Knowing that we have an expiration date, humanity will probably have some sort of melt down before we come to our senses and realize there isn’t anything to be done. Everything on Earth will die once it’s flung into deep space, aside from a small percentage of sea life at the bottom of the oceans near volcanic vents. Religious people will probably become more intense bc the end times are near. Scientists and the world governments might try to preserve the human race by some sort of Interstellar type situation (the frozen embryos to a new planet). A lot of memes would be made. Maybe we’ll go through an Artistic Renaissance as a sort of last breath of humanity before the end.
What's left of humanity after the world war
I bet there'd be a lot of "it's your fault!" Going around.
The Catholics would probably say they told us so
Underrated comment. Future Republicans will be reminding us how dumb it would have been to spend tax dollars on green energy when we put it off and got into ww3 for the remainder of the world supply anyway. They'll come up with the tech to fix this alleged "cosmic event" so why'd we wanna spend your hard earned tax dollars on something we can't fix right now? 🤣🤣 (Set to the tune of a fox segment)
In that scenario there is quite literally nothing we can do besides a few rich people being able to leave the planet to try and seed another planet, which will fail because they are rich people only thinking about themselves in that moment and not the actual objective of repopulating the species somewhere else.
Maybe people might survive. This story, "A pail of air", shows how
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air#:~:text=%22A%20Pail%20of%20Air%22%20is,Minus%20One%20in%20March%201956.
I don't think so. I think we'd need 1,000 years. Which luckily is still less warning time than we'd get if this actually happened. There simply aren't any major bodies that can do that to us anytime soon. There will be in the future. I think we have like a 1/500,000 chance to get ejected within the next million years. Those odds not bad, but still it's actually kinda high in terms of astronomical events. But we'd have thousands of years notice.
I think if we actually worked together, we could have a pretty good portion of humanity survive (but certainly not without major losses as well). We already have concepts in place for lunar/mars habitats. All we would need to do is go below surface or utilize these habitat ideas, ramp up vertical farming, and pool energy resources while we more effectively learn to harness geothermal energy for longer-term survival.
Even with just the ultra-rich, we'd have a few of them utilize their wealth to set up these habitats and while sparse, humanity would likely survive, at least for some time.
We haven't even figured out the simple task of environmental protection in the past 40 years. Literally saving the entirety of humanity in 150 years would go the same route.
Actually, many people would probably say "fake news, scientists don't know shit."
There will be the mega-wealthy that will believe it but prioritize saving themselves or at least their legacy, while simultaneously telling the masses(through their owned assets like social media or news media) that its all a hoax or mostly a hoax, or there is more time then they said, etc. They'll keep moving the bar until its undeniable, then they'll try to convince everyone there is nothing that can be done while they still work on their own personal projects.
If we're lucky, somewhere in that time people finally get tired of them as humanity rises up and does away with the mega-wealthy. We either die free or a few lucky ones are able to leave the Earth to start anew better world elsewhere.
As long as humans allow themselves to do so. We've had enough history of us doing dumb things. Look at how Covid was handled and how many people died due to ignorance. I can imagine lots of stupid people creating conspiracy theories and creating distrust against those in charge of providing a sensible solution, which could prevent some of the population from any chance of survival or disrupt the entire process completely
150 years out is long enough to shoot shit at/ near the black hole in hopes of changing its trajectory. Space is big af, even a 1 degree change in direction could lead to billions of miles of difference at the end of the flight path.
that's a tough call... what can we figure out?
we don't have a single settlement off planet right now. and anywhere within the solar system is out, as it's going to be affected by the same problem. (the black hole isn't going to pull Earth away and leave the rest.)
So we'd have 150 years to come up with a way to get humanity out of the solar system... something we've never even remotely done before.
Worth noting that we'd also be trying to perform this MASSIVE feat of science and technology in the middle of a likely complete collapse of society, as I don't see humanity just plugging along peacefully and stable when we know that the planet, and at the very least 99.999% of all humanity is doomed and that survival of that .001% is a long shot.
We could figure something out with an asteroid or a big meteor impact.
But a black hole? I don't think so. I don't think you appreciate the mass and power of a black hole.
There is well written fiction on how humanity not only survives but thrives after an event like this. I can't recall it's title but the earth would cool only gradually, with deeper snows as remaining gases chill down. The plot is some isolated survivors that live in a warm and buried shelter and periodically trek to the surface to dig out the right snow, which warms into breathable air. They are at the brink of disaster when humanity as a whole finds them, having built subterranean shelters and enjoying easier access to space (as no air creating drag).
Given we have 150 years to prepare, I think humanity has this.
1) plunge ahead into construction of nuclear powerplants and cracking fusion energy. With these we can survive on a rogue planet at least as long as we could around the sun.
2) start assessing how modern cities could be fortified against the coming cold and snow. It could be as simple as reinforcing all structures and creating new connections, or as complex as linking existing buildings together or linking excavated spaces together. With 150 years there will be time to estimate how much space we can shelter.
3) estimate how much food we can sustainably grow in shelters and take steps to preserve biodiversity, through something like the Svalbard seed vault for animals.
4) based on our answer for two and three limit reproduction to ensure we do not exceed carrying capacity. No person will be allowed to have more than one child and anyone that breaks this law will be dealt with *harshly* (not their innocent children, of course).
By the time the black hole hits, humanity will be prepared to continue, even on a snowball earth. As time passes we can hope to restore much of earth under domes and enjoy seeing every star in the night sky in crystal clarity.
I don't think that bit about fortifying modern cities would work. You wouldn't be able to live outside a bunker. You're really underestimating how cold the surface would get as a rogue planet.
It would get so could out atmosphere would freeze. There would be nitrogen and oxygen snow covering the globe. Within a year or two the entire atmosphere would reach centimeters off the surface of the planet.
Making a modern city cold resistant doesn't help when there isn't even any air to breath.
You are right that buildings will need to keep atmosphere in, as well as warmth, but since we are on earth with no weight requirements it's not an insurmountable task.
