I’m going all in on the potential straight.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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Risk is probability times consequence. Focusing on the odds without considering the second half of the equation is stupid.
Yes, but the audience score is at 80%.
Is it wrong to hope it hits us?
yeah, yeah it is
Why is that? The planet will be fine without us. It will probably be better off without us.
Its not nearly big enough to wipe out the planet. Not even close.
It would just cause suffering for thousands/hundreds of thousands of people. Are you OK with that?
Yeah, because at best it just splashes in the ocean, worst it hits a city and causes mass suffering as thousands die from the impact and fallout. It's not going to end any suffering
Yes, because it's not going to be nearly as catastrophic as it sounds. What we need is a real world ender.
Is it wrong to hope it hits the specific city I live in? 😅
Sometimes hope is all we've got.
With more data collected over time, the chance has already been reduced to 0.28% https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/2025/02/20/additional-observations-continue-to-reduce-chance-of-asteroid-impact-in-2032/
Odds are low, but not zero. Still a bit of a nothingburger now that we've been able to successfully land probes on asteroids to sample their contents (and even send back video similar to images taken by Mars rovers). Strap a small thermonuclear warhead to an unmanned probe and redirect its trajectory - not a simple matter but entirely feasible.
Make a probe with a giant fuel tank and engine land on the asteroid then just fire away to push it slightly off target so it misses the planet. Don't need to destroy just alter the trajectory a tiny bit.
Don't even need a warhead. The Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) just threw the probe itself at an asteroid hard enough to affect its orbit.
Unmanned? Nah, lets just assemble a team of oil drillers and send them up there like space cowboys.
It'll be easier to teach drillers to fly shuttles than it would be to teach astronauts how to dig a hole.
Wouldn't it be easier to train astronauts to drill?
Nah, you see this mission needs someone real smart. And when someone talks about smart people in smart professions, do you think about astronauts? No of course not. (Unless they are really really old astronauts, like geriatric, then yes.) instead you think about rough necks. That's right, you think of guys who drill holes in the ground.
Wtf, no, the way to deflect an asteroid is to send something near it while it's far away. Blowing it up just risks another smaller asteroid hitting us. Small changes in direction while incredibly fast away will change its path enough to be safe.
Some examples of very enjoyable related media that are not Don't Look Up include The Last Policeman book trilogy and the Netflix animated series Carol & the End of the World.
(There's nothing wrong with Don't Look Up, but it's the only recommendation I ever see.)
Thankfully I live in the USA where we're totally safe because we reject science! But don't you try coming here for safety, we hate everybody else. You'll probably just be sent to gitmo.
Just don't look up, duh
Everyone saying "they can evacuate" clearly doesn't remember how bad the covid response was.
There will be anti-space conspiracy theorists. The ownership class would demand people continue working until the last possible minute (and beyond). It would be politicized, because some people are unbelievably stupid, cruel, and selfish, and enough people are so stupid they'll buy in.
Now, if we could make the meteor fall on a location occupied solely by the people who don't believe in science...
At least "crushed by asteroid" is not contagious.
Look, it's really simple. Just don't look up. If we collectively ignore the problem, it won't be a problem.
They could make a movie about that!
Also the impact risk corridor passes through states that are poorly equipped for large civil defence operations: Ethiopia and the CAR are in civil wars, Yemen is in a civil war with the majority of the country under the control of an unrecognized government, and the South Sudanese government is quite week—being at peace only for the last 5 years
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Don't give me hope
Outside of extremely extenuating circumstances, this isn't a worry. We already have proof-of-concept tech like DART to divert asteroids, aerospace engineers can use this to get governments to fund them even better, asteroid goes behind the sun for 3 years, asteroid diverting technology advances even further, in 2028 when the path of travel becomes more precise the chance of hitting us gets revised down to zero, and we've advanced our technology should anything more serious come our way in the future
yeah, we really don't have to worry.
With the DART mission tech, we can get our hit chances into the 90 percents
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Backup is that we have a team of deep sea oil drillers go up there
Why are we trying our best idea second?
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I won't believe it's gonna miss us until it gets to 95% likely it will hit
I see another one branded by XCOM.
I find the XCOM comparisons funny because the game actually tilts the RNG in the player's favor and people still think it's unfair
https://www.giantbomb.com/xcom-2/3030-49817/forums/xcom-2-is-un-fair-1792143/
Jup! I think in the highest difficulty they actually have the correct percentages implemented.
I don't think it's unfair, it's just that being one square away with 99% accuracy missing always feels like bullshit, regardless of whatever explanation you give.
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