Stephen Hawking: Abandon Earth Or Face Extinction

As the year winds to a close, Big Think has pulled togeth­er a list of their Most Pop­u­lar Videos of 2010. Per­haps the biggest thinker on the list is Stephen Hawk­ing, the renowned the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist, who issues a stark warn­ing. “Our only chance of long term sur­vival, is not to remain inward look­ing on plan­et Earth, but to spread out into space.” Pop­u­la­tion growth, lim­it­ed resources, cli­mate change – these pres­sures could dri­ve the human race into extinc­tion with­in two cen­turies, and pos­si­bly even one. That makes space – plan­ets beyond our own – the next great fron­tier.


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Comments (6)
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  • Tifariak says:

    Our real prob­lem is this kind of swash­buck­ling think­ing. We need to stop tak­ing future tech­no­log­i­cal advance for grant­ed and instead start the task of repair­ing our dam­aged plan­et, which for now remains our only home. This can be jus­ti­fied on risk-cost-ben­e­fit grounds alone, and tech­nol­o­gy will obvi­ous­ly be cen­tral. But dream­ing about the stars is not the way to start.

  • Peter R. Owen says:

    I’m am a firm fol­low­er of Stephen’s and I sup­port his con­tentions regard­ing our need to get off this plan­et and into the cos­mos a.s.a.p.

  • Abhyuday Singh says:

    earth dwellers & star dwellers
    world needs both

  • Walt Arnsdorff says:

    We first accept our home is hope­less. We then con­dense what is expect­ed to take, oh, for­ev­er and locate the Gen­e­sis plan­et (Ala, Spock), and then with propul­sion as yet even described go there. That’s real­ly fun­ny.

    Zap­pen­fusen

  • Ace says:

    Last one there’s a rot­ten egg!

  • sandeep says:

    good

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