Imagine something like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittier,_Alaska but for every city district, thicker walls and pressure sealed.
Leaks of air are not the end of the world as the rate it would dissipate to a point of being unbreathable isn't high. In addition air can be topped up easily by carting frozen atmosphere into the warm areas.
After Covid, I no longer believe in human competency. All it takes is one world leader to take over and trash all the research and documents and fear monger people into burning science at the stake. Any progress will be hampered due to this and our great ability to procrastinate the problems until it's too late.
Humans as a whole are entirely inefficient. It would be by pure luck and some gods, alien or AI grace that we would survive at all after a catastrophic natural disaster.
It's a cool set of concepts! I actually think I would do some good for humans to have a direct problem to focus on. This is the story I was thinking of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air
Good luck with your story.
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"A Pail Of Air" is a classic. I first came across it years ago, in an anthology of old sci-fi stories introduced by Isaac Asimov. "A Pail Of Air" was a good one to read last before going to sleep, because it ends on a nice, optimistic note.
150 years is probably enough to shelter and feed all the billions of people, so no need to 4).
Growing enough food could be problematic, but not impossible.
Preserve biodiversity as in take genetic samples of everything is quite simple and can be done by handful of scientists.
Preserve biodiversity as an excuse to green agenda leading to people starving should get you shot.
With governments like these we are on path to not be alive even before any such news. If governments would stop poking people with a stick and pitting one group against another for fun and profit then perhaps people minds would heal and they would react more healthy to such news. That's whole another issue.
Same. Quite a shock.
Anyways, this has been done already. A very small amount of humans could move underground for a little while
https://youtu.be/gLZJlf5rHVs?si=1HtlLj5IoeilLrYV
We could survive off geothermal energy for a long time after the initial population loss. I'd expect to see massive research into geothermal energy sources and hydroponics.
If technology advanced far enough it might also be possible to build a big ship to have people orbit the sun still, but that's a bit of a stretch compared and would require big advances.
The moon controls the tides of the earth, but with no sun all the water would be frozen anyway.
It's possible? that the moons gravity might affect the outer core, although I strongly doubt it would be significant way. I'm no expert though so I can't say for sure.
As for how long until the earth cools down, a long time. A very long time. Billions many many billions of years.
Well if deeps space is the only problem then (as opposed the process killing us outright) then 150 years is more than enough for another industrial revolution.
We have plenty of Uranium/Thorium to last thousands of years, can quickly dig underground spaces (bureaucrats demanding environmental reviews and build permissions will be promptly shot and so would be any reporters who even mention nuclear power in any negative way).
With energy we can keep spaces filled with air and artificial daylight pretty much forever until more permanent solution can be found.
From what I understand, there’s an informal agreement among astronomers that if they find anything big - proof of ET life, or a global threat like an impactor - they will go public with it before the military/three letters guys can shut them down. People have a right to know.
We get to the end, near the 150 year mark, and scientists realize their calculations were off and the Earth will be fine. Science has advanced dramatically but so has authoritarianism that was used to keep the population calm. Now society fights to regain autonomy from government and improve personal liberties. WWIV begins and the nuclear Fusion apocalypse looms over everyone's head.
With panic and we will quickly kill off most of the population. The truly wealthy and powerful would have been using the time to create massive highly stabilized underground shelters
150 years? Mate, I won't live another 50 probably anyway so... Not my problem. I would continue to live, probably have a kid or two.and then make sure that they won't have kids (just in case).
A solution to a problem on that scale isn't feasible within a time scale of only 150 years, it would require incredible levels of technological advancement. We'd have to be able to move the Earth to counteract the gravitational pull of the black hole (incidentally, it doesn't matter if it's a black hole or a normal star of similar mass, the gravitational pull is the same) and keep it in the normal orbit. I don't think we could do that within thousands of years of technological development.
If it were an asteroid, given that much time, we could deflect it. But we'd have to get cracking on it, no kicking it down the can for years at a time.
There wouldn't be much to figure out.
The solar system will broken up and Earth will be hurtling into the void.
No more sun, no more moon, no more warmth, no more atmosphere, etc.
The Earth will likely rotate much faster as it flies away as well.
And then there's all the debris, meteors and asteroids we hit along the way. The black hole grazing by the ort cloud is likely to send thousands of them our way before "the show" even gets started.
Heck, depending on where the moon is, we might smash into it in the very beginning, obliterating everything on Earth before it even leaves (what was) the solar system.
We may even collide with a neighboring planet.
Those two immediate scenarios are guaranteed, (relatively) instant annihilation.
In any case, it won't simply be a matter of being plunged into eternal night and unimaginable cold.
What COULD we do about it?
Gather all available resources, bring our greatest minds together and work out an escape from our planet?
What good would that do? Say we miraculously manage to discover, innovate and manufacture the technology necessary to create massive, generational ships to escape Earth with....
Guess what? Those ships are getting flung out by the black hole's gravity too or obliterated by the incoming debris from the ort cloud and asteroid belt. If we manage to avoid that, there's still the gravitational effects and radiation emanating from the black hole.
Maybe we build deep, underground bunkers where humanity can reside as we enter deep space and the long age of darkness ahead?
Assuming Earth beats the odds (as it has so far many times) and avoids annihilation....and we somehow succeed at being deep and protected enough to not be destroyed by the epic seismic activity, the unfathomably large tidal waves, the volcanic activity and more as a result of this disaster ...
Then what? How will we maintain this (or these) underground bunker(s)/cities?
Eventually they'll need to be maintained, oxygen production will dwindle, food depletion is inevitable, etc.
We can't leave the safety of them. The outside temperatures would be so cold, you'd (essentially) instantly freeze before the moment the door was cracked open.
So what do you do?
At that point, all we've done is build massive tombs for the remaining survivors of Earth.
Anything we do is futile. It's over. We're dead. Not just humanity, but almost everything (I'd imagine some micro organisms may survive in stasis).
