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Well, how?
I personally believe that we'll be the masters of our own destruction. Probably through nuclear war during this century. After all, as resources become scarce, countries will become more desperate. It would require only one nuclear weapon to destroy the future of our race.
Out with a bang rather than a wimper.
By 'humanity' I assume you mean the current form. in which case I believe we will have altered ourselves to something else within a few generations.
The chance that a disaster with for instance a huge 'rock' from space or a virus totally wipesout humanity is smaller then that weill destruct ourselves, I think. With the way we are now destroying this planet, we deserve to be destroyed, I would say.
Don't know what will be the cause though..:embarassed:
"without dignity"
A Homo Erectus will wake up one day and discover it was all just an elaborate dream...
We will all simutaneously get our willies caught in the zipper, and faint braking our heads. :balloon2:
Our alien overlords will return.
Repent repent! The end is nigh! :skull:
I agree that we'll cause it ourselves. There's really nothing in nature itself that poses a danger to us other than in perhaps millions of years. Without a civilization, our surrounding environment (both physical and mental impressions from it) would have been fairly constant for millions of years and we are well adapted to that environment and fairly good at adapting to some small changes from it, so we'd neither die as a bloodline, nor die by being transformed into something else through mutations in any foreseeable future, in that scenario.Quote:
Originally Posted by currywurry
However if we quickly alter our genes by society by adding "unnatural selection" through war and genocide, and through society give ourselves weapons our instincts aren't adapted to owning or handling, and continue to fight large-scale wars because of our societies and inability to resolve things peacefully (the necessity to resolve conflicts peacefully wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the immense capability of destruction we have given ourselves by inventing new weapons), then we can wipe out ourselves in a foreseeable future. Also if we're not careful we can remove genetical variety of our food types, causing our entire food supply to be vulnerable to just one or two virus epidemias if we're unlucky. Our exponential increase in population numbers results in resource competition which results in wars in Africa today - those wars could easily spread to regions with more dangerous weaponry (nukes etc.) if we continue to increase in numbers at this rate - apart from still increasing among native western populations, many immigrants to western countries tend to keep reproducing at a high rate (because fast reproduction rate has made it into their religions and traditions) even after coming to our countries, meaning that this scenario is very likely - western countries will also become heavily overpopulated soon and will have a majority of people who don't consider overpopulation a problem (no offense to those peoples, but to the single crucial and dangerous part their culture that overreproduction is), making Somalia and Rwanda like scenarios come to a town square near you. Then there's the eutrophication and other things threatening our supply of clear water. The problem is the solutions to dirty water problems cause more food production problems, and the solution to too little food production cause more dirty water problems, which means cutting the population increase is the only viable solution that will be sustainable for more than a time period like 2 decades or so. If the population increase is stopped and reversed for a while until the world population is down to some billion (a process which might take a few centuries to achieve), then every environmental problem can be solved. But with the current exponential growth, the population increase increases every second, making the overpopulation problems more and more threatening to mankind's existence.
These are the seven main classes of threats to mankind:
- environmental threats (as in not being able to supply ourselves with things to drink, things to eat, air we can breathe without dying. Other threats are getting our genitals destroyed by poisonous substances in the air, water and near the earth surface, and holes in the ozone layer so it can't protect us from ultraviolet radiance)
- political threats (massive warfare that unleashes problems of either supply character, or environmental problems. Warfare can kill many, but there are probably going to be survivors no matter how horrible conventional war we fight, unless we unleash massive nuke warfare that causes heavy radiation problems or particles covering the sun, killing both herbs we grow for food and maybe also ourselves directly. Supply problems due to destroyed infrastructure can kill many, but it's likely at least a few will survive such types of problems. So the main problem with the political threats is that they may cause environmental threats through unleashing of nuclear radiation, which destroys both the current generation, and the next one, by destroying the sperms and eggs of the living generations, carrying on the destruction to coming generations even if the current survives).
