1. Armageddon
Hollywood has served up this scenario of earth's ultimate fate several times, most notably the 1998 blockbuster "Armageddon" starring Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton. The idea is simple; there's so much junk leftover from the bing bang and cosmic collisions that one day we'll experience the cosmic equivalent of slipping on a banana peel. Apparently the dinosaurs suffered a similar fate and it's long overdue.
If we put aside the fact that it would probably be curtains for mankind, imagine what it would feel and look like. The visual effects would be amazing, and the knowing that everything will be wrapped up momentarily (assuming it's predicted early enough) would be enough to humble even the greatest ego.
2.Contact!
There is life out there. OK, you've probably realised by now that I'm a science fiction buff, but seriously there's life out there. Intelligent life at that and one day, in some distant future or hopefully sooner, we'll stumble upon it or it us. I imagine it would change a whole lot of things; religions would crumble overnight, economic systems, etc.
3. One step closer to nowhere!
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Immortal words uttered by Neil Armstrong. Imagine what it feels like to walk on the surface of the moon. To look up and see the earth thousands of kilometers away. To walk in the void, in the nothingness that is everything...aaah! the wonder!
Although overshadowed by cold war ideologies and painted as the "race to the moon", it portrays a significant human trait lauded in a TV series of the same decade: "To boldly go where no man has gone before"
4. When in the course of human events...
The American declaration of independence is one of the most beautiful documents ever penned. Written by Thomas Jefferson it was a formal explanation of why the US continental congress had voted to declare independence from Great Britain. If I had lived then, I would not have hesitated to take arms and rise up.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..."
....to be continued