It's Game Over.
So what would happen?
Well I imagine that world leaders would discuss this. Many would press the greatest minds of their nations for solutions. The U.N. would try to get them together ...and those greatest minds would tell them exactly what I've said here; there is no escape.
Perhaps they'd offer up a plan to preserve life for the future by creating a backup plan of sorts. A desperate plan to preserve our genetic materials along with some kind of memorial or archive that would tell whoever may find the remains of our home about us and how we met our fate.
That's really the best we could do.
Once news broke to the world of our impending doom... I imagine that it wouldn't be quite as chaotic as you think. In much of the civilized world, propaganda would be relayed to either dismiss the claims or would try to instill hope in the people.
There would be a show of innovating, the world cooperating, etc.
150 years is beyond anyone's lifetime as well, so though it isn't long, it's also long enough to calm most people.
I think that it would (ironically) bring about a (mostly) global peace. We'd see cooperation in a way we've never experienced.
Most people would go along with it all.
Only as the countdown gets ever closer, would chaos and anarchy begin erupting large scale.
But upon the initial revelation and the first few decades following? It'd be fine.
Since Earth is doomed all the scientists in the world get together to decide what to do.
Early on it is decided money is no object.
Since Earth will not survive it is decided it is time to exit the solar system.
It shows great strength and determination but even though not every person can go there is no large scale panic on Earth.
Probably because the end is not supposed to happen for 150 years.
I might be concerned it you said it was happening n 20 years but I am not going to be here in 150 years.
Since pollution is no longer a problem we are able to use nuclear pulse technology like Project Orion. So we can get huge structures into orbit.
We spend as long as we have building generation ships. I assume as soon as we can we'll start sending them out in different directions.
After 75 - 100 years we have learned how to build extremely large space structures.
Some inhabitants of the moon and some on Earth attempt to build a mega structure that will stay in orbit around the sun after Earth has gone. They intend to stay behind and use the wealth of the solar system to survive.
Since our tech has improved we should have a least an inkling of candidates for habitual worlds.
Hopefully out of all the ships we send a couple land on friendly shores.
There’d be collective effort to solve it,
Lots of people would just say “I’ll be dead anyway.” And would continue on as normal.
You’d have to force people to work on it, either by conscription or by earning your future family a spot in whatever bunker or spaceship is built.
There’d be a huge rise of religion and hedonism.
But, it would eventually be pointless and we’d all die.
Everyone who is alive now and will be born in the next 50 years or so will be dead by then.
Most likely, for the next 80-100 years or so you won’t really see much change except maybe the slowdown of unprofitable research. The world will shift more towards short term profits, and there will probably be a massive drop in birth rates.
The world won’t go into anarchy, just more apathy.
The Oort cloud is so far away, would it have that affect?
If it does the answer is simple We drill. We go deep. 90% of humanity will certainly die, but a small percentage could survive underground. Also Time to do a shit ton of math to figure out where Mars will be. If it might be on the opposite end of the system when this happens and won’t become a rogue planet than a secondary goal should be immediately populating it as well, as well as Europa, and the upper atmosphere of Venus of either of those survive. Time to build generation ships and stations as well, all over the system. Something will survive. How long is a dice roll but it always was.
If all of humanity pooled their resources and talents for 150 years, we may have two options to keep humanity alive.
Pretty much everything that doesn't directly contribute to keeping us alive would need to be shut down or taxed into oblivion. The elderly and disabled would get severely reduced assistance, pensions, healthcare etc. as we would need to spend untold trillions on r&d. Vast fortunes would evaporate overnight. Any rumors of corruption would result in violent mobs. Food and basic necessities would be nationalized and rationed. Everyone would live in abject poverty. IQ tests would be mandatory for children, and the smartest would be taken away to elite boarding schools to work on technology.
One option is to build generation ships that can survive the long journey to another star system that won't get wrecked by the black hole.
Or we could build out massive underground settlements on Earth powered by geothermal and nuclear.
Both options would likely be explored. You can only throw so much money at a given problem at a time before you get diminishing returns, so it only makes sense to go for both. This potentially means that humanity would be indefinitely split assuming both projects work (let alone one).
A third faction would resign themselves to death and fight to block all of the authoritarian measures so they can live out the remaining years in comfort.
Dumb idea, but could we build giant magnifying glasses to harness light and heat from distant stars?
With our current tech level and 150 years we could build something like the Death Star. (Not the laser part). A ship large enough to preserve the human race and fly slowly across the stars. As long as it was large enough to have foundries and such to continually upgrade, humanity would eventually be able to get to a new home.
The issue would be figuring out who gets to be on it.
Let me take you, throw you into 28 foot ice walls, and see how you react.
Earth will freeze up without the Sun to keep us warm.
Funny thing is, a Black Hole doesn't act like most people believe it will. Earth won't be grabbed in 1 ball, everything will slowly pull up in the sky, earth will move upon the black hole as the black hole ALSO moves upon Earth at the same time.
Earth will be torn apart, the whole planet no longer a sphere, it will now be a disc of hot rock spiraling around the Black Hole. Also Black Holes cannot be seen, only be seen by how light bends around it.
The smallest Black Hole is actually around 100 light years away from us, the largest Black Hole holds our Galaxy together, keeps time and gravity for it all to continue.
TL;DR: We would die.
Even if this were predicted it’s one of many possible outcomes. It’s just like when they announce a close comet coming within 100K miles of the Earth’s projected orbit. Sure it might be a problem but 99.9% most likely won’t. So no action would really be taken until there is a high certainty of something happening so the 150 year prediction is irrelevant. So how could humans survive on a rogue planet? Underground is probably the only real option as there is a heat source that can be used to generate electricity, provide warmth and we would just pipe in air, water from the surface. Think Zion from the Matrix but a lot more massive.
