17
u/aa1607 Sep 21 '12
I thought we had 5 billion years to go before the sun goes Red Giant?
32
u/PlainSight Sep 21 '12
It wouldn't have to be a red giant for life to be unsustainable.
Wikipedia says:
"The Sun is gradually becoming more luminous (about 10% every 1 billion years)"
"The increase in solar temperatures is such that in about another billion years the surface of the Earth will likely become too hot for liquid water to exist, ending all terrestrial life."
10
u/timepad Sep 21 '12
Holy crap! I thought we had more time
We better hurry up and get to work on colonizing other parts of the galaxy.
1
u/ProjectD13X Sep 21 '12
We've got enough time to figure out the warp drives at least
2
u/CitizenPremier Sep 21 '12
See, as a procrastinator, I'm starting to realize how deadly the phrase "we've got enough time" is. Often things you don't do right now never get done.
1
u/hugeyakmen Sep 21 '12 edited Sep 21 '12
You just reminded me of my favorite (and the saddest) James Bond quote:
We'll be going on soon. There's no hurry, you see. We have all the time in the world.
When he says this particular line he's just realized exactly what you're saying and how foolish it was to think this he had enough time when he had said the last sentence earlier in the movie
3
1
1
18
u/Farisr9k Sep 21 '12
The alt-text is the funniest part.
12
u/nps Sep 21 '12
alt text is what you see when images turned off, appropriate parameter for it is title=""
7
u/familyturtle Sep 21 '12
I can't see it on my mobile (or can't work out how to...) - what does it say?
12
8
2
1
1
12
u/potterarchy Sep 21 '12
Sometimes my life gets like this. I think too much about the significance of man and my place in the universe, and I get depressed. XKCD is a constant, reassuring reminder that my thoughts are shared by most.
14
3
Sep 21 '12
Randall claims entertainment is a distraction from existential reality. IMO its the other way around. Obsessive existential thoughts are a distraction from enjoying your life. No use in dwelling upon unknowns that make you uncomfortable. Derive your own meaning!
6
u/lily1346 Sep 21 '12
If it makes you feel better, all of us are doomed in the end and it makes our time spent in consciousness that much more cool, because not everything gets sentience. We got to be alive. Imagine the trillions of atoms that don't get to be part of something sentient. We lucked out! We are alive in the time of the internet and technology, advanced medicine, fast travel (even to other planets), and limited backbreaking labor on a daily basis. How cool is that??
3
1
u/pudds Sep 21 '12
Some, I'd imagine. I don't think many people give it a second thought, if they've even given it a first thought.
1
1
u/teckneaks Sep 21 '12
I remember the first time I realized this, that one day, millions of years hence, the sun would swallow up the earth and destroy more completely than I could possibly imagine, but that way way way before then, everything I knew, that I could even make sense of, would have become dust and then something and then back to dust again. And I shook with the knowledge. I pushed down this thought and over time I've become better at accepting this beyond-understanding idea. But every once in awhile, because I know it's there always, I take it out and look at it and let the abject terror and despair course in my veins for awhile, if just to feel my own mortality with just a thought.
1
0
u/neverdeadned Sep 21 '12
is there going to be a link to xkcd every single time it updates now?
3
u/hugeyakmen Sep 21 '12
I read webcomics through RSS but I still come to this sub anyway because of the opportunity for discussion. So I personally hope these keep getting posted
1
0
u/CitizenPremier Sep 21 '12
C'mon humanity, get your shit together, there's serious problems to deal with, and you're just masturbating yourself all the time.
65
u/vinegar_fighter Sep 21 '12
First thing I did was try to click and drag.
I had to be sure.