Humanity how will it end?

[xelasnave]

I was inspired by the prospects of doom raised in the thread "an interesting read" and thought I would ask what are the various prospects that are of concern, well any prospects really, that could destroy the human race or at least send us back to the cave man era.

And no points for referencing Mr Trumps election... well why not so long as it is light hearted and not political.

If you have watched domsday prepers feel free to borrow.

Civilizations rise and fall will ours fall why?

I have this feeling some germ will mutate and take us out before we can beat it.
Any ideas?

Can you present something that will worry us sick?
Alex

[glend (Glen)]

My own view of Doomday Preppers (which represents the summation of ignorance, prejudice, and the gun culture), is that i would not want to live in their bleak world.
Some say, humanity has already ended. From a quantum perspective there is a article released out of Griffith Uni Quantum Centre that suggests that multiverses can exist in the same timeline and interface (bump). Suggesting there maybe many 'you' and perhaps humanity still exists or flourishes in that universe. However, if you ever watched the movie "Event Horizon", it brings a view of terrible alternate universes. I saw another article this week supposedly from some 'noted' UK science guys suggesting quantum transfer of the human soul after the body dies. Not sure how you test that, reminds me of Schodingers Cat - who wants to volunteer. I think where we are is probably as good as it gets in the near term. Civilisations have a habit of rising and falling don't they?

[AndrewJ]

Gday Alex

I have this feeling some germ will mutate and take us out before we can beat it.

Short of an asteroid hit etc, thats about all that will stop us.

Thinking of the earth as a petrie dish, and each city/country being a different bug, where all the bugs are now fighting for space, it means one will win, then die when its food(economy) runs out.
When you think of it this way, Bernoulli and "regression to the mean" come into play, which means it will happen.
Cant beat the basic maths involved.

Andrew

[silv (Annette)]

@xelasnave : lol

how about an idiot taking a few nuclear plants hostage all over the planet and for some technical bug, the time runs out before the combined financial forces can pay the ransom - or before political/religion-al requests are met?

or... as Germany did in the 70s/80s to the deaths of a few people: the ransom is not paid because "we will not give in to terrorist threats!"

[silv (Annette)]

I like the hostage-bug-bang idea as a likely scenario.
The idiot wouldn't blow them up, or at least not all of them - so he himself can survive without getting cancer.

but a technical bug causes his dead-man-switch not to work - and bang, there glows the lily in the dark.

and I claim the copyright here and now! I might just really write a short story ... what a fascinating idea!

[Larryp (Laurie)]

If the human race doesn't restrict its breeding soon, we will all just starve to death

[silv (Annette)]

which human race? the white supremacists don't overbreed.

agreed though. food shortage in the era of the internet will cause political unrests, new terrorist groups forcing salvation on heathens with all sorts of weaponry, mass migration from climatically challenged areas into temperate ones, unrest in those areas due to greed, wall building...

and possibly, those white trash supremacists will indeed be the ones to survive.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

I thought we were all going to Mars ....NASA been advertising for passengers ....

Poppy....

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Civilizations rise and fall will ours fall why?

I have this feeling some germ will mutate and take us out before we can beat it.
Any ideas?

Can you present something that will worry us sick?
Alex

Simple, and at this point, virtually inevitable. Environmental degradation will take us out like a number of other "civilisations". Its happening right now and like the fools we are, we stick our heads in the dung heap and say, "it just isn't so"... Pointedly, today, A news reporter said the barrier reefs northern extents are pretty much rooted and the good news is, "At least they are not totally rooted yet".

Lets see, we've already passed half a dozen critical tipping points. Don't expect there'll be Northern ice cap in the near future... then, of course, the permafrost is melting at an increasing rate.... Lots of folks on the move and the tidal wave of climate refugees hasn't even started yet... Disease, war over resources like, food and water etc etc...

I suspect we'll ultimately die through slow char broiling with the odour of a global fart in our nostrils as the melting permafrost releases billions of tons of Methane.

Good riddance to a global rodent...

[pmrid (Peter)]

My instincts tell me that we will be the authors of our own undoing - one way or another.

Whether it is some superbug going endemic, some fruitcake with a taste for nuclear winter going gangbusters with the button, some calamatous and irreversible effect of global warming or just a slow steady failure of crops to feed the masses coupled with an unwillingness to share resources - especially water. We'll beat any asteroids, little green men or other existential pests or perils. And we're well on the way to the balancing point of many of the fgctors mentioned above.

Peter

[ZeroID (Brent)]

The only question is, will it be a bang or a whimper ?
All this talk about 'going to the stars' and getting off the planet to save humanity. I don't see it happening. The USA (eg) spends over half it's finances on armaments, Russia and China probably the same. I'm just hoping I get enough time for myself before they all get het up and anxious and start chucking stuff around.

[xelasnave]

I am not at all worried about the coral I have some good samples all the colour is painted and will never fade.

I have been wondering about the oxygen.
How is it produced?
Is it true algae produces most of our oxygen?
Could a polution event cause some colapse of algae such that we deplete the content and we all sortta go crazy?
Alex

[xelasnave]

I did find out that phytoplankton in the Earth's oceans produce between 50 and 85 percent of the planet's oxygen.
And whales eat phytoplankton.... get rid of the whales before we suffocate.
Alex

[Wavytone]

Ours will end in about 90 minutes after Trump presses the big red button. He's like a kid in a toyshop and he won't be able to resist using it against the Chinese. And finish off what Bush left undone in the Middle East, finally.

The snag is what will follow, thankfully it will be all over in 90 minutes with probably nothing taller than a cockroach left.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Is it true algae produces most of our oxygen?
Could a polution event cause some colapse of algae such that we deplete the content and we all sortta go crazy?
Alex

Ever lived in a big city?

[sharpiel]

Hopefully we are being monitored by more enlightened non human species who'll protect the rest of the universe from our expansion. Based upon our history here we are unsuitable to colonise other planets which we will plunder and destroy for our own enrichment and short term self fulfilment.

Human colonisation has never benefitted the indigenous races who held some resource a stronger and more advanced civilisation desired.

Unless we become more enlightened and kind towards those not ourselves we should never be allowed off planet.

[Nikolas (Nik)]

If we ever discover alien life or intelligent life outside our planet I think Humanity will undergo a paradigm shift. Knowing that we are not alone but part of a larger neighbourhood means more "opportunities"

[Renato1 (Renato)]

The Yellowstone Park super volcano could be a planet-killer, or it could just be a USA/ Canada/Mexico killer.

Unlike an asteroid heading for the earth which it may be possible to deflect, there is nothing much that can be done about Yellowstone, other than have well supplied bunkers for a small section of humanity to survive.
Regards.
Renato.

[silv (Annette)]

yeah, true! I love that scene in the movie 2012.
but manmade causes are educational and they lend purpose and meaning to the story

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

The Yellowstone Park super volcano could be a planet-killer, or it could just be a USA/ Canada/Mexico killer.

My money is on that one.
We would have zero power to stop it, no matter how much notice we got.

As to the doomsday preppers, sadly, I think their attitude may well be correct. (Happy to be wrong about this.) Our current supply system gives most big cities about a months worth of food.
A Yellowstone style event would ruin most rural food production.
I don't really want to imagine what would happen to society in an event like this.
There are many historical examples of what barbarity people sometimes reduce to when the food runs out. Check out the Batavia story from WA.
Of interest, the first ever European building in what would become Australia, was a makeshift fort that a few soldiers built to protect themselves from other Batavia members who were intent on killing everyone else so that their supplies would last longer.