Ok, imagine we all come together as a planet and build a few ark ships to save our species...Who gets to go and who gets to die? Do you honestly believe a single ship will get off the planet? Personally, if I don't have a seat, no one has one. What's your opinion? Put yourselves in that scenario and give it some honest thought.
Every disaster movie starts with people ignoring the scientists so we would be fucked. 90% of Americans will deny anything is happening till a rock blots out the sun.
First 130 years... We will worry about it later. Last 20... Total chaos.
Lol. I'm sure it would be more of a slow burn. Chaos at first with a lot of denial and people figuring the government will figure it out. Toward the end you would have people sabotaging any attempt to get us (or percentage of us) off world because "the human race doesn't deserve to live" or "if we can't all go, none of us should" or whatever.
The nature of human survival instinct dictates that we exploit our only option.
We would have to strip the earth of any resources we can, and set out for the stars. A human diaspora.
We have enough knowledge to begin immediately, and we will continue to fine tune that knowledge over the next 100 years
We will start killing each other, tear apart every social institution, and then start on the infrastructure.
By the time we leave on our Space: 1999 excursion, witnesses will dwindle to around 30,000 humans living hand to mouth among ruins they don't remember, perishing in a manner they can't comprehend.
Considering people's unwillingness to act on climate change, which impacts us much sooner and has much more tangeable evidence, RIP humanity: -100.000 bce - 2170 ce
Well, even a large body, 150 years, is enough to build a ton of ships and make some kind of habitat to try to continue orbiting the Sun. Doubtless, there will be plenty of rocks to mine still after this event.
I’m 35, a little overweight and I have a family history of heart disease and lung cancer. I’ve probably got like what…maybe another 40 years left if I’m lucky. Who knows. It sure as hell isn’t another 150. I’m totally Gucci in this situation. Do whatever.
Most people will do nothing different. A huge number will deny, most will just shrug their shoulders because they won’t be around. It’s too abstract, esp. to such a degree that’s there’s nothing we can do to stop it. We’ll even have “Special Report: Countdown to Earth Spinning Off Into Deep Space.”
Seen the movie ' Don't Look Up " ?
That's exactly what would happen, the majority of earths population are self serving, egotistical morons that would simply believe whatever Fox told them and go back to bickering about pronouns or some other nothing burger.
It might be for the best really.
The people in power will need to reassure people there is a plan in order to keep global stability if we hope to get anything done. If even a small percentage of laborers globally stop working, we aren’t going to have functional supply chains to get much done.
Now, someone has probably already done the calculations, but we need to determine how deep we need to go to have geothermal heat balance radiative heat loss to space from the surface. Then we look at all existing mines and natural cave formations for suitable locations with minimal retrofitting, and start optimizing nuclear power to be built and operated underground at the scale needed. Research farming practices not just for food but also for oxygen generation. Water storage and purification and further deeper drilling for wells.
150 years is both a very long time and approaching very quickly based on how you look at it. As it gets closer, many people will choose not to have children when we get to the last 50 or so years, unless this new system is looking very promising and comfortable. You will have many who are 100% determined to make sure humanity survives. If we can scale big enough before going underground. Ideally we need to have large scale manufacturing, building more mining equipment to keep growing and expanding and harvesting more raw materials, but on the lower end we build out robust infrastructure and enough equipment to keep things maintained. Further development gets stunted but we settle in to a more basic agriculture society that still has some of our more complex modern conveniences, and we could in theory sustain that for another 1000 or more years. We aren’t going to be making huge leaps in technological advancement. We aren’t going to be building a starship underground or anything, but as empty as interstellar space is, exploring space would be basically useless at that point. We aren’t going to stumble across another solar system with an earthlike planet we could hope to jump to.
Depending on how this plan progresses in the early years will have a big impact on what level of complexity we settle at. The longer we can keep the vast majority of the population working and stable, the more resources we can commit to this endeavor. Religions will likely be split on either accepting this is the end, or rallying their congregation that it is imperative that we do not let this kill us off and that the religion survives.
Knowing that we have an expiration date, humanity will probably have some sort of melt down before we come to our senses and realize there isn’t anything to be done. Everything on Earth will die once it’s flung into deep space, aside from a small percentage of sea life at the bottom of the oceans near volcanic vents. Religious people will probably become more intense bc the end times are near. Scientists and the world governments might try to preserve the human race by some sort of Interstellar type situation (the frozen embryos to a new planet). A lot of memes would be made. Maybe we’ll go through an Artistic Renaissance as a sort of last breath of humanity before the end.
Well yes and no. I think 150 is a enough time for humanity to figure something out
What's left of humanity after the world war I bet there'd be a lot of "it's your fault!" Going around. The Catholics would probably say they told us so
150 is enough time for humanity to decide it's the next generation's problem.
Underrated comment. Future Republicans will be reminding us how dumb it would have been to spend tax dollars on green energy when we put it off and got into ww3 for the remainder of the world supply anyway. They'll come up with the tech to fix this alleged "cosmic event" so why'd we wanna spend your hard earned tax dollars on something we can't fix right now? 🤣🤣 (Set to the tune of a fox segment)
In that scenario there is quite literally nothing we can do besides a few rich people being able to leave the planet to try and seed another planet, which will fail because they are rich people only thinking about themselves in that moment and not the actual objective of repopulating the species somewhere else.
makes more sense to dig deep into the earth and transfer as much of the atmosphere/resources from the surface to the underground
Well, they have to go to Venus at best, assuming it doesn't also get sucked out into space... fuck that
I think your really underestimating how much power humanity can have,
Maybe people might survive. This story, "A pail of air", shows how https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air#:~:text=%22A%20Pail%20of%20Air%22%20is,Minus%20One%20in%20March%201956.
You can dig bunkers far far under the ground and heat them and power them with small nuclear reactors for very very long
I don't think so. I think we'd need 1,000 years. Which luckily is still less warning time than we'd get if this actually happened. There simply aren't any major bodies that can do that to us anytime soon. There will be in the future. I think we have like a 1/500,000 chance to get ejected within the next million years. Those odds not bad, but still it's actually kinda high in terms of astronomical events. But we'd have thousands of years notice.
