BookTalk.org

taken from a book that I'm reading:

Death and the Afterlife - Scheffler and Kolodny

Suppose you knew that although you yourself would live a normal life span the earth would be completely destroyed thirty days after your death in a collision with a giant asteroid. How would this knowledge affect your attitudes during the remainder of your life?

it's an interesting question for the believer and non believer, I think.
And I would not consider being presumptuous as to how a non believer or believer would react to this scenario.

That would be a horrible thing to live with.

that would be a hell of a bummer. I know that i'm going to die one day, and i guess that is sort of inevitable and i don't think about it too much. But to think earth will be sterilized afterwards would give me something to really be sad about.

I suppose i would do my best to get us off-world. Not much chance of success there. But if certain death by asteroid awaits the planet, it's the only way to preserve anything about humanity. The earth might yet rejuvinate. Maybe even give life to sentient beings again in the future, but that would be the end of humans, and that would be a shame.

Maybe even an outpost on luna to wait out the after-effects? If we are talking about transporting as many people and other living things off earth as possible, i guess we would have to shoot for the nearest safest object, and though i can't say for sure, it seems that taking trips to luna is easier than trying to take one giant ship to mars or something.

Of course, that says nothing about trying to divert the asteroid. If that was in play, it would be a whole lot easier to divert the asteroid than move a seed colony off-world.

yeah.

A good question. One thing I wouldn't do is worry about leaving any money for my children and grandchildren.

yeah, I wouldn't have any children at all, and I sure as hell wouldn't worry so much about things like recycling, global warming, or the national debt!