Thoughts from Lileks:
I love new galaxy stories. I love learning that someone pointed a telescope at an empty patch and found 1000 new spiral galaxies, each of which no doubt teems with life. Yes, I think that’s so, and no, I’ve no good explanation for why we haven’t been visited by Vulcans. I’m a fan of the multiverse theory, and I’d also be comfy with the notion that this is one of an infinite number of iteration of the universe, each with their own laws. It would be a pity if we ended up in the one whose laws were A) everything’s far apart, and B) you can’t get there, but them’s the breaks. Some galaxies, however, have it worse off. You get those peculiar ones with enormous rapacious black holes in the middle and just a smattering of stars, you think: bad neighborhood. Imagine being a sentient being in a system that evolves sufficiently to figure out it’s going to be eaten by a black hole in a few thousand years, and how this would affect society. If you knew it would be all over in 2000 years, who would build? Would anyone try to escape if there were no systems to which you could flee? Futility would be the handmaiden at every act of creation. Or it might make everything precious. Or, most likely, both, and neither. Some people would still live their lives, go to work, make what they could for their ration of time. A great many would use the expiration date as the validation of the standard-issue nihilism that affects those with attenuated adolescence, and clothe their selfishness in philosophy.
More where that came from. By the way, the few Mayans still around say that the calendar thing is hogwash. But what would they know?
Even a supermassive black hole isn’t likely to eat an inhabited stellar system. Those objects aren’t very large, after all, and the chance civilization arises on a planet just before it would get eaten is tiny.
What a supermassive black hole could do is cause the emission of huge amounts of energy, if it is a quasar eating a lot of gas and (uninhabited) stars. The cosmic radiation produced could very well have dire effects on planets in the host galaxy even at large distances.
Here’s a thought experiment.
Astronomers announce that, thanks to some new understanding of physics, the missing mass in the galaxy can now be accounted for by previously undetectable black holes – now detectable. And one’s coming right for us!! Yes, a black hole is on its way and it’s going to swallow up the solar system in just 600 years.
I imagine, as Lileks wonders, that there would be a mix of reactions to this news. No doubt nihilism would be the answer for many. But not me, and not many others. I’m thinking “Screw that! Let’s invent interstellar flight and out run the sucker!” And I would be very motivated to move to any nation that promised to tax heavily and spend it all on R&D (a real deal Apollo on Steroids, none of this Apollo on Charles Atlas’ Special Workout crap we’ve got), and then evacuate all the citizens. Maybe Chile, or maybe Australia or Japan. Wherever.
So here’s the question: Once all those people spent all those years and trillions inventing and building a space architecture that can evacuate a whole nation into interstellar space, do we let the nihilists who refused to kick in tag along?
Of course not. Existential challenges from the environment and the subsequent natural selection are how the species improves. You wouldn’t want to interfere with Mother Nature, would you, Brock? That’s heresy according to the new religion.
Brock: they’ve looked for the galactic missing mass in “massive compact halo objects” (MACHOs) by gravitational lensing, and I believe the conclusion is they cannot account for it.
More likely, the smart people would find a way off with some time to spare. Then the grasshoppers with useful skills or wealth could buy their way off planet.
Brock, I think the answer to your thought experiment can be found in the papers everyday. 600 years is way too far out in the future for just abount anybody to really care about. Afterall, none alive today will live to see the end anyway. We’re faced with almost certain financial Armegeddon if the current runaway spending continues by our government in a lot less time, and there’s still a large amount of people who care only that they get their little slice of the government handout pie. In your thought experiement, can you really imagine a majority wanting to give up their comfort to possibly “save the planet?”
First their would be the inevitable counter arguments that the end really isn’t certain. Maybe the science “isn’t settled” afterall. Do we really want to commit our national wealth if those other guys aren’t contributing theirs?
Of course there would also be the fundamentalist movement that swould argue that the demise really is just the natural order of things. So shutup, accept your fate, and live your life at peace with the inevitable.
I’m not a global warmer, but the global warming “crisis” is exactly how your imagined scenario would play out. Some folks believing fervently, others looking for any reason not to believe. And in the background, you’ll have power brokers more than willing to take advantage of either camp, for their own purposes.
Instead of your big govenment solution to salvation (“I would be very motivated to move to any nation that promised to tax heavily and spend it all on R&D (a real deal Apollo on Steroids, none of this Apollo on Charles Atlas’ Special Workout crap we’ve got), and then evacuate all the citizens.”) I actually think the Genesis solution would have the best success. See the story of Noah and the ark for a privately financed venture to save humankind from destruction. Replace devine revelation of impending destruction with your theoretical scientific revelation and devine intervention (plans and materials for the ark) with private financing and entrepreurial skills and you have your salvation, albeit for a few vice the many.