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Re:Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Mil... by dharmab on Friday May 25, 2018 @06:11PM (#17158454)
Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest explores this idea, mostly to point out that there is no acceptable method to choose who gets evacuated and who stays behind. The author argues through his characters that any attempt at evacuation would create immediate and violent conflict between humans.
Re:Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Mil... by blacksmith_tb on Friday May 25, 2018 @06:36PM (#17158675)
See also Seveneves[1], where a similar evacuation does indeed have some downsides. It's also a theme in one of my favorite Ted Chiang stories, "Mono no Aware"[2].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves

2: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/mono-no-aware/

Re:Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Mil... by mcrider on Friday May 25, 2018 @08:09PM (#17159222)
Seveneves and the Dark Forest series are literally the last two (sets of) books I read and they are so wonderful. The last book in the Dark Forest series in particular has some of the most mind-blowing concepts I've encountered in SciFi.
Re:Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Mil... by netcraft on Friday May 25, 2018 @11:28PM (#17160029)
I havent read Dark Forest but I also enjoyed Seveneves. If you want more mind blowing sci-fi I can't recommend _Diaspora_ by Greg Egan enough.
Re:Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Mil... by mcrider on Saturday May 26, 2018 @01:49PM (#17163310)
Looks great -- putting it on the list!
Re:Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Mil... by thaumasiotes on Friday May 25, 2018 @06:42PM (#17158733)
Violent conflict hasn't stopped things from happening in the past; it seems overwhelmingly unlikely to stop an evacuation either.