Hypothetical: Life in an asteroid belt.
 

If the earth was situated inside a belt of asteroids that hit earth frequently, do you think our civilization would have evolved differently? Feel free to discussion any aspect: daily lives, education, religion, agriculture, politics...anything you want.

For the sake of starting with the same assumptions, let's go with the following:

As a typical human being, you have a 50% chance each day* of getting pinged by a micrometeor that is large enough to feel temporarily like you got stung by a bee.

You would have a 1 in 1,000 chance* in a given week to be hit by a meteor that is large enough to knock you cold or break a bone.

You would have a 1 in 50,000 chance* each week of being hit by a metor large enough to kill you.

Once a year, a big meteor hits and takes out an area of 1 to 10 square miles.

Once every 10 years, a bigger meteor hits and takes out an area of 500 square miles.







* Higher odds for Turkish quadrupedal walkers since they would have more exposed surface area.

nasa would be better funded,

and we'ld have cool lasers by now

I think we would definitely downsize architecture, and any unnecessary parts of a buildling that could be downsized would be downsized.

I doubt we'd see the great cathedrals of Europe.

People everywhere would spend all day and night on the Internet.

What? Me worry? My tinfoil hat will protect me.

1) Baseball players would wear pie pans on their heads. Held in place by little leather straps under their chins.

2) Car wax would have never been invented.

3) Generally, everybody would be in a pissy mood.

4) "Struck by lightning" would be a phrase used to describe a lucky person.

5) People could buy crater insurance.

FAX

I think we'd have a lot more superstition, and a lot more active perception of religion. Imagine someone lying to you and then being killed by a meteor as the words come out of his/her mouth. There would be a lot of lore about that kind of thing.

I agree, Mr. Rain Man.

Louisa May Alcott would have a book entitled, "The Little Lying Puddle Of Goo".

FAX

It would seem to me that people with pointier heads would take more glancing blows than head-on blows, and would therefore have an evolutionary advantage.

Same for women with smaller bosoms as compared to larger bosoms.

no more silicon??? PBJ PBJ PBJ

heck ya ...

science would completely different ... everything would be slanted towards protection and survival after impact.

construction would be completely different ... everything would be built with protection in mind instead of aesthetics.

medical would be drastically different.... be more injury repair and less cosmetic surgery etc.

the civilization would basically have grown and developed under "at war" conditions.

Chuck Norris would deflect them all by pointing to all of them and yelling "BAM!"

Given the number of asteroids in the asteroid belt in our own solar system, not to mention the sheer size of some of them, I would say that none of us would have to worry about how the planet would have evolved. It's more likely all life would have been destroyed eons ago.

Hell, living outside the belt is scary enough as it is. Take for example this this video of a mile wide asteroid that passed by our little planet on the 6th of this month. If that thing hits our planet, it's all over kids, ... for all of us.

BTW, if anyone is interested, when the full moon rises on Monday evening, March 14th, you might notice something odd; a pale shadow darkening the moon's southern hemisphere. That is the shadow of Earth, and if you can see it, you've spotted a penumbral lunar eclipse.

Penumbral lunar eclipses are not as dramatic as total lunar eclipses. During a total eclipse, the moon penetrates the dark-red core of Earth's shadow; during a penumbral eclipse, the moon is merely in the outskirts. Even so, penumbral eclipses are fun to observe.

That's a cool video, Mr. 4th and Long, but I don't see how that little white dot could do much damage.

I think that our social conventions would change dramatically. For example;

1. Opening a door for a woman so she could exit the house first would be considered assault.

2. Offering someone a "hit" would be akin to threatening their life.

3. "Getting stoned" would be a term used to describe a suicide attempt.

FAX

No one would own an expensive car, and especially not a convertible.

I would think that we might have a lot more trees, too, just for a little bit of extra shielding.