Comments on "How Will the World End?"

KenJackson · August 29, 2011, 12:10pm

I have read the sun-expansion scenario numerous places but I've never read any suggestion that the earth's orbit would increase to avoid being scorched. What mechanism would push it out?

As for creating a black hole by the LHC, the whole concept is silly so any number of reasons would rule it out, but it still counts as something that was proposed that would destroy the earth, not just people.

Ah! I hope no one minds segueing away from the topic for a moment.

I read Joao Magueijo's book and found it both fascinated and disturbing.

But on the other hand, Magueijo reveals something disturbing about the scientific community. When he suggests the very notion that the speed of light might not be a fundamental, bedrock, constitutional constant of the universe, scientists of all stripe summarily reject him. Or they turn around and run.

This is a religious reaction. He has revealed that many scientists of today hold to a religious belief that they are not willing to even discuss alternatives to.

It's not the end of the world, so to speak, but I found that revelation shocking.

---------- Post updated at 12:10 PM ---------- Previous update was at 10:32 AM ----------

Comment to Moderator:

I don't see anything in the rules that would suggest my deleted statement shouldn't be a very appropriate part of this discussion. It was needed to balance the "but on the other hand" statement that followed. It was a historical statement and my opinion of it's implication. It was positive and it didn't even counter anything any other participant said. It's also offensive that my good and honest opinion should be rubbed out like profanity.

BTW, the very concept of the End of the World is a religious concept. It's impossible to discuss it without it being a religious discussion whether you quote any religious leaders or not. But what could possibly be wrong with that?

There's been no arrogance, shouting or name calling in this thread that I can see. But the censorship casts a negative shadow on the forum.

Neo · August 29, 2011, 12:17pm

No, it is not.

The concept of the world ending, as per this thread and poll, is purely scientific. There is nothing religious in the thread.

... and, as the very long standing custom and culture of this site, religious discussions are not permitted.

These forums are for technical and scientific discussions and the question about "the world ending" is purely scientific and technical; religious posts and comments will be deleted.

Neo · August 29, 2011, 12:21pm

Actually, the reason you don't see any "name calling" or other negative posts is because they have been promptly deleted by moderators.

Neo · August 29, 2011, 12:28pm

FWIW, Here is a forum blog post from Oct 2010, We Run a Tight, but Very Effective, Ship.

One thing we can all notice, the number of forums on the net continues to rise. I don�t see a reversal of this trend. Every new technology brings a new opportunity to establish a community. Some communities have a long life span, other have a shorter one. This is all part of the natural life cycle of the net, which is good and bad, but mostly good.

The UNIX and Linux Forums are certainly not the largest, but we are absolutely one of the oldest and better established forums. We run a very tight ship. Running a tight ship is both good and bad. Some forums don�t run a tight ship. They have a lot of gossip and a lot of chit-chat; and those forums have a much higher number of posts than we do. Our goals was never to be the biggest, or have the most people, or to have the most threads or post. Our goals have always been to be a useful knowledge repository and have a very high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

SNR is an engineering term; but it means a lot in social and educational networks and forums. If you are looking for knowledge or a solution to a difficult problem, you don�t want to have to read a bunch of chit-chat or endless religious discussions and arguments. You want facts. At the end of the day, everyone needs to leave work and go home to friends and family. Our goals are to get you home faster and help you solve your problems at work or wherever your challenges may exist.

We seem to be doing OK. We serve 3 to 4 million pages of useful information a month to over 2 million people, just like you (and me), who want to solve a problem at work and go home to their families. We have great moderators and many strong contributors. Everyone is free to interact in the community, but only in a professional, considerate way. Our SNR is very high. In fact, our SNR is just about as high as possible; thanks to people, just like you, who follow the guidelines and our moderators who work to make sure those who forget, remember. We learn by teaching. Everyone learns from each other. Even the expert learns from the novice.

Running a tight ship means true freedom. Everyone is free to post and not be bullied, as long as they show respect to the rest of the community and follow a few simple guidelines. In order to have freedom, the rights of the individual to express themselves must not be compromised, as long as the person expressing themselves does not infringe upon the rights of others.

There are many forums and communities on the net. We don�t claim to be the best and we have no ambition to be the largest or the biggest. We simply want to insure that all people who are interested in Linux and Unix-based systems can interact with each other, at all age, skill and experience levels. We are not interested in �what distribution is better or worse�. We are interested in solving problems and helping everyone be more productive, without concern about what flavor of UNIX or Linux we happen to be using that day, week, month or year.

As always, thank you for contributing to The UNIX and Linux Forums.

KenJackson · August 29, 2011, 12:29pm

Neo, you're being inconsistent.
But to try to introduce a modicum of consistency, please delete the word "Religious" from "Crazy people unleash a deady Virus (Politics, Religion)" (and correct the spelling of "deadly"), and "Spiritual" from "Other (Personal, Spiritual)".

Neo · August 29, 2011, 12:31pm

OK. Deleted.

KenJackson · August 29, 2011, 12:54pm

I appreciate your tight ship very much, Neo. I like this forum. And I suppose you are tiring of this part of the discussion.

But the particular statement that was deleted above was in no way a violation your tight ship policy. It did not in any way disrespect, disparage or trample the rights of anyone else. Also, the deletion violates this paragraph that you quoted above:

I'm not advocating purely religious discussions here, but all topics of discussion bump into religion. I know some people get vicious when anything of a remotely religious nature is mentioned. But it is their comments that should be deleted, not the good.

I encourage you to run a good and fair tight ship, not a mean tight ship.

Neo · August 29, 2011, 12:59pm

Our policy (culture) is not to permit religious discussions.

We don't consider this "mean" in the least. It is our policy and all of our moderators support it.

This policy is not going to change, period. Thank you for your comments; but there is no way we are going to permit religious discussions here.

OBTW, I completely disagree with your very wrong statement, "all topics of discussion bump into religion"... that is only true in the minds of people who have strong religious beliefs. These "strong religious beliefs" are not permitted in these forums.

Corona688 · August 29, 2011, 1:09pm

My strong irreligious "beliefs" have been deleted as well when (in)appropriate, so it's hard to claim favoritism.

h112 · August 29, 2011, 5:32pm

First of all I'm not trying to start war here,But when I stumbled by this thread I couldn't leave without saying a word.
But I totally agree with KenJackson .
And agree with Neo in some points especially from the article from the blog.
Anyways I'll stop here and say no word.