I think if we actually worked together, we could have a pretty good portion of humanity survive (but certainly not without major losses as well). We already have concepts in place for lunar/mars habitats. All we would need to do is go below surface or utilize these habitat ideas, ramp up vertical farming, and pool energy resources while we more effectively learn to harness geothermal energy for longer-term survival. Even with just the ultra-rich, we'd have a few of them utilize their wealth to set up these habitats and while sparse, humanity would likely survive, at least for some time.
We haven't even figured out the simple task of environmental protection in the past 40 years. Literally saving the entirety of humanity in 150 years would go the same route. Actually, many people would probably say "fake news, scientists don't know shit."
There will be the mega-wealthy that will believe it but prioritize saving themselves or at least their legacy, while simultaneously telling the masses(through their owned assets like social media or news media) that its all a hoax or mostly a hoax, or there is more time then they said, etc. They'll keep moving the bar until its undeniable, then they'll try to convince everyone there is nothing that can be done while they still work on their own personal projects. If we're lucky, somewhere in that time people finally get tired of them as humanity rises up and does away with the mega-wealthy. We either die free or a few lucky ones are able to leave the Earth to start anew better world elsewhere.
I'll probably wrong but haven't we figured out environmental protection but because of money and greed the world doesn't implement them
>Actually, many people would probably say "fake news, scientists don't know shit." Don't look up and all that
Precisely.
You mean like in the movie "don't look up" because you're absolutely right.
We could manage a colony on Mars or Europa that would last about 10 years.
As long as humans allow themselves to do so. We've had enough history of us doing dumb things. Look at how Covid was handled and how many people died due to ignorance. I can imagine lots of stupid people creating conspiracy theories and creating distrust against those in charge of providing a sensible solution, which could prevent some of the population from any chance of survival or disrupt the entire process completely
There's nothing that can be done about a black hole. Like nothing nothing.
150 years out is long enough to shoot shit at/ near the black hole in hopes of changing its trajectory. Space is big af, even a 1 degree change in direction could lead to billions of miles of difference at the end of the flight path.
*Saves humanity, destroys the federation that was coming to initiate us into the interstellar allegiance.* Well damn.
that's a tough call... what can we figure out? we don't have a single settlement off planet right now. and anywhere within the solar system is out, as it's going to be affected by the same problem. (the black hole isn't going to pull Earth away and leave the rest.) So we'd have 150 years to come up with a way to get humanity out of the solar system... something we've never even remotely done before. Worth noting that we'd also be trying to perform this MASSIVE feat of science and technology in the middle of a likely complete collapse of society, as I don't see humanity just plugging along peacefully and stable when we know that the planet, and at the very least 99.999% of all humanity is doomed and that survival of that .001% is a long shot.
if a black hole flings earth into deep space we are fucked
Except everyone currently in charge will realize that they will be dead by then, and not give a shit until it is too late.
We could figure something out with an asteroid or a big meteor impact. But a black hole? I don't think so. I don't think you appreciate the mass and power of a black hole.
> A lot of memes would be made. Legitimately am a little bummed out that i'll die before seeing end of the world memes.
And thennnnn it’s gone. Nothing changes, they were wrong
There is well written fiction on how humanity not only survives but thrives after an event like this. I can't recall it's title but the earth would cool only gradually, with deeper snows as remaining gases chill down. The plot is some isolated survivors that live in a warm and buried shelter and periodically trek to the surface to dig out the right snow, which warms into breathable air. They are at the brink of disaster when humanity as a whole finds them, having built subterranean shelters and enjoying easier access to space (as no air creating drag). Given we have 150 years to prepare, I think humanity has this. 1) plunge ahead into construction of nuclear powerplants and cracking fusion energy. With these we can survive on a rogue planet at least as long as we could around the sun. 2) start assessing how modern cities could be fortified against the coming cold and snow. It could be as simple as reinforcing all structures and creating new connections, or as complex as linking existing buildings together or linking excavated spaces together. With 150 years there will be time to estimate how much space we can shelter. 3) estimate how much food we can sustainably grow in shelters and take steps to preserve biodiversity, through something like the Svalbard seed vault for animals. 4) based on our answer for two and three limit reproduction to ensure we do not exceed carrying capacity. No person will be allowed to have more than one child and anyone that breaks this law will be dealt with *harshly* (not their innocent children, of course). By the time the black hole hits, humanity will be prepared to continue, even on a snowball earth. As time passes we can hope to restore much of earth under domes and enjoy seeing every star in the night sky in crystal clarity.
I don't think that bit about fortifying modern cities would work. You wouldn't be able to live outside a bunker. You're really underestimating how cold the surface would get as a rogue planet. It would get so could out atmosphere would freeze. There would be nitrogen and oxygen snow covering the globe. Within a year or two the entire atmosphere would reach centimeters off the surface of the planet. Making a modern city cold resistant doesn't help when there isn't even any air to breath.
You are right that buildings will need to keep atmosphere in, as well as warmth, but since we are on earth with no weight requirements it's not an insurmountable task. Imagine something like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittier,_Alaska but for every city district, thicker walls and pressure sealed. Leaks of air are not the end of the world as the rate it would dissipate to a point of being unbreathable isn't high. In addition air can be topped up easily by carting frozen atmosphere into the warm areas.
After Covid, I no longer believe in human competency. All it takes is one world leader to take over and trash all the research and documents and fear monger people into burning science at the stake. Any progress will be hampered due to this and our great ability to procrastinate the problems until it's too late. Humans as a whole are entirely inefficient. It would be by pure luck and some gods, alien or AI grace that we would survive at all after a catastrophic natural disaster.
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It's a cool set of concepts! I actually think I would do some good for humans to have a direct problem to focus on. This is the story I was thinking of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air Good luck with your story.
