Don’t be alarmed, but there are other people out there who think like me. And by that I mean ridiculously.
The Guardian’s website has a recurring feature in which they pose a reader’s question and have other readers give their answers in the comments section. Sometimes the questions have real, concrete answers, while others are very open-ended.
Some recent examples:
–Why do we enjoy watching people argue?
–Should coffee be made with boiling water?
–Are there any truly useless species in the world?
But the one my mind-twin answered was “How should we spend our last 3.5 billion years” (based on the idea that the sun will eventually make things too uncomfortable for us.)
There are the normal things you expect in any comments section, including people making everything into a complaint about politics, those who take the questions way too seriously, and those who attack whatever anyone says.
And then there’s this, from a user named backwards7:
“Predictions about events that may occur in the distant future are notoriously speculative, however there is one thing that we can be be absolutely sure of:
3.5 billion years from now, there will be a lot less tables.
In these times of plenty, we take it very much for granted that there will always be a flat, relatively-level surface, upon which we can place a drink, a laptop computer, or some enormous books of glossy black and white photography depicting the Devonshire coastline or unflattering-lit poor people from Newcastle.
The assumption that tables will always be this abundant is based upon the faulty premise that what has been the case in the past will remain so in the future.
The unpalatable truth is that, as our sun grows ever hotter and the climate on earth more fierce, the rising temperatures are likely to cause damage to our existing supply of tables. In many cases this damage will not be cost effective to repair. Therefore, it is imperative that, over the next 3.5 billion years, we build-up a table surplus. This will enable us to replace any that are rendered broken or unusable, quickly and with minimal disruption.
My vocal position on this issue has not been echoed by my peers in the scientific community, nor is it widely accepted as a priority. Much of the current discussion is focused on the need to get on with mapping Madonna’s genome, with a view to sending it into space.
I am one of the few dissenting voices on this matter. Frankly, if anyone’s genome were to be used to populate far-flung inhabitable worlds, in other parts of the universe, it should have been, Michael Jackson’s. That ship has unfortunately sailed. Thanks to our collective dithering we must now endure what is likely to be a lengthy wait for Michael Jackson (circa the Thriller era) to re-manifest in our locality as a Boltzman object, indistinguishable from the real thing.
This, along with my isolated stance on the need to increase table production world-wide, has caused serious damage to my professional reputation. My colleague and oldest male friend, Dr Stephen Porter, has, on numerous occasions begged me to stop publishing academic papers about an impending shortage of tables. Dr Porter is of the school of thought that this crisis can be averted altogether if we begin the process of interviewing for a new sun within the next billion years.
All I can say in response is that I would a poor scientist indeed if I ignored the overwhelming evidence in front of me. If, 3.5 billion years from now, I am proven to be correct, I shall derive no satisfaction from this most Pyrrhic of victories.”
When the day comes you are holding a plate of food and find yourself with no place to set it down, remember the wise words of backwards7. He tried to warn us all.
And to answer the first three questions:
-Watching other people argue is amazing because drama that doesn’t involve you is perhaps the best entertainment humans ever invented.
-Coffee should never be made.
-The Pittsburgh Penguins.