The End of Humanity

[mithos]

"Not with a bang, but with a whimper"

How do you think humans will die out, if ever? Give reasons.

Here are some possibilities:
-Nuclear War (World War 3)
-A huge meteor smashing into Earth
-An advanced lifeform will evolve to replace humans
-The depletion of the ozone layer
-Disease (bird flu comes to mind)
-Simultaneous eruptions of super volcanoes around the world
-Machines taking over
-The explosion of the sun (not for another 5 billion years)
-Alien invasion
-A black hole that swallows earth
-A mad scientist armed with a doomsday device

just to name some...

[Darragh]

Oooo what a nice thread. So full of hope it is hmmm?

Personally I think it will be me who takes all you bastards down.

[David F]

I used to think that we'd be out evolved, but obviously that doesn't mean we'll die out. We'd probably just end up being farmed. And also, if the New Boss is evolved from humans, well, are they still human?

I suppose you could combine it with environmental catastrophe bringing about conditions which greatly favour, oh, horses over humans.

Though most likely would be something nuclear, as (it seems) most have taken their eye off the ball on that one.

I don't know much of anything, except it's twenty to two in the morning, and you really shouldn't get thinking about this sort of thing right now.

[Kevin]

too right. nevertheless, i'll go for the black hole one. it seems very overlooked indeed - i think i saw a video about it a few years ago, the idea's been in my head ever since that the solar system could be swallowed up by a black hole at pretty much any instant, & this makes the possibility all the likelier. by murphy's law anyway. although it should have happened in the last many many billions of years if it was going to... but you never know - today could be a very bad day indeed for this unsuspecting solar system. a day when the word day stops having any meaning.. what with the lack of time's existance & all. here's some serious 2am philosophy, it's as good as it gets for simple old me -- i shall now no doubt go to sleep & have catastrophic nightmares.

ps: i also don't know a lot about anything, & could well have mixed up some or all of the [facts] in the above ramblings. my astrophysics is really quite rusty, they don't bloody teach us anything interesting for Leaving Cert physics, the jerks.

[jessia]

i like the idea of an advanced lifeform evolving to replace us.

[Darragh]

ps: i also don't know a lot about anything, & could well have mixed up some or all of the [facts] in the above ramblings. my astrophysics is really quite rusty, they don't bloody teach us anything interesting for Leaving Cert physics, the jerks.

You don't find concave and convex lenes interesting?!

More seriously if I had to bet i'd bet on the some enviromental catastrophe caused by the melting ice. I like the idea of a giant solar flare totally annihilating the planet.

[writteninveggies]

Have any of you seen the short animation online called The End of the World? It's hilarious, and yet, it also has a lot of truth to it.

[icytoast]

I'd say the most likely would be a more peaceful end, that is, a lifeform replacign us due to some dramatic change in climate. Melting of ice caps, that sort of thing.

But, the black hole idea isn't too farfetched. With particle accelerators, we're able to create extremely dense areas of matter. And it has bee documented that several times, there have been occurences of what resemble black holes, although their lifespan was never long enough to sustain them. If, once we are past the trans actinide elements, where the mass of each individual atom increases so much, there was a collision of several extremely dense atoms, there could theoretically be a black hole.


Waits for the move experienced physicists to usurp him

[Laura]

We're going to be destroyed by robots designed by Disney, manufactured by General Motors, and sold by Wal-Mart.

Any way we go, Wal-Mart is going to be a big part of it.

[writteninveggies]

I'd say that humans are the most dangerous things. All the disasters that happen, they're mostly just caused by us. I don't think it's possible that we won't be our own destruction.

[Max]

An environmental catastrophe precipitated by human action: Gaia will trample us Straw Humans into the dirt.

But, the black hole idea isn't too farfetched. With particle accelerators, we're able to create extremely dense areas of matter. And it has bee documented that several times, there have been occurences of what resemble black holes, although their lifespan was never long enough to sustain them. If, once we are past the trans actinide elements, where the mass of each individual atom increases so much, there was a collision of several extremely dense atoms, there could theoretically be a black hole.


Waits for the move experienced physicists to usurp him

A very-very-very small and short-lived black hole. According to some articles such miniature ones occur naturally everywhere all the time.

[Huginn]

No, we'll just get eaten by man-eating cockroaches.

[Kevin]

they were saying something about those manufactured black holes at CERN - if only i could have understood a word the eggheads were saying. icytoast, perhaps i could have been that more experienced physicist you spoke of, if they could ever develop a particle physicist capable of explaining things properly. a long way to go yet.

[Townie]

Man-made environmental catastrophe. Then the Goddess will start afresh and put things back as they were over the millenia.

[Will]

Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs
'Oh, ~*pineapples*~,' Says Humanity




Seriously though.. how the ~*iguana*~ can you think we'll be somehow "out-evolved" and die out? Evolution takes bloody ages, and we'd kill anything remotely intelligent before it could take us over.

[Qu Klaani]

To be honest though, I reckon it'll be us, somehow, we just like killing each other too much.

[icytoast]

A cockroach is going to find it's way into a hospital, and wander into the radiation lab, where it will mutate uncontrolably and will eventually kill all of us.

[Anoria]

What's with all the cockroaches?

Nuclear war. Or we'll just develop interstellar space travel and go colonize a bunch of other planets, and this one will end up so drained of resources and intelligent people that it'll just die away, to be re-colonized in a few millennia after it heals itself.
Yes, I got that idea from a sci-fi book, but it was a good one, so I'm claiming that it's excusable.

[writteninveggies]

I agree with nuclear war. Sadly, I don't think we'll last long enough for much interplanetary travel...

[Huginn]

Yeah, I'm sticking with the laws of physics here; no interstellar empire for Earth. An intrasolar one is possible. After all, if you get even to 3/4 of the speed of light, you can get to Jupiter in an hour...well, on a good day. Colony on Europa, that sort of thing. The other planets will secede from the unified Earth government because Earth-born citizens and Earth in general tend to be favored over bubbleheads. The ensuing war to preserve the existing order or to destroy it will ultimately decimate the solar system and thus leave humanity in ruins. From there, it'll either eventually die out just from miserable conditions or will get up to commit the same mistakes, etc., yadda-yadda-yadda...