[extropy-chat] How to destroy the earth

Hal Finney hal at finney.org
Tue Mar 15 18:28:02 UTC 2005


As if you didn't have enough to worry about...

http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html is an interesting page on how
to destroy the earth.  The author, Sam Hughes, takes a tongue in cheek
approach to one of the favorite goals of super-villains.  His mission
statement: "For the purposes of what I hope to be a technically and
scientifically accurate document, I will define our goal thus: by any
means necessary, to render the Earth into a form in which it may no longer
be considered a planet. Such forms include, but are most definitely
not limited to: two or more planets; any number of smaller asteroids;
a quantum singularity; a dust cloud."

Of course Extropians have often considered how to destroy the earth,
with the intention of having something (more) useful left over.

Hughes also has a page on how to move the earth,
http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/moving.html.  He includes an analysis of
the classic idea of getting everyone on the planet to jump at the same
time, similar in spirit to the one Spike offered (for a single person's
jump) yesterday: "Which means the distance the Earth moves when everybody
jumps will be one trillionth of the distance that all the people jumped:
that is to say, 10-11 metres, or about half the radius of a hydrogen
atom."  At least that's better than the Planck length.

Hal



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