would they tell us or not?
If the government (US I’m presupposing) didn’t, all the world’s other astronomers would.
Yeah, I think the government would be the last people to make any sort of decision as to whether or not to tell us.
Whereupon, they would promptly be banished to the Phantom Zone.
Yeah, I guess you guys are right; the word would get out somehow.
Now, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to ask this on here or not because it’s an opinion question and not a factual one, but if there was a massive asteroid heading straight for earth, would you WANT to know?
Since this requires speculation, let’s move it to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Somehow, Congress would quickly and unanimously pass an Asteroid tax.
This has been hashed out several times in several movies and novels. In general, in the world where the US is the only nation with astronomers and total control over international communications, the powers that be would hush up the entire issue and send a secret mission to destroy the oncoming threat using nuclear mines.
In the real world, this illusion we laughingly call consensual reality, such would not happen. The ‘government’ (by which I assume you mean the federal government of the United States) would be informed of the threat earlier than the rest of us, but the information would be coming from many other sources and be so overwhelmingly obviously valid that covering it up would be impossible.
That would be an interesting scenario to plot.
Runs on the banks and stores? People leaving their homes to hide in the hills? Armed mobs in the flaming streets of major cities? Religious fanatics exhorting others to follow the magic way to salvation before the hammer of The Deity slams into our only planet?
Gosh, I sure wish we had someone with the vision to create a movie about this.
Not our current Congress. The majority of them would just say the imminent destruction of Earth is all Obama’s fault.
…and then pass a tax cut to help post impact recovery, at the same time denying disaster relief funds with out further tax cuts.
I would definitely want to know, since advance notice would enable us (and me, personally) to take steps to survive it. And I’m not just talking about sending out a crew of heroes and oil-well drillers to nuke it and get high schools named after all of them-- I’d hope we’d try something like that, of course, but the first line of defense is just stockpiling food, something we’ve been able to do for thousands of years.
Don’t forget the bunch of people who would deny that there is such a thing as an asteroid coming and it’s just a plot by whoever is in office at the time to make us submit to giving him/her/them emergency powers; or by academics, scientists and some specific industries to justify redirecting everyone else’s profits and taxes to their preferred projects (or both).
Somehow, the Jews would get blamed for it.
What you would do or be able to do depends on how much time we had before it hits. 2 years? At least we could deceive ourselves that something could be done. 3 days from now? Kiss your butts goodbye. In fact, if we had a couple of years, I think we would push ourselves to find a solution. If we had only a couple of days, there would probably be a whole lot of public praying with perhaps a few riots in some places. It would also depend on if it meant total destruction and everybody dies immediately or only all of Russia gets destroyed and everybody there dies immediately and the rest of the world just suffers ongoing global winter.
As for the government, if it was massive enough, I don’t see any government being able to keep it a secret and forcing all astronomers and other science folks, professional and non-professional, to be quiet.
And also, there would be those congregations who will joyously sell all their belongings and go camp out on a mountain top to await the auspicious arrival of the Archons in their asteroid-disguised Mother Ship, to take the Chosen Anointed Ones away, to live in glorious joy forever!
Yes. I’ve always said that if I knew now what I didn’t know then, I’d have lived my life differently. If I had advance knowledge of an extinction-level-event asteroid striking the Earth, I think I’d have some things to do. Some of them illegal, some of them of questionable moral standing, some of them fun and some of them quiet and peaceful.