Shanathalas
"When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around"

Playing the odds...

By Shanathalas
I recently read a quite disturbing news article on how an upcoming experiment to prove the Big Bang Theory could accidentally destroy the planet. Though the test on the Large Hadron Collider could show how the universe began and shed some light on dark matter, there is a "a tiny, tiny risk the device could create conditions that would obliterate the planet and all human life". The low odds still leave me with a sense of unease. Especially when I read this article this morning about how a woman managed to "dream" of winning the lottery ticket, so went out the next day and bought a ticket with the same numbers as a ticket she had already purchased. She then won the lottery and as she had two winning tickets, picked up 2/3rds of the prize rather than sharing the it 50/50 with another winner in a different province. What are the odds of that?

But Jaime gave me a comforting thought. If they are successful in creating a black-hole under a mountain in Switzerland, the world will be over in a blink of an eye, and we wouldn't feel anything.
 

9 comments so far.

  1. Jaime 10:01 AM
    Heh, I can't take the complete credit for that comment, I believe I got the idea from Science of the Discworld, but the feeling should stay the same. I mean when was anyone in a book ever wrong? About science no less ;)
  2. Kass 12:36 PM
    Jaime really knows how to make everything seem a-ok lol. I mean suuuure who cares if the world is destroy, I mean as long as its fast and painless lol.
  3. Wanderlusting 1:48 PM
    I too am concerened about this end of the world thing...what gets me is how they are letting this go ahead. Forget about North Korea, we need to watch out for the Swiss! They are more than watches and cheese.
  4. Kass 6:21 PM
    Yes, I'm sure Terry Pratchett was thoroughly accurate and honest lol.

    Isn't Nestle swiss?? Now they're trying to kill all the babies!!!
  5. Anonymous 8:38 PM
    Bah. This is nothing but a rubbishy fearmongering beatup by media chumps. It's not going to happen, Shan.
  6. Anonymous 4:40 PM
    don't you think its interesting that the thought of total and utter obliteration in seconds is so much more comforting that the thought of trying to squeeze the last few drops out of a painful post-apocalyptic enduring existance?

    not of course that i don't agree with this concept, but i just think it's interesting how obsessed humans are with avoiding pain versus death. it goes against our programming doesn't it? doesn't every living creature desire life above all else?
  7. Shanathalas 6:53 PM
    Well there is no avoiding death. All living things die. But one can hope for a swift painless death rather than a lingering, terror-filled or painful one.

    I think this is why so many people go by heroin overdose. As deaths go, its pretty comfortable one.
  8. Kass 11:30 AM
    I would like to be a self-aware zombie, so I could have an excuse to kill and eat people lol. Does this make me a strange person?

    You're not going to sit with me at lunch anymore are you? lol
  9. Sally 7:18 PM
    I'm definitely not going to sit with Kass at lunch.

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