How will humanity end?

[Morrus]

There are many things which might decimate humanity or worse. But what do you think will be the thing to actually end us? The point where we go extinct?

I'm not counting transhumanism as extinction - while we might well turn ourselves into something else eventually, for the purposes of this poll we still exist.

As an added bonus, how do you think we'll survive the things you think won't kill us? Do you think asteroid deflection will become easy; that we'll move the Earth away from the sun as it expands; that we'll spread throughout the galaxy; that we'll eventually defeat disease completely?

I think that by the tmie the sun engulfs Earth, some of us will be elsewhere; maybe we'll have settled somewhere, maybe we'll have built arks to live on, maybe it'll just be a couple of little colonies eking out a harsh existence, but we will have people elsewhere. I don't think mass galactic colonization will happen, though - at least not unless we find out that Einstein was wrong.

 

[Dioltach]

The cats will lose patience with their incompetent human servants, and will decide to get rid of us all.

 

[Janx]

I forget what the kill rate was on the black plague, but I suspect any given infectious outbreak doesn't have a 100% kill rate, either by imperfect distribution or by inherent immunity.

So, I doubt a pandemic will kill us all, even if it takes out most of humanity. There will be clumps that rebuild and come back.

I also doubt the efficacy of mutually assured destruction. While the Russians and US might be launching their nukes at each other, there are some regions that will be left alone (after all, the 2 warring parties are mostly limited to the northern hemisphere).

No doubt, the offending parties will be hosed, as they were shooting big bullets at each other. And nuclear winter, radioactive clouds do have a far reach, there are going to be pockets of the world less affected by matters that happened in the Northern Hemisphere of the planet. It's going to take time before bad effects reaches Argentina for example.

So, I suspect our biggest risk is on the order of a planet killer event, most likely natural, if we haven't managed to move out by then.

 

[Morrus]

I forget what the kill rate was on the black plague, but I suspect any given infectious outbreak doesn't have a 100% kill rate, either by imperfect distribution or by inherent immunity.

Well, certainly none have had a 100% kill rate yet, as evidenced by our posting!

I also doubt the efficacy of mutually assured destruction. While the Russians and US might be launching their nukes at each other, there are some regions that will be left alone (after all, the 2 warring parties are mostly limited to the northern hemisphere).

No doubt, the offending parties will be hosed, as they were shooting big bullets at each other. And nuclear winter, radioactive clouds do have a far reach, there are going to be pockets of the world less affected by matters that happened in the Northern Hemisphere of the planet. It's going to take time before bad effects reaches Argentina for example.

I agree. Nuclear war would be terrible, but some would survive.

 

[Nytmare]

I think (hope) that we've managed to make it past the most dangerous threats of mutually assured destruction, and that humanity (for the most part) understands that we need to start focusing on the next series of baby steps to get ourselves off of the planet. I consider myself to be an optimist, and realize that there's still plenty of time for the numerous threats that are out there to wreak some serious havoc, but I think we'll manage to claw our way through and survive.

 

[Zombie_Babies]

I chose 'Other' cuz I want a zombie-apocalypse. Like, yeah. I thought we were gonna have one when Fukushima happened but nooooo, we didn't get one. Anyhoo, since I had a SyFy original idea because of that but never wrote it (radiation zombifies drowned peeps, they walk the bottom of the Pacific over to Cali and start chompin' brains - don't steal it!!!) I'd like to actually see it happen.

 

[Morrus]

I chose 'Other' cuz I want a zombie-apocalypse. Like, yeah. I thought we were gonna have one when Fukushima happened but nooooo, we didn't get one. Anyhoo, since I had a SyFy original idea because of that but never wrote it (radiation zombifies drowned peeps, they walk the bottom of the Pacific over to Cali and start chompin' brains - don't steal it!!!) I'd like to actually see it happen.

Ah, no, "how do you want the world to end?" is another poll.

 

[Morrus]

So we've got a couple of people who say we'll never be extinct - that we'll survive the end of the universe. I'm curious as to the thoughts there - are we talking multiverse theories, or universe models which support life indefinitely?

 

[Umbran]

I don't know of any solid argument for us outliving the Universe.

While my sci-fi loving heart wants to believe otherwise, in our culture I'm not seeing anything like the will required to get out of our solar system, so that limits us to the life of Sol.

Mass-extinction events are clearly identifiable in the geologic record. We have to be off the planet in order to avoid them.

At the moment, we seem to be on a path to creating our own mass-extinction event. Again, we seem to lack the will to really act on the danger.

So, right now, if I were forced to bet, I'd say climate change, a big rock slamming into the Earth, or the gradual brightening of the Sun boiling away our water.

 

[Dioltach]

I voted Rogue Black Hole, but that would really suck.