[ExI] the end is not nigh

[spike at rainier66.com]

...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
>
>>... The convincing Brout et.al. analysis has now suggested not only that the Big Rip is much farther away, it will not happen at all... spike
> _______________________________________________


>...Rather a long-term worry, though??   ;)  ...BillK

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BillK, it's all a matter of perspective.  I think we can all agree that the Big Rip is absolutely the very worst thing that can happen, ja?  Well, let's do a little thought experiment.  

Fellers our age often go to the doctor every year or two even if we have nothing specifically wrong: just go for a kind of check up, a blood test, that sorta thing.  We always worry however, for what she might tell us.  As a thought experiment, let me imagine I go, she tests, tells me: Spike, bad news, lad, sorry to hafta tell ya, but you have cancer up the kazoo, literally, and it's gone everywhere, and you know the drill, we fill you with toxins, zap the hell outta ya and maybe you will be OK, but good chance within a year it will be adios amigo.

OK damn, and I paid good money to hear that (in the thought experiment I did.)  So that would be bad old no-good rotten day.  So... imagine I come home, seeking solace, get one of my favorite calming activities, reading Astronomy magazine.  Nice, calming, restful, stars and planets and galaxies and stuff.  Imagine I read that a bunch of type A1 supernova measurements just came back and the analysis is bad news: the Big Rip is coming in as little as ten billion years, oh dear.

If all that happened... if aaaalllll thaaat happened...in one very bad day... I would be more concerned about that cancer up the kazoo business than even the Big Rip.

So it's all in how you look at it.

spike