Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigD
...we can just as truthfully state
the ability to break a stone with a hammer and shatter the earth into a gravitationally unbound swarm of fragments no larger than your fist is merely a matter of scale
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Give me a hammer big enough, and the job is done. I fail to see any problem with that argument. Matter of fact, a big enough "space hammer" seems to have done the dinosaurs in. A big enough "space hammer" could have smashed a perfectly good fellow planet into the asteroid belt.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by CraigD
...but that present day capabilities are many orders of magnitude inadequate.
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Whilst we might be succumbing to the ever-present temptation to digress this thread to death, I think that our "overblown belief in our own destructiveness" is not so overblown, at all.
A hammer is a perfectly good tool for smashing stuff to bits. And a big enough hammer to destroy the earth with a single swing is perfectly possible - and perfectly within our technological reach. It's merely a matter of scale and cost.
So, I agree with your sentiments that we aren't going to destroy the Earth anytime soon, but not because we
can't , no - the spoilsports will once again be the accountants who simply won't
let us build such awesome things like galactic hammers.
Bean counters - gotta hate 'em.
