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Hawking: Man must leave planet Earth


I always enjoy Hawking. Always down-to-Earth; always easily accessible to the layman.

There seems little question that humanity should - and perhaps must - leave the planet. Our natural curiousity and adventurous spirit aside, I see many factors that will probably force us (or some of us, anyway) to part company and go our separate ways: population density, competition for resources, internecine religious strife, differing economic and political principles, etc. I don't know if we can hold the world together long enough to develop the technology to get away from each other, though.

I seem to recall a science fiction-themed game being played at a local library some years back called "Full Thrust." It was a space combat game between starships, and the various combatants had merely taken the battles raging on Earth and moved them into space. There was a North American union, a European commonwealth, an Asian faction, and even a group of crazy Mohammedans.

Forget warp drive, the transporter and the tractor beam. I've often thought that the premise of Star Trek - a united Earth, completely at peace with itself and all its nearest neighbors - was the most far-out and implausible part of that show.
 
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