800 out of 12.000 boat people have drowned in 2 months time in unappreciated heroism. One billion out of 7 billion people go hungry every day. Science no longer yearns for the unknown. Seen against this backdrop, CERN\u2019s refusal for 3 years to allow for a scientific safety conference in the face of a comparable risk to the whole planet (to be shrunk to 2 cm in a few years\u2019 time with a probability of about ten percent) fits in perfectly.<\/p>\n
Are human beings the \u201cten percent killers\u201d by nature? I doubt it. A corrupt system is almost everywhere active in society, or so it appears. The past fate of Lampsacus hometown could be taken for a sign. The hometown of all persons on the Internet is an option for 17 years but remains a non-topic. This even though it is quite affordable and would boost the nation or continent or institution that installs it. And in addition would do a lot for a healthy global economy.<\/p>\n
What has all of this to do with CERN? I do not know \u2014 except that CERN invented the Internet. But there is the more recent fact that they are hostile to new scientific results and more specifically are unwilling to admit a discussion of the safety of their \u2013 by now for more than a year running at increasing luminosity \u2014 mega-experiment. I admit that I still hope that my results as to an apocalyptic danger residing in the latter can be relativized. But so far, no one tried to achieve this goal. And no one on the planet dares take up the issue.<\/p>\n
In ordinary life one calls such behavior cowardice: Disappearing from sight when asked to respond. A very human attitude. Especially so when a monolithic giant like one of the few legally immune world institutions is involved.<\/p>\n
Forgive me that I am still hopeful that this issue is going to be taken up by the world\u2019s media such that either the planet is saved or \u2013 if it turns out that it was never in jeopardy \u2013 rationality is re-established. For human beings are the only animals capable of rationality \u2013 of seeing with the eyes of the other and doing so with their hearts involved. For as a young child, they invented the idea of benevolence \u2013 the suspicion that mom wants them to be happy so they turned the table and wanted mom to be happy. The inexplicable light of the day and the gift of the present now are part of this human discovery of mutual gratefulness.<\/p>\n
Take care, everyone, and thanks for the fish. The fish of rationality. That CERN is allowed to interrupt operation until the safety issue is clarified. I wish them all the good luck of the world.<\/p>\n
Otto E. Rossler, chaos researcher, University of Tubingen (For J.O.R., May 11, 2011) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
800 out of 12.000 boat people have drowned in 2 months time in unappreciated heroism. One billion out of 7 billion people go hungry every day. Science no longer yearns for the unknown. Seen against this backdrop, CERN\u2019s refusal for 3 years to allow for a scientific safety conference in the face of a comparable [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-existential-risks","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}