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The BBC and the Guardian both carry stories about an unmanned interstellar spacecraft designed to reach the Alpha Centauri system "within a generation" (30 or so years).
The spacecraft would be miniaturised to the size of an average silicon chip, and be propelled by a solar sail which would receive a boost from a powerful laser on the Earth.
Milner's Breakthrough Foundation is running a project, backed by Hawking, to research the technologies needed for such a mission, which they think will soon be feasible.
takyon: The campaign is called Breakthrough Starshot. Breakthrough Initiatives also announced the release of initial observational datasets from the Breakthrough Listen 10-year SETI effort.
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Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner's $100 Million Interstellar Spacecraft Plan
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @04:31AM
Remember the old days when a generation was 15 years?
How soon before career-oriented gold-digging women wait on average until after menopause to reproduce?
Human extinction due to female greed is going to be hilarious.
(Score: 3, Funny) by devlux on Wednesday April 13 2016, @04:39AM
Humans live a bit longer than we did back then. New opportunities to explore and have a life. Women aren't dependent on men to provide for them anymore.
Women's increasing independence from men is becoming self evident. Yet laws written in the stone age, force men to have to pay for a one night stand for the next 18 years.
At least there are movements that try to level this a bit....
http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/05/male-abortions-would-give-the-right-to-opt-out-of-fatherhood-says-political-group-5735140/ [metro.co.uk]
Note the baby is fine, but the father is opting out of fatherhood. I love my kids would never want to not be their father. But if women can get an abortion without the consent of a man, or keep the baby. Men should be allowed to opt out of being financially responsible for something women are describing as a "personal healthcare choice".
Strangely, men can have all parental rights terminated for no cause of their own (mentally ill, unemployed, can't find work, can't feed his kids etc) and still owe child support.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @04:46AM
Oh joy, you can trot out the fathers' rights crap. And yet you're still missing the point entirely.
Human lives are lasting longer, but women's fertile years are not, and the average length of a generation is increasing. Do you even understand the potential problem with this trend?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @05:03AM
Women's fertile years are increasing:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/10/20/1356234 [soylentnews.org]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/worlds-oldest-mother-of-quadruplets-introduces-her-babies-to-the-world-10460350.html [independent.co.uk]
IVF is only the tip of the iceberg. Technological solutions will allow more reliable fertility into older age. The same women who are delaying childbirth are the women able to afford fertility treatment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @08:53AM
I agree with parent, the GP post is a weak/nonexistent argument - if you father a child he has half your genetic material, and hence you have some responsibility for the child.
I think a stronger argument is that of sexism in family law courts. Friends working in family law have indicated that there is quite a bit of sexism in there (feminism), owing to anachronistic views of the predominantly male judges. Family courts in UK are civil courts, so there is no jury. I don't know of a good statistical study, so my only evidence is anecdotal. It would be very interesting to know if a statistical study of family court outcomes supports my view of massive institutionalised sexism.
Nb: I believe that I am an egalitarian - so I shout down feminists and masculinists (is that a word).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 13 2016, @05:48PM
Human lives are lasting longer, but women's fertile years are not, and the average length of a generation is increasing. Do you even understand the potential problem with this trend?
The solution is simple: we need to figure out how to medically greatly reduce or eliminate aging. Once we figure that out, it won't be a problem (plus, they'll probably figure out how to extend womens' fertile years, or come up with a workaround).
(Score: 2) by Kell on Wednesday April 13 2016, @06:28AM
career-oriented gold-digging women
Hello, Obvious Troll. It seems unlikely to me that woman who is career-oriented (and thus earning an income) is somehow also going to be a "gold-digger" (ie. social parasite). The sort of women who is independent and self-motivated enough to get and keep a career is hardly going to be happy as a dependent wallflower.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @02:42PM
Your grasp of what's happening is tenuous at best. As the other comments pointed out, gold diggers and career-minded women are two very different animals. Not every person who can give birth must do so for the species to continue. The planet is overpopulated as it is.
There is nothing to fear from a human being who happens to be cisfemale. However, one should be aware that sooner or later they will invoke their cisfemale privilege and attempt to take advantage of you. Avoid causes such as breast cancer awareness, even if one has that part of female anatomy oneself. Sooner or later, somebody will emerge who is a cisgendered hunny. Should one fall out of favor with the cisgendered hunny, no matter how blatantly obvious it is that circumstances were not of one's making, even if the circumstances are ultimately the making of cisgendered hunnies, one will face the accusation that one is trying to control their bodies. They will block one's access to necessary medical services, especially their coveted hormones and breast care services such as mammograms. Every person who is 40 and over who is not cisfemale who is able to access regular screening mammograms is a direct threat and invasion to them.
At best, one may have occasional business contact with a cisfemale. It is impossible to tell which are human beings and which are cisgendered hunnies until it is too late.
As far as gold diggers, they exist. They raise their daughters will full knowledge of what their cisfemale privilege entitles them to, and the mothers encourage the daughters to breed early and breed often with as many different deluded sperm donors as possible. Sometimes they even brazenly attempt to scam men into being the sperm donor with a one night stand and merely a verbal promise that he will not need to worry about the child. This is, of course, a lie. I know men who the cisgendered hunnies have attempted to con this way.
I do not think you will have to worry about cisgendered hunnies walking away from their cisfemale privileges.