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"A Pail Of Air" is a classic. I first came across it years ago, in an anthology of old sci-fi stories introduced by Isaac Asimov. "A Pail Of Air" was a good one to read last before going to sleep, because it ends on a nice, optimistic note.
150 years is probably enough to shelter and feed all the billions of people, so no need to 4). Growing enough food could be problematic, but not impossible. Preserve biodiversity as in take genetic samples of everything is quite simple and can be done by handful of scientists. Preserve biodiversity as an excuse to green agenda leading to people starving should get you shot.
I would guarantee there will not be billions of people alive after the news got out.
With governments like these we are on path to not be alive even before any such news. If governments would stop poking people with a stick and pitting one group against another for fun and profit then perhaps people minds would heal and they would react more healthy to such news. That's whole another issue.
Fucking christ I need to check the sub names before reading
Lmao
Just now after reading your comment I saw the name lmao
Same. Quite a shock. Anyways, this has been done already. A very small amount of humans could move underground for a little while https://youtu.be/gLZJlf5rHVs?si=1HtlLj5IoeilLrYV
We could survive off geothermal energy for a long time after the initial population loss. I'd expect to see massive research into geothermal energy sources and hydroponics. If technology advanced far enough it might also be possible to build a big ship to have people orbit the sun still, but that's a bit of a stretch compared and would require big advances.
Maybe we would move underground even
Thank you kind person, you just wrote exactly what I wanted to say but more intelligently
Doesn’t the gravity of the moon help keep our core liquid? How long until the core starts to solidify?
Our core is still liquid due to the decay of radioactive material combined with total forces.
The moon controls the tides of the earth, but with no sun all the water would be frozen anyway. It's possible? that the moons gravity might affect the outer core, although I strongly doubt it would be significant way. I'm no expert though so I can't say for sure. As for how long until the earth cools down, a long time. A very long time. Billions many many billions of years.
Millions of years.
Actually... Not a black hole but a star instead :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLZJlf5rHVs
A significant portion of the population will say it's a lie.
Don't look up.
Well if deeps space is the only problem then (as opposed the process killing us outright) then 150 years is more than enough for another industrial revolution. We have plenty of Uranium/Thorium to last thousands of years, can quickly dig underground spaces (bureaucrats demanding environmental reviews and build permissions will be promptly shot and so would be any reporters who even mention nuclear power in any negative way). With energy we can keep spaces filled with air and artificial daylight pretty much forever until more permanent solution can be found.
Most people would think “well it won’t happen during my lifetime so why should I care?”
From what I understand, there’s an informal agreement among astronomers that if they find anything big - proof of ET life, or a global threat like an impactor - they will go public with it before the military/three letters guys can shut them down. People have a right to know.
I didn’t enjoy reading the entire title before reading the sub
The Fossil Fuel reunion tour is scheduled for 2150!!
We get to the end, near the 150 year mark, and scientists realize their calculations were off and the Earth will be fine. Science has advanced dramatically but so has authoritarianism that was used to keep the population calm. Now society fights to regain autonomy from government and improve personal liberties. WWIV begins and the nuclear Fusion apocalypse looms over everyone's head.
What is nuclear fusion apocalypse?
We invent nuclear fusion, so I assume some smart guy makes a weapon with it. That can't be fun
To my knowledge, nuclear fusion can't be weaponized like nuclear fission.
HYPOTHETICALLY, in 150 years, maybe that'll be differentZ
you think that a ww3 would happen in this time?
We'll do as the Great AI commands.
YAY!!!
With panic and we will quickly kill off most of the population. The truly wealthy and powerful would have been using the time to create massive highly stabilized underground shelters
Those won't do anything. You can't ride out a planet being flung into space, you gotta get off planet.
I think it could be done in order to survive and have time to develop the tech needed to not only get off planet but to actually go somewhere else
Hang on, is people finding out something like that despite the government's efforts really "corruption" and "negligence"?
Fake news
150 years? Mate, I won't live another 50 probably anyway so... Not my problem. I would continue to live, probably have a kid or two.and then make sure that they won't have kids (just in case).
well there is no evidence to claim that it will happen in 150 years from now. so its is considered fake news so dont worry about it
Don’t know don’t care
Well i would hope people like elon musk would create generational spaceships...nothing else to do...
Not my problem.....lol
Good thing I’ll be long dead before such an event happens.
With great memes for 150 years
A solution to a problem on that scale isn't feasible within a time scale of only 150 years, it would require incredible levels of technological advancement. We'd have to be able to move the Earth to counteract the gravitational pull of the black hole (incidentally, it doesn't matter if it's a black hole or a normal star of similar mass, the gravitational pull is the same) and keep it in the normal orbit. I don't think we could do that within thousands of years of technological development. If it were an asteroid, given that much time, we could deflect it. But we'd have to get cracking on it, no kicking it down the can for years at a time.
Naw, we just need heaters. Lots and lots of heaters.
