The thing which will doom mankind is...

[Darklord Rooke]

Laziness, and a reluctance to think for themselves.

 

A man had to run for his life after following his car's GPS directions onto train tracks in Melbourne's inner-north on Wednesday night.

 

The 25-year-old man drove onto the tracks at O'Hea Street in Coburg about 10.30pm.

 

When he realised he was on the tracks he tried to reverse, but his car became stuck.

 

The man, from Deer Park in Melbourne's west, was then forced to abandon his car and run as a train started approaching. 

He managed to jump to safety only moments before the train hit his car.

 

The car was pushed 15 metres along the tracks before it came to a stop.

 

The 13 passengers on board the train at the time were not hurt.

 

The crash forced the closure of the boom gates on busy Bell Street for some time.

 

A local resident, Robert, said it was not the first time someone had accidentally driven onto the tracks.

 

"His GPS has turned him left onto the railway lines. It looks a lot like a road at night," he told ABC News.

 

"It's happened before."

 

After hearing a "massive bang", Robert ran outside to help to help the man who was "quite shaken up".

 

"I ran out ... [but] he wasn't there," Robert said.

 

"Luckily he'd gotten out in time and he was on the phone to triple-0 and watched his own car get hit.

 

"I'm just glad he's all right and everything is good."

 

The incident is reminiscent of a GPS bungle in Queensland, where three Japanese tourists tried to "drive" from Brisbane to North Stradbroke Island.

 

The tourists drove their hired Hyundai Getz more than 500 metres in the water of Moreton Bay under the instruction of their GPS system, before coming to their senses.

 

[Justin579]

how is that the gps fault? he didn't see/hear the train/tracks?

[Nosebleed]

The patriarchy must have done this.

[Mr Poltroon]

I'd say 0/10 for clickbait but I seem to have some sort of mental disorder which makes me find most of your posts humorous.

[BookwormOtaku]

So the robot uprising has begun...  

[Mugi]

Wat

[Eclipsed]

I call BS. 

 

one or two idiots who can't GPS aren't an entire representation of mankind

 

POWER4THEPEOPLE

[Deep Blue]

skynet 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

some people shouldnt be allowed to drive or do anything dangerous, they are a hazard for themself and the rest of the population...

[Nimbus]

You don't know laziness and stupidity until you've read the Darwin Award books.

[Decay]

I mean, if it was at night and it genuinely looks like a road due to poor urban planning and the GPS tells you to go on it...

 

Ultimately GPS probably kills a lot fewer people than wrestling with elaborately folded maps while driving. 

 

I put all of my trust into machines, and if machines kill me that's just the way it has to be.

[sanahtlig]

I figure machines make fewer mistakes than I would unaided.  In many cases they know more Japanese than me too.

[babiker]

I didn't know Rooke can shitpost too

 

Well, people naturally use that which is easier to use. In this case, I'd rather use my phone GPS than a map, and one pleb who doesn't know how to use a GPS ain't gonna change my mind 

[Narcosis]

I wonder who gave them driving license in the first place. Completely relying on something so elusive as GPS is beyond naive.

[Helvetica Standard]

I think it's more likely that humanity dooms itself by over-reliance on machines and other assorted techonolgy than stupidity or a skynet type rebellion.

We already depend on electricity and internet, so much that if there's a massive solar storm and the resulting EMP kills global comms and electricity

we'd be back to middle ages for some time. It'd be hard to recover from that too.

[Redpanda]

As I said it before, mankind was doomed for self-annihilation ever since we found E = mc ²    

[Down]

I think it's more likely that humanity dooms itself by over-reliance on machines and other assorted techonolgy than stupidity or a skynet type rebellion.

We already depend on electricity and internet, so much that if there's a massive solar storm and the resulting EMP kills global comms and electricity

we'd be back to middle ages for some time. It'd be hard to recover from that too.

Volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes have never prevented people from living in risky zones. Much in the same way massive solar flares are something that can happen, although the probability isn't that high, and we can't do much about it - actually we can, there are ways to mitigate its effects. The consequences wouldn't be THAT bad on the scale of "shit that could happen". I don't think it justifies a less heavy reliance on technology.

 

As I said it before, mankind was doomed for self-annihilation ever since we found E = mc ²    

If you're thinking about nuclear bombs as I assume you are, E = mc^2 has little to do with it. Most of the energy of a nuclear fission comes from the binding energy of nuclei, not from rest energy, and the sheer power of it relies on chain reaction.

Einstein probably had more of a role to play in the invention of the nuclear bomb by explaining to Roosevelt how dangerous it could be and that the germans were trying to develop it - something which, iirc, he did regret later in his life, but he certainly didn't regret for his work in physics.

[Redpanda]

If you're thinking about nuclear bombs as I assume you are, E = mc^2 has little to do with it. Most of the energy of a nuclear fission comes from the binding energy of nuclei, not from rest energy, and the sheer power of it relies on chain reaction.

Einstein probably had more of a role to play in the invention of the nuclear bomb by explaining to Roosevelt how dangerous it could be and that the germans were trying to develop it - something which, iirc, he did regret later in his life, but he certainly didn't regret for his work in physics.

E = mc² (energy = mass times the speed of light squared) is the expression of the statement made by Einstein that a large amount of energy can be released from a small amount of matter. A-bombs illustrates this fundamental principle without fail.

And yes, Einstein's biggest role in the invention of the atomic bomb was just signing a letter written by Leo Szilard to Roosevelt urging to build the bomb in the fear that Germany might have been working on an atomic bomb long before.

 

That famous equation started the whole process. It was the initiation that gave birth to the atom bomb even if not directly related. This is what I mean when I say mankind was doomed for self-annihilation ever since we found E = mc². We were already trapped in a Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb scenario ever since Einstein published that equation in his paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon its Energy Content?" in 1905.

[Down]

 

E = mc² (energy = mass times the speed of light squared) is the expression of the statement made by Einstein that a large amount of energy can be released from a small amount of matter. A-bombs illustrates this fundamental principle without fail.

[Redpanda]

Not exactly, no. E = mc^2 express the fact that energy and mass are equivalent. 

Well, I read that the equation had many profound implications (chief among them being that matter and energy are the same stuff). So no surprise in seeing how our concepts about it differed so much.

 

You don't make bombs out of this. You don't take a mass and wholly convert it into unfathomable amounts of energy. You can't take a scrap of your body and make a bomb with it. A-bombs liberate energy that comes from binding forces of the particles in the nuclei. That's not the same kind of energy at all.

I guess it's my mistake to have not worded it properly.

The equation helps in illustrating the energy released in an atomic reaction is all. Not make bombs out of it.

http://www.doug-long.com/einstein.htm

It's an extremely arbitrary point to set the beginning of particle physics. While Einstein's work was so incredible that it had influence on pretty much all of physics at the beginning of the 20th century, this domain has been pioneered by people like Rutherford and Bohr. Even the paper you cited is an embryo of special relativity, not of particle physics.

The only thing you could argue is that Einstein's work gave a huge impetus into making a new generation of brilliant scientists think differently (which led, for example, to those who developed quantum mechanics in the 20s).

You clearly seem to know your stuff.

I could argue more about how much Einstein's equation was an important contribution in nuclear physics long before Rutherford and Bohr with the help of a Stephen Hawking book but your post has convinced me otherwise. I find myself agreeing with your points. Well done.

[Down]

You clearly seem to know your stuff.

I'm a physics student, and well into my studies, so it's kinda my soon-to-be-job. And I also have an interest in the history of science.

 

I could argue more about how much Einstein's equation was an important contribution in nuclear physics long before Rutherford and Bohr with the help of a Stephen Hawking book but your post has convinced me otherwise. I find myself agreeing with your points. Well done.

Rutherford was already working on particle physics in 1905, though.

With that said, I'd happily take the reference of that Stephen Hawking book, maybe he makes a connection I can't think of, and I'm always curious to know more on the topic.

[Redpanda]

With that said, I'd happily take the reference of that Stephen Hawking book, maybe he makes a connection I can't think of, and I'm always curious to know more on the topic.

"Perhaps they all blow themselves up soon after they discover that E=mc2. If civilizations take billions of years to evolve, only to vanish virtually overnight, then sadly we've next to no chance of hearing from them."

It doesn't directly tells us how the equation starts it all but the innuendos are present. I don't remember exactly if it was from a book or an article by Stephen Hawking but yes, he seemed to have made some kind of connection thus my original post. Never went into reading the details I'm afraid.

 

'They' are referred to alien civilization btw.