes?

No, I'd pick option one.

I am willing to condemn a whole planet to save my species.

(And yeah, I let the fucking Council die in Mass Effect. Buncha bitches had it coming, fuckers should have listened when I spoke the first time.)

>>3664643

it's not about saving every human, it's about saving humanity.

I'll press A, -not- because I think humanity will live on, no humans will be fucked.

But in 200 years, we'll have plenty of time to develop artificial intelligence far surpassing that of humans, and can then develop immensely intelligent robots capable of space travel, and containing all of the important information - biological and cultural - which have resulted.

This of course will happen regardless of pressing the button. By 200 years, earth is going to be a fucking wasteland, incapable of supporting life due to all the shit we pull as a species, but AI research will have developed to the point that humans are no longer necessary, and for the robots, earth won't be either.

Feels good, man.

>>3664643
Humans are the only conscious being apart from chimps and dolphins but there's only like a million of them and they will probably get eaten by another animal anyway.

You're right though, the chances of humans getting off the planet in 200 years are slim, the Earth can support life for another 800 million years, the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago and we were chimps 6 million years ago so the chances for conscious life are better this way.

Press either of them, we are all just a part of the matrix