Okay, supernovae worry me

Drops of mercury.

I am a worrier. I freely admit this. For instance, Milo and his flock disappeared two days ago and they're still not back! But I don't freak out. I try to take things in stride. Still, certain worries abide in the back of my mind.

One of them concerns massive volcanic eruptions. In Earth's history, there were times when huge swathes of the Earth erupted in furious volcanic activity -- thousands and thousands of miles of eruptions. If this ever happened in our time, it would be an extinction-level event. So that's one worry: I fear the air will become unbreathable and that it will happen swiftly.

Defensive indifference, round two

I read an article on physorg.com today about longevity. In it, a scientist predicted that within 25 years, humans would be born who would live for 1,000 years. Never mind whether he's right or not. Let's just think about how this would change things.

For the sake of argument, let's take the idea a step further. What if we could undergo a treatment today that made us live for 1,000 years? You know what would happen almost immediately? Suddenly everyone would care about global warming! Because it would affect them.

You know I'm right. People are so goddamn selfish that they're willing to let the world die as long as it happens at a later date, to someone else. But make us all live for 1,000 years and suddenly people would care about the future, because it would be their future.

This thought is disheartening because it's obviously true. Defensive indifference: people don't care about anything unless it affects them personally. And so today I send out a big "ugh!" to the human race. Perhaps we don't deserve to prosper as a species. Maybe it would be best if we simply went extinct. I just don't know anymore.

PS: If you click on the link above to read the article at physorg, you may notice that the title of the article, "Is living forever in the future?", is literally senseless. The headline should read, "Is living forever in our future?"