- genetical threats (if our society form constantly favors individuals who are willing to do things such as destroy the environment, and start unprovoked conflicts, while killing off individuals ready to make sacrifices and be heroes for their friends in war, in work, in anything, then we'll make it more likely that future generations will care less about political problems and environmental problems, which will make those problems occur more often in the future, and also causing more genetical problems in the future, which cause more of all these problems again, in a spiral down to hell)
- cultural threats (if overpopulation, environment destruction or war and violence make it into religions, cultures or traditions, and those who have such religion, culture or tradition get to positions of power, they can cause extreme damage. If it's a deeply enough rooted tradition to do things dangerous for the survival of mankind such as overpopulating, then culture can be a real threat)
- disease threat (a virus which either strikes us or our not very much genetically varied food basis which tends to get less and less genetically varied with the new GM foods coming, would be devastating, but it's probable we'll survive it, unless it causes political threats - nuke wars - which cause radiation and thereby unleashes the environmental threat)
- a comet or rock from space (very unlikely, happens very seldom, and a mankind in a fairly peaceful period and with good genetical variety in food supplies and a halted population increase, would be able to solve any problems that may be caused by a giant rock or comet from space, unless the comet is VERY VERY big, but usually such a big rock or comet would be strongly affected by the sun's gravity effect and either hit a planet very far out in the solar system or end up in an orbit around the sun, and the chances it'll end up hitting earth is minimal, so we can assume whatever rock hits us, if any, would be small, so this is a threat that could cause political and thereby indirectly environmental problems, but the danger of the rock from space threat in itself is overhyped IMO)
- the sun stopping to shine (takes many, many millions or billions of years before it happens, so it's really not something to worry about. Before then we'll either have invented high-speed rockets and found a new planet to live on, or we've killed ourselves)
Conclusion: it's the environmental threat that is the only threat that could wipe out ALL of mankind. All the other threats are of a type that they could kill many or indirectly causing our elimination through causing environmental type threats. And the sun stopping to shine problem isn't much to worry about now, especially not for as long as we have more urgent problems to overcome first. We'll all die eventually, or be transformed into something else, but as long as we remove environmental threats we'll be fine for a time so long that it's incomprehensible, and could be described by the word eternity
answer of teh year! :balloon2:
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Originally Posted by English assassin
what about the female population ??Quote:
Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince
MMORPG so good noone goes out and we go extinct due to lack of children
Hmm, someone needs "the talk".Quote:
Originally Posted by Blodrast
No, no, 'cause, see, I said that in the context of BP's quote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir
And besides, I don't need "the talk", because my wife is divorcing me.
Two Words: Organ Harvesting
I like this answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke Malcolm
definately a nuclear war, or failing that a mutated creature developed by a mad evil scientist will whipe us all out.... :inquisitive:
Simple change. You just need the "women are evil" talk. Only a slight modification.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blodrast
We get hit by a laser from the Death Star that missed everything in its galaxy and was wandering through space for light-years.
Until now. :evil:
I like Charles the prince of Wales theory nanobots turning the world to goo
Mobile phones. While necessary, they are very, very dangerous.Quote:
How do you believe humanity will come to its end?
A huge world war without nuclear weapons, because to be honest i dont think any of the great powers have the balls to press fire.
From what I remember of astrophysics our sun is in the middle of its lifespan so it should shine in its present state for another 4.5 billion years. Of After that it will become a red giant, after that it will become a white dwarf for a very very long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
Canadians
It will end Exactly the way it says in the bible.
If it's not nuclear winter by our own hands, it would probably be by aliens. :2thumbsup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by stalin
good one man,LMAO,:laugh4: :laugh4:
"Originally Posted by Blodrast
what about the female population ??
Hmm, someone needs "the talk"
May I give the Talk??NOT,lol..
Zombies. Come ooooon, zombies.
Me. Nukes.