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What do you think will bring about the ultimate destruction of humanity in the future? Will it be caused by us in nuclear war, will we simply fade away due to lack of resources for survival, or will we be wiped out by an outside force in space? Or what of the apocalypse for those who are religious? If one of these events were to occur within this generation, how would you prepare for the end? How would the public react? Or rather, do you think we will have moved to another planet elsewhere before the earth is destroyed? What seems more likely?


While you think about this, enjoy the beautiful destruction:

I believe that one day, God will get sick of all these humans turning pizza into vegetables and will rage plow his godly knuckles into the crust of the planet, wiping us out in one awe inspiring mass of explosive fury that would make Michael Bay blush

Kaizy, on 09 December 2011 - 10:45 AM, said:

Don't worry, I won't be doing that anytime soon.

Okay cool, I dont need to write my will yet

I vote that humans are stupidly resilient, probably to the point of abandoning the Earth to survive if we have to.

Also I am saddened that the thread title wasn't a song title from REM.

Most likely cause of our extinction? Anoxic event. After it happens, I give us 100 years.

This post has been edited by Carcharocles: 09 December 2011 - 02:41 PM

Carcharocles, on 09 December 2011 - 02:41 PM, said:

... That is a really crazy thing that is mildly making me freak out. Damn...

But 100 years is good, no way I will have to worry too much.


Unless we learn how to keep people alive longer... then it will be my problem.
Oh My God.

For those who don't know why Nik is freaking out about my statement, let me explain.

Our oceans produce the majority of the oxygen on our planet. This oxygen comes from plankton blooms. An anoxic event is where oxygen producing plankton blooms die. This causes both a lack of oxygen in the oceans, and the atmosphere. Sounds really nasty, doesn't it? Well, I'm about to make it worse.
The oceans, at some point during the events will go stagnant. At that point, the entire ocean will emit hydrogen sulfide, which is mildly toxic. That's right--our atmosphere would be mildly poisonous. Not pretty, of course. Anoxic events contributed to several past mass extinctions, including the one in the Mesozoic (you know, the one that "killed off" the dinosaurs).
Now to really fuck with you, we're already seeing signs of this happening. Jellyfish blooms and oceanic dead zones are believed to be key indicators, and they're both popping up in the oceans. To top it off, we have the hunting of "keystone predators" in the ocean, mass oceanic polluting, and the now much stronger evidence for globing warming and climate change. These could very well lead to an anoxic event, and with all of them together being major problems right now the outlook isn't really good.

I can imagine, if it does happen, that oxygen would suddenly become more valuable than gold. We would probably try to save ourselves by creating biodomes or other controlled environments. However, as much as Hollywood would like you to believe otherwise, these artificial environments are not as self sustainable as we would want them to be. Migrating to other planets wouldn't be a choice, because we are nowhere near that level of technology.

This post has been edited by Carcharocles: 09 December 2011 - 03:14 PM

I've always held the hope that humanity will spread itself so far and wide across the universe that it will be too big to destroy. Though technically do to all the different environments humanity will probably change itself into a lot of different species.

Though if I was forced to pick I would choose super volcano eruption. Yellowstone is suppose to explode soon. Actually it was already suppose to.

An interesting fate to ponder, Carcharocles. ^_^

Another one to think about would be nuclear winter, which would cool off the planet significantly and threaten agricultural production. This could be caused by nuclear war, a large asteroid impact, or massive volcanic eruptions. Still, there would probably be a few survivors left somewhere on the globe.

The human species has been through a couple of these events already, e.g. the population bottleneck of some 70,000 years ago.

Exactly, Wacko. The "supervolcano" threat is extremely hyped. It would definitely cause global cooling, but it probably wouldn't even wipe out the entire North American continent. Still, the effects would be devastating, it's just that at the time the last one erupted, mankind hadn't even developed agriculture yet, and we were far more vulnerable than we are now.

Edit: now that's a couple of typos I never thought I'd make.

This post has been edited by Carcharocles: 09 December 2011 - 05:12 PM

I believe that war will be the cause of Earth's end. It's cliche, but still a likely scenario. All you need are two stupid forces fighting with nuclear bombs.

I always loved how in Quantum Physics there is a miniscule chance that the earth and a big chunk of space around it could suddenly phase and disappear from existence. I hope it makes the 'BEEWOOP' sound like at the end of Looney Toons.

Giygas said:

War itself has never even come close to exterminating the global population. There are always survivors.

The after-effects of war, maybe, but that would probably require an extensive nuclear war, and I don't think anyone really wants to go down that path, even those countries developing nuclear weapons.

wacko, on 09 December 2011 - 05:35 PM, said:

I wouldn't put it past North Korea, if they ever get the delivery method figured out. They crazy.

I hope the generals in North Korea are ready to shut down Kim Jong-il if he ever makes such a crazy and futile pronouncement. North Korea cannot hope to win a nuclear war, and would only invite retaliation.

I believe Jerk will do something to kill us all

Humans will become extinct when we evolve past our fragile physical shells and ascend into the realm of godhood.

I think humanity's going to end from something unexpected. I have faith in humanity to not go completely extinct from a crisis we have some time to prepare for, even if it'll just be the rare people who actually used that time bringing whatever other idiots are handy along for the ride. As long as we retained our genetic and medical knowledge, we could probably pull through a fairly tight population bottleneck.

I think anything less than all the oxygen is gone won't kill us.

Nuclear war? Fallout shelters.

Super volcano? Doesn't effect enough people.

Something else I forgot? Probably survivable.

Nik, on 09 December 2011 - 09:46 PM, said:

Directly. Its indirect effect would be very similar to the concept of nuclear winter.

esalaka, on 09 December 2011 - 10:03 PM, said:

Which we could totally survive.

Go team human
Also cockroaches, I guess go them too.

Well, some of us would survive, anyway.

For a nuclear winter event, I am rather badly placed, living in the middle of Canada. ^_^

Super AIDS

Yeah, i'm going with some sort of mass viral infection, seems pretty likely to me.

How do I think it's going to end? Well, whatever it is, it's probably going to be our fault. So yeah, screwing with the environment or a nuclear war. Of course, there's also the chance of an asteroid smashing the earth to pieces. Or that "anoxic event" (which really just goes in step with "screwing with the environment") that Carch was talking about. ... There's a lot of ways the earth could end, and humanity much sooner than that.

... I /hope/ it ends in that kind of divine intervention that many religions speak of. And I want to be there to see it. I think of it this way: I'm going to die one way or another. Why not an awesome way like seeing the end of the world in the very definitely final battle (could be a trope...) of time between good and evil?

There will always be that looming threat that the earth could end at any moment. But to dwell on it would be unwise.

And Bourbon, I want the world to make that sound effect, too.

I have to wonder what I'd do at the end of the world.

This post has been edited by Lux Aeterna: 10 December 2011 - 02:35 AM

Me.

ZOMBIES

I don't think it will be caused by any stupid human actions, since even an all-out nