I'm saying with far-fetched sketches it's the emotional impact, not the plausibility, that provides the whack on a day to day basis. Doesn't need to be real to kill you. Losing hope is sufficient.

Svartalf wrote:yeah, the 1908 Tunguska event never took place.

...and the bolide that brought about the end of the Cretaceous epoch was a day dream.

RS

aufbahrung wrote:I'm saying with far-fetched sketches it's the emotional impact, not the plausibility, that provides the whack on a day to day basis. Doesn't need to be real to kill you. Losing hope is sufficient.

No, it's the emotional impact of all the folks who look down at you if you don't take the far-fetched sketches seriously. On the one hand, you have religious end-timers and their imaginary sketches, and on the other, you have those who look down at you for denial of climate change, which just isn't quite so far-fetched. Take your pick and pay at the window. You still don't have to give a fuck, and then it's all free. Above and beyond that, losing hope doesn't necessarily kill you. It might rain on your parade. Waah!

aufbahrung wrote:I'd say nukes are no more real than satans arse until the day they are used. Such a black swan event would be beyond the cusp of reason, even if the probability is higher than the said arse.

Don't forget. Nukes are wielded by people who probably can't help but look down at you.

aufbahrung wrote:I'm saying with far-fetched sketches it's the emotional impact, not the plausibility, that provides the whack on a day to day basis. Doesn't need to be real to kill you. Losing hope is sufficient.

I can't say as the knowledge that a large bollide's impact could end all life on Earth has caused me either to lose hope or to remember to carry around an umbrella.

It just is what it is.

Nukes and climate change, of course, are a bit different as they're self-inflicted and the only protection against them is us stopping ourselves from being utter fucking plonkers.

Another key distinction is that the divine forms of Armageddon are something one anticipates - the day of last laughs when Daddy comes home.

Spearthrower wrote:
Nukes and climate change, of course, are a bit different as they're self-inflicted and the only protection against them is us stopping ourselves from being utter fucking plonkers.

Is it somehow worse if it's self-inflicted? I'm a proponent of the all-natural-ingredients formula. Much as I might like to blame somebody for fucking things up, I just refuse to do it. Who am I to talk? I'm fucking things up in whatever little way I can while steering clear of the bugaboos of driving an automobile and not properly recycling my circuit-boards. Truth, I don't know what happens to that shit after I dispose of it in proper channels.

Svartalf wrote:

theropod wrote:

Svartalf wrote:yeah, the 1908 Tunguska event never took place.

...and the bolide that rought about the end of the Cretaceous epoch was a day dream.

RS

I've heard that even if the Chicxulub meteor spewed the matter the marks the Cretaceous Eocene limit, the actual transition between the two was caused by massive volcanic activity, that left us traces like the Deccan traps.

Not exactly. Recent work by Deplama et al (a thread exists on this forum discussing these finds) in the upper Hell Creek of Montana reveals strong evidence that the environment was not in crisis to the point of a mass extinction event until the bolode impact. In fact the site they are working has tektites in situ, which place a time stamp on the extinction event of the very day the bloide fell. From what I gather this single deposit shows the aftermath of a massive tsunami wherein marine organisms were swept inland a great distance, and intermixed with the detritus are terrestrial animals soon to be made extinct by the follow on effects of said bolide. This informs us that the end Cretaceous event is directly tied to the day a hunk of space debris the size of Mt. Everest slammed into the earth.

RS

Massive tsunami? I knowed it, the FLUD!

The BBC has recently re-shown 'The Day the Dinosaurs Died' (2017 production). One of the scientists stated that if the asteroid (likened to a grain sand hitting a bowling ball) had struck a few seconds either way, (it was travelling at 40,000 mph) there would not have been a mass extinction and possibly humans might not have evolved. The reason given was that the point of impact contained a mother lode of Gypsum - a sulphate that was expelled into the atmosphere causing a world-wide drop in temperature that virtually killed off all plant and animal life within a few days (or weeks at the most).

The idea that it took some time, (some say a 'million years' or so), for the dinosaurs of that era to die out is apparently not correct.

The sulphate blocked out all sunlight stopping photosynthesis and also polluted the atmosphere
Nowadays Gypsum is a material used in plasterboard so it probably doesnt contain any sulphate

Gypsum is Calcium Sulphate - CaSO4.2H2O

Grey goo is the way it ends. The only feasible explanation for no slow exponential conquest of the galaxy by advanced civilizations is they invent grey goo every time. And render themselves as techno-bio-dust for want of the missing term. And we are on the way too.

virtually killed off all plant and animal life within a few days (or weeks at the most).
The idea that it took some time, (some say a 'million years' or so), for the dinosaurs of that era to die out is apparently not correct.

Pretty certain that is not correct. Will do some chasing. Given what did survive ..I'd say it's unlikely it was that rapid ouside the local blast radius.

I believe in the end times. Some time in the next few trillion years I'm guessing.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:I believe in the end times. Some time in the next few trillion years I'm guessing.

Give or take a day.

Well the odd second.

Extinction rates are throught the roof and oceans full of plastic and dead fish. I'm not saying its the end of the world but surely the end of complex life is on the cards?

Not necessarily. If we manage to preserve DNA it might be possible to bring back, so to say, extinct life in future. You said it yourself, in the ND thread, seems humans keep themselves busy by rebuilding what they destroyed. Not too efficient from where I sit but .. /shrugs