Fri 4 Jan 2008
How will humans die out? How long from now? Will it be caused by man (nuclear or bio warfare), nature big (asteroid hitting Earth), nature small (plague) or something else?
Posted by starman11 answers so far!
-
About the Site
A question gets posted each day. You smart folks answer.
- Why Big Big Question?
- Post a new question
- Read the FAQ
- Register or log in -
Recent Questions
- Converting matter to energy. What kind of matter to use?
- What did you get for Christmas?
- Songs that speak to you
- Is spam a metaphysical motivator?
- Happy Approximate Birthday, Big Big Question!
- Is nostalgia a thing of the past?
- Do New England’s trees have a really good lobbying firm?
[To the archives!]
Recent Comments
- Kickstart on Converting matter to energy. What kind of matter to use?: "Right about now, after shoveling about 15..."
- Brandon on Songs that speak to you: "Yeah, “I Like Big Butts”"
- Brandon on Why do people like Apples to Apples?: "Played this over the Christmas. It was surprisingly addictive for..."
- ross on Proof that we’re living in a computer simulation?: "The concept is too complex for a one or two..."
- debwarr on What would happen if we cured cancer?: "I think there’s a much bigger philosophical/societal issue..."
- kangaroo on What did you get for Christmas?: "I got a slow cooker, a calendar, some socks from my in-laws and some..."
- Saffron on Ketchup on your hotdog?: "And then the ketchup bottle accidentally bumps the hotdog next to it and all..."
- effenwolf on I mean, really, are you THAT important?: "What’s a “high priority” flag ??? I guess I..."
- effenwolf on What’s your most embarrassing eggcorn?: "My problem has always been picking up new words through..."
- BitterOldPunk on How would you want to live forever?: "Immortality is a long, long time. How about intermittent..."
Big Big Question is a Josh Millard project.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
We (humans) are using up/polluting the earth’s resources. While there is a capacity for a large ecosystem to heal itself, the tipping point will be reached. I imagine that we will take the rest of the earth with us - that is, those things that we don’t kill off prior to the system collapse. Maybe the hearty things like roaches will survive for a bit.
The last tribe will die of radiation sickness, having misunderstood the messages at WIPP.
What about theYellowstone National Park supervolcano erupting? I’ll give us another couple thousand years.
Zombies. Next Tuesday.
Sorry.
We won’t, enough people will have read Heinlein, Nivens, Ournelle, etc. that we will eventually get off the planet. Using up all the local resources will only be a spur to expand throughout the solar system and eventually the whole galaxy.
Terminal Verbosity, I’m considering that my official excuse to eat junkfood, play records, watch Netflix, take naps, and otherwise fuck off instead of doing any work for the next 3 days and change.
I think first there’ll be some major waves of homo sapiens herd-thinning achieved by global warming, various nasty germs, “diseases of civilization,” etc. And then some waves of resurgence, probably among folks like the Andaman Islanders since the people most removed from modernity are probably best equipped to survive such events.
To knock us out completely, it’ll undoubtedly take either a) being displaced and made obsolete by a new, improved homo species, like on that short-lived, flawed but still interesting TV show Prey or b) suffering a Bruckheimeresque planetary cataclysm.
Either that or many reincarnated passenger pigeons with guns.
I vote super bacteria or virus.
Ever see I Am Legend? Yup.
I’ve always viewed humans as being like cockroaches: it’s not going to be all that easy to actually kill everyone of them off. I figure that whatever does it (my money is on volcano, and/ or asteroid)there will still be a sufficient population of humans left that they could theoretically keep the species alive, but that they will revert to a much more rudimentary lifestyle.
Like ‘iron age or earlier’ rudimentary.
What will be our downfall?
If no cataclysm occurs, evolution. We will evolve, eventually.
Cataclysmically:
To wipe us completely, our biggest currect threat is Texans with nukes. They are the craziest people around with access to world ending nukes.
Then comes disease, however with the number of people and the tech we have there will be peeps resistant to just about anything. And our tech means we will probably cure whatever it is before it kills us all.
The most eventual methods of extinction of humanity on earth are super volcanos and comets. But these aren’t necessarily immediate threats. Hopefully we are interstellar by then.
Global warming and our raping of the environment won’t lead to globan extinction of humanity. If could lead to chaos where super weapons, nuclear and biological, are more commonly used. But it is the weapons doing the extinction, not the environment.