I can't think of any good reason to do it other than the coolness factor.

I think the implicit assumption is one of: we're going to completely fsck up this planet and have to leave, something else is going to threaten to fsck up this planet (and we'll have to leave), or we're going to outgrow and want to be elsewhere.

Do I think it likely we could pull it off (or even have the resources)? That I'm skeptical of.

When I see something which says "In 15 years the world will be like this", I think "My, what drivel", and move on.

From what I've seen in my lifetime, futurists and prognosticators are usually dead wrong, clueless, and writing little more than fiction.

It offers a sobering conclusion: We might be able to pull it off. But it will take an overhaul of the way we use energy, and a huge investment in the development and deployment of new energy technologies. Significantly, it calls for an entirely different approach to international diplomacy on the issue of how to combat climate change.

In other words, it will require the impossible, need huge sums of money, depend on a level of consensus and cooperation unlikely to happen, and a near complete re-tooling of societies.

Blah blah blah.

Can you sue automakers for car crashes not caused by defect?

Can you sue gun makers for deaths?

Can you sue the financial industry for losses in the market?

Then why the hell is this any different? Hell, sue the fscking NSA for not having told you about it and stopped it.

This would imply that they are decelerating on the approaching trajectory.

Or getting as far away from us as they can.

That's purely a velocity measure, to include the energy you need to include the mass.

So it's "hogs heads * (furlongs/fornight)^2"

This is supposed to be news for nerds. Not news for delusional paranoiacs.

It's increasingly hard to tell the difference.

What would have been dismissed as fodder for paranoid people a decade or so ago, is pretty much common place these days.

Sadly, even the paranoids are all going "holy crap, have you seen this?"

Sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction (or delusion).

What happened to extradition treaties and such?

In theory, they're in effect.

In practice, your government simply ignores them, or strong arms the country in question.

America has ceased to be about the rule of law, just about what they want, and what they're willing to do. The laws, treaties, and demands of other countries is simply deemed irrelevant.

On an international scale, the US is more or less a rogue state which does as it pleases. And that is truly alarming, because the global message is "we don't give a fuck about you, we're Americans".

Since when did the US got power to arrest people in Maldives?

Since they decided to give it to themselves.

Does that mean they can just go into arbitrary countries and arrest people arbitrarily?

They've been sending in people to do snatch and grabs for years now. Then they send them to a 3rd country which can use 'enhanced' interrogation which would be illegal in the US.

And then they say that anything is legal because these people are enemy combatants who don't wear uniforms, and therefore not covered under any treaties.

Oh, and if they have to, they'll send in a drone strike in a country which hasn't authorized it, and if they happen to kill some civilians who were in the vicinity -- well, too bad that you were near someone we wanted to kill.

Seriously, have you not been paying attention? "Team America, World Police" has been a real thing now for quite some time. This is hardly the first time they've done this.

They simply don't care about things like sovereignty, and their own security needs trump everything.

If you can compress space to achieve warp speed, you can then also compress space to create waves in the vacuum.

You don't compress space, you bend it.

And, no, I don't actually know what that means either. :-P

Every airplane can land on water at least once.

Funny you should say that.

A bunch of years ago I was involved in the airline industry.

The people who did the aircraft maintenance used to howl at the notion of the "water landing" -- because until those guys did it a few years ago in the Hudson, no commercial plane had ever done it and remained intact. Which makes what they did all the more impressive.

Those seat cushions under your chair in case of a water landing? Well, let's just say within the aviation industry, they're largely regarded as wreckage markers, not flotation devices to keep you alive in the event of a water landing.

The artificial horizon for aircraft has been around for decades.

I strongly suspect most planes have one.

Failure to use it is not a technology problem.

In the event of mechanical (or system) failure(s), any pilot is at least going to want to be able to peer out a window with his own two eyes to see what's going on

Well, the corresponding counter point (just because) is that if people weren't relying on looking out the window ... you wouldn't have pilots landing at the wrong damned airport.

Ideally, a digital display would have big giant warning signs which say "not this airport, dummy, that one over there".

Plus, I just LOVE the "flick the wrist to turn the light on" function. It means I can check the time in the dark even if I only have my watch-hand free.

Hmmm ... define 'flick'?

My Casio solar powered watch, when I hold my forearm horizontally and turn the wrist to where I'd be able to read it ... it turns on the light.

If I hold my wrist in any other position, the light doesn't come on.

It is a damned handy feature. Just look at your watch.

You have absolutely no idea on how patent law is applied.

Sure we do: badly.

Yes, the airplane will land without power.

Do you mean 'land', as in controlled descent to a specific place ... or do you mean 'land' as in 'gravity still works'?

It will eventually stop flying, but that may not be the same as 'landing'.