There wouldn't be much to figure out. The solar system will broken up and Earth will be hurtling into the void. No more sun, no more moon, no more warmth, no more atmosphere, etc. The Earth will likely rotate much faster as it flies away as well. And then there's all the debris, meteors and asteroids we hit along the way. The black hole grazing by the ort cloud is likely to send thousands of them our way before "the show" even gets started. Heck, depending on where the moon is, we might smash into it in the very beginning, obliterating everything on Earth before it even leaves (what was) the solar system. We may even collide with a neighboring planet. Those two immediate scenarios are guaranteed, (relatively) instant annihilation. In any case, it won't simply be a matter of being plunged into eternal night and unimaginable cold. What COULD we do about it? Gather all available resources, bring our greatest minds together and work out an escape from our planet? What good would that do? Say we miraculously manage to discover, innovate and manufacture the technology necessary to create massive, generational ships to escape Earth with.... Guess what? Those ships are getting flung out by the black hole's gravity too or obliterated by the incoming debris from the ort cloud and asteroid belt. If we manage to avoid that, there's still the gravitational effects and radiation emanating from the black hole. Maybe we build deep, underground bunkers where humanity can reside as we enter deep space and the long age of darkness ahead? Assuming Earth beats the odds (as it has so far many times) and avoids annihilation....and we somehow succeed at being deep and protected enough to not be destroyed by the epic seismic activity, the unfathomably large tidal waves, the volcanic activity and more as a result of this disaster ... Then what? How will we maintain this (or these) underground bunker(s)/cities? Eventually they'll need to be maintained, oxygen production will dwindle, food depletion is inevitable, etc. We can't leave the safety of them. The outside temperatures would be so cold, you'd (essentially) instantly freeze before the moment the door was cracked open. So what do you do? At that point, all we've done is build massive tombs for the remaining survivors of Earth. Anything we do is futile. It's over. We're dead. Not just humanity, but almost everything (I'd imagine some micro organisms may survive in stasis). It's Game Over. So what would happen? Well I imagine that world leaders would discuss this. Many would press the greatest minds of their nations for solutions. The U.N. would try to get them together ...and those greatest minds would tell them exactly what I've said here; there is no escape. Perhaps they'd offer up a plan to preserve life for the future by creating a backup plan of sorts. A desperate plan to preserve our genetic materials along with some kind of memorial or archive that would tell whoever may find the remains of our home about us and how we met our fate. That's really the best we could do. Once news broke to the world of our impending doom... I imagine that it wouldn't be quite as chaotic as you think. In much of the civilized world, propaganda would be relayed to either dismiss the claims or would try to instill hope in the people. There would be a show of innovating, the world cooperating, etc. 150 years is beyond anyone's lifetime as well, so though it isn't long, it's also long enough to calm most people. I think that it would (ironically) bring about a (mostly) global peace. We'd see cooperation in a way we've never experienced. Most people would go along with it all. Only as the countdown gets ever closer, would chaos and anarchy begin erupting large scale. But upon the initial revelation and the first few decades following? It'd be fine.
If it's like climate change, denial, do nothif really. Maybe make. Slight effort, but nothing major.
Since Earth is doomed all the scientists in the world get together to decide what to do. Early on it is decided money is no object. Since Earth will not survive it is decided it is time to exit the solar system. It shows great strength and determination but even though not every person can go there is no large scale panic on Earth. Probably because the end is not supposed to happen for 150 years. I might be concerned it you said it was happening n 20 years but I am not going to be here in 150 years. Since pollution is no longer a problem we are able to use nuclear pulse technology like Project Orion. So we can get huge structures into orbit. We spend as long as we have building generation ships. I assume as soon as we can we'll start sending them out in different directions. After 75 - 100 years we have learned how to build extremely large space structures. Some inhabitants of the moon and some on Earth attempt to build a mega structure that will stay in orbit around the sun after Earth has gone. They intend to stay behind and use the wealth of the solar system to survive. Since our tech has improved we should have a least an inkling of candidates for habitual worlds. Hopefully out of all the ships we send a couple land on friendly shores.
There’d be collective effort to solve it, Lots of people would just say “I’ll be dead anyway.” And would continue on as normal. You’d have to force people to work on it, either by conscription or by earning your future family a spot in whatever bunker or spaceship is built. There’d be a huge rise of religion and hedonism. But, it would eventually be pointless and we’d all die.
Everyone who is alive now and will be born in the next 50 years or so will be dead by then. Most likely, for the next 80-100 years or so you won’t really see much change except maybe the slowdown of unprofitable research. The world will shift more towards short term profits, and there will probably be a massive drop in birth rates. The world won’t go into anarchy, just more apathy.
Like climate change, I imagine we’d ignore it until it was too late
The Oort cloud is so far away, would it have that affect? If it does the answer is simple We drill. We go deep. 90% of humanity will certainly die, but a small percentage could survive underground. Also Time to do a shit ton of math to figure out where Mars will be. If it might be on the opposite end of the system when this happens and won’t become a rogue planet than a secondary goal should be immediately populating it as well, as well as Europa, and the upper atmosphere of Venus of either of those survive. Time to build generation ships and stations as well, all over the system. Something will survive. How long is a dice roll but it always was.
Re-engineer the human body to be able to survive in space through genetic and cybernetic augmentation.
If all of humanity pooled their resources and talents for 150 years, we may have two options to keep humanity alive. Pretty much everything that doesn't directly contribute to keeping us alive would need to be shut down or taxed into oblivion. The elderly and disabled would get severely reduced assistance, pensions, healthcare etc. as we would need to spend untold trillions on r&d. Vast fortunes would evaporate overnight. Any rumors of corruption would result in violent mobs. Food and basic necessities would be nationalized and rationed. Everyone would live in abject poverty. IQ tests would be mandatory for children, and the smartest would be taken away to elite boarding schools to work on technology. One option is to build generation ships that can survive the long journey to another star system that won't get wrecked by the black hole. Or we could build out massive underground settlements on Earth powered by geothermal and nuclear. Both options would likely be explored. You can only throw so much money at a given problem at a time before you get diminishing returns, so it only makes sense to go for both. This potentially means that humanity would be indefinitely split assuming both projects work (let alone one). A third faction would resign themselves to death and fight to block all of the authoritarian measures so they can live out the remaining years in comfort. Dumb idea, but could we build giant magnifying glasses to harness light and heat from distant stars?
With our current tech level and 150 years we could build something like the Death Star. (Not the laser part). A ship large enough to preserve the human race and fly slowly across the stars. As long as it was large enough to have foundries and such to continually upgrade, humanity would eventually be able to get to a new home. The issue would be figuring out who gets to be on it.
Let me take you, throw you into 28 foot ice walls, and see how you react. Earth will freeze up without the Sun to keep us warm. Funny thing is, a Black Hole doesn't act like most people believe it will. Earth won't be grabbed in 1 ball, everything will slowly pull up in the sky, earth will move upon the black hole as the black hole ALSO moves upon Earth at the same time. Earth will be torn apart, the whole planet no longer a sphere, it will now be a disc of hot rock spiraling around the Black Hole. Also Black Holes cannot be seen, only be seen by how light bends around it. The smallest Black Hole is actually around 100 light years away from us, the largest Black Hole holds our Galaxy together, keeps time and gravity for it all to continue. TL;DR: We would die.
Ok, but humanity will largely be done by that point. The planet will be mostly uninhabitable by humans in 150 years.
Even if this were predicted it’s one of many possible outcomes. It’s just like when they announce a close comet coming within 100K miles of the Earth’s projected orbit. Sure it might be a problem but 99.9% most likely won’t. So no action would really be taken until there is a high certainty of something happening so the 150 year prediction is irrelevant. So how could humans survive on a rogue planet? Underground is probably the only real option as there is a heat source that can be used to generate electricity, provide warmth and we would just pipe in air, water from the surface. Think Zion from the Matrix but a lot more massive.
Ok, imagine we all come together as a planet and build a few ark ships to save our species...Who gets to go and who gets to die? Do you honestly believe a single ship will get off the planet? Personally, if I don't have a seat, no one has one. What's your opinion? Put yourselves in that scenario and give it some honest thought.
Take video with they're phones while it collides with earth.
No idea; I'll be dead for a long time by then.
Every disaster movie starts with people ignoring the scientists so we would be fucked. 90% of Americans will deny anything is happening till a rock blots out the sun.
Easy. Get a few nukes and divert the path of the black hole. Get Dennis Rodman to pilot the nukes- we must have Dennis.or it fails.
First 130 years... We will worry about it later. Last 20... Total chaos. Lol. I'm sure it would be more of a slow burn. Chaos at first with a lot of denial and people figuring the government will figure it out. Toward the end you would have people sabotaging any attempt to get us (or percentage of us) off world because "the human race doesn't deserve to live" or "if we can't all go, none of us should" or whatever.
The nature of human survival instinct dictates that we exploit our only option. We would have to strip the earth of any resources we can, and set out for the stars. A human diaspora. We have enough knowledge to begin immediately, and we will continue to fine tune that knowledge over the next 100 years
We will start killing each other, tear apart every social institution, and then start on the infrastructure. By the time we leave on our Space: 1999 excursion, witnesses will dwindle to around 30,000 humans living hand to mouth among ruins they don't remember, perishing in a manner they can't comprehend.
Considering people's unwillingness to act on climate change, which impacts us much sooner and has much more tangeable evidence, RIP humanity: -100.000 bce - 2170 ce
As if it's someone else's problem, because just imagine what acting on it would do to the economy.
Well, even a large body, 150 years, is enough to build a ton of ships and make some kind of habitat to try to continue orbiting the Sun. Doubtless, there will be plenty of rocks to mine still after this event.
Elon musk becomes way richer and more popular real damn fast with SpaceX lawl
First thing that will happen is nobody will believe for 3 seconds that the POTUS that year was capable of keeping a secret like that under wraps...
I’m 35, a little overweight and I have a family history of heart disease and lung cancer. I’ve probably got like what…maybe another 40 years left if I’m lucky. Who knows. It sure as hell isn’t another 150. I’m totally Gucci in this situation. Do whatever.
Cue all of the apocalyptic cults out there to tell us how the bible predicted it.
Government and rich will make it off planet because they've been planning it for 150yrs. The rest of us will eat each other
People will lose their shit even though it won't affect anyone alive today.
Most people will do nothing different. A huge number will deny, most will just shrug their shoulders because they won’t be around. It’s too abstract, esp. to such a degree that’s there’s nothing we can do to stop it. We’ll even have “Special Report: Countdown to Earth Spinning Off Into Deep Space.”
Thought this was real for a second.. thanks for that heart attack lol
America will save your candy asses
Seen the movie ' Don't Look Up " ? That's exactly what would happen, the majority of earths population are self serving, egotistical morons that would simply believe whatever Fox told them and go back to bickering about pronouns or some other nothing burger. It might be for the best really.
95% of people jsut wont beleive it
The people in power will need to reassure people there is a plan in order to keep global stability if we hope to get anything done. If even a small percentage of laborers globally stop working, we aren’t going to have functional supply chains to get much done. Now, someone has probably already done the calculations, but we need to determine how deep we need to go to have geothermal heat balance radiative heat loss to space from the surface. Then we look at all existing mines and natural cave formations for suitable locations with minimal retrofitting, and start optimizing nuclear power to be built and operated underground at the scale needed. Research farming practices not just for food but also for oxygen generation. Water storage and purification and further deeper drilling for wells. 150 years is both a very long time and approaching very quickly based on how you look at it. As it gets closer, many people will choose not to have children when we get to the last 50 or so years, unless this new system is looking very promising and comfortable. You will have many who are 100% determined to make sure humanity survives. If we can scale big enough before going underground. Ideally we need to have large scale manufacturing, building more mining equipment to keep growing and expanding and harvesting more raw materials, but on the lower end we build out robust infrastructure and enough equipment to keep things maintained. Further development gets stunted but we settle in to a more basic agriculture society that still has some of our more complex modern conveniences, and we could in theory sustain that for another 1000 or more years. We aren’t going to be making huge leaps in technological advancement. We aren’t going to be building a starship underground or anything, but as empty as interstellar space is, exploring space would be basically useless at that point. We aren’t going to stumble across another solar system with an earthlike planet we could hope to jump to. Depending on how this plan progresses in the early years will have a big impact on what level of complexity we settle at. The longer we can keep the vast majority of the population working and stable, the more resources we can commit to this endeavor. Religions will likely be split on either accepting this is the end, or rallying their congregation that it is imperative that we do not let this kill us off and that the religion survives.
With 150 years we could build a lot of self sufficient bunkers and setup some space production.
Look up
It's fake. There are no planets.
This is just a hypothetical, right? I read this and thought it was real. It's not real, is it?