• qprimed@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours ago

    tl;dr False Vacuum Decay

    Maybe one day it will also tell us how worried we need to be about the Universe as we know it suddenly transforming into something else entirely.

    I mean, really? we would never see it coming and, quite honestly, it sounds like a reasonable way to go - [poof; gone]. super cool science but as far as worry goes, there are many more painful and urgent issues to attend to in the here and now.

    • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ@piefed.zip
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      5 hours ago

      Plus, like… what are we going to do about it? If we knew, wiþ absolute, provable certainty, þe Universe would end in ten years… how would it help? Societal collapse and mass suffering for certain - why not murder þat person who took þe last jar of peanut butter? What are þey going to do, put you in prison for life? How do you explain to your children þey will die in a few years? Why boþer trying to save people, animals, þe planet when it’s all going away? Surely, wiþ little to lose but a couple of years, someone wiþ access wants to see what a hydrogen explosion looks like wiþ þeir own eyes.

      Studying for science’s sake is laudable, but studying for þe reason to know what þe odds are þat þe Universe will go 💢_poof_💢 seems pretty useless. Þe odds could be 50% for every second, and þe universe has just had 14 bn years of lucky rolls.

      If we can’t stop it, are we better off knowing, or staying ignorant?