How will humanity end?

[Umbran]

And please don't ridicule me for being a believer. Contrary to popular liberal thinking, many people do still believe in God.

Contrary to the thinking of many believers, most folks are quite comfortable with you having your beliefs, and feel no need at all to ridicule you for them. Unfortunately, your presumption that we would be jerks means we can't prove to you that we aren't.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

- Robert Frost

 

[Robin Hoodlum]

Contrary to the thinking of many believers, most folks are quite comfortable with you having your beliefs, and feel no need at all to ridicule you for them. Unfortunately, your presumption that we would be jerks means we can't prove to you that we aren't.

It isn't so much about you guys, but rather some clowns I know from WotC. They just love being jerks and baiting and ridiculing believers, or get upset every time someone mentions Jesus or their belief in Him.
No offense towards you guys here.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Also:

 

[Klirshon]

We machines will be your "huckleberry".

 

[Nellisir]

Optimistically, I went with galactic collision. Realistically, I'd lean towards major impact, but it'd have to be a doozy. Homo sapiens survived for tens of thousands of years without modern civilization; related species survived for hundreds of thousands of years. If you get a 99% human die-off event, the species would still be just fine afterwards.

The big question is if we're going to plateau around our current level of science or if it'll jump forward, probably through genetics, and then plateau. If the former, we'll probably regress at some point (pandemic, impact) and then rediscover; if the latter, all bets are off. Eventually we'll try engineering aquatic humans, space humans, etc, etc. Technologically I suspect our theory will outstrip our practice; we might find a theory that allows wormhole traffic, but requires the mass of Jupiter to create.

Then again...I dunno. I am pretty pleased to be alive at this point in time. It's interesting.

 

[PigKnight]

Random Gamma Ray burst. Wham bam.

 

[Orius]

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?

I selected it because to me it is the only result I like, though it's a somewhat limited answer in terms of the poll's scope.

Basically in terms of ethical priorities, preventing human extinction is pretty much at the top for me. Scientifically, humans probably won't last forever, but the only acceptable outcome to me is the evolution of H. sapiens into a species that is better suited towards long term survival in the universe at large and which doesn't forget the accomplishments of human culture. So right now the main thing is start mastering the techniques for offworld settlement, because the Earth's biosphere won't last forever. Farther out than that, there is the possibility of heat death, but that's too far into the future for us to be able to do anything about.

 

[Jet Shield]

Given the number of stupid people I meet on a daily basis, I have to believe that humans will eventually breed themselves into a state of fatal stupidity. In a few generations, the stupid people will rampage across the world killing off anyone with an IQ higher than 60 through sheer numbers. Following that, they'll enter an unstoppable spiral to ultimate stupidity until they're too stupid to even feed themselves.

 

[freyar]

Hard question; not sure I can decide if climate change would get everyone or if a few people might squeak through.

But I do find some of the options a bit puzzling. Wouldn't a rogue black hole be a major impact event? And the missing option of a nearby supernova would probably act similarly to a gamma ray burst but be a lot more likely. All in fun, of course, and the list can't be comprehensive, so I'm just throwing some thoughts out there.