Softening Up The Target

Well they're at it again. These are the words of the story as we read them:

Whew! Asteroid Won't Hit Earth in 2029, Scientists Now Say
"The world can exhale a collective sigh of relief. A newfound asteroid tagged with the highest warning level ever issued will not strike Earth, scientists said Monday.
The giant space rock, named 2004 MN4, was said on Dec. 23 to have an outside shot at hitting the planet on April 13, 2029. The odds climbed as high as 1-in-37, or 2.7 percent, on Monday, Dec. 27.
Researchers had flagged the object as one to monitor very carefully. It was the first asteroid to be ranked 4 on the Torino Scale, a Richter-like measure for potentially threatening space rocks. The asteroid is about a quarter mile (400 meters) wide, large enough to cause considerable local or regional damage were it to hit the planet."

And of course a very familiar name in the game was quoted:

"'An Earth impact on April 13, 2029 can now be ruled out,' read a statement issued Monday evening by asteroid experts Don Yeomans, Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory."

Isn't it interesting how these stories pop up every once in awhile? I say this because our planet exists in a literal sea of potentially dangerous objects. They say that less than a single MacDonald's staff are looking for these impactors. You need to understand that this is a purely uniformitarian idiom. They always play the odds and they never really believe that great disasters or conflagration is anywhere near a possibility. This is why the destruction from the tsunami is a real learning experience for the uniformitarians. It's why there were no warning systems present in the region. And that's why they must accept some real responsibility for the deaths.

So the statement that this single asteroid, 25 years from now, will not hit the earth is ludicrous.

We do not live in a safe place in the universe. I say this regardless of how many years we have lived without major destruction from space.

Disasters are real. We has a society believe that we can control these events that are impossible to control. Our paradigm is corrupted by our pride. There is another way to deal with these possibilities. Accepting chaos is difficult, however accepting it and viewing these possibilities from a catastrophist's point of view can provide understanding, improved priorities, and in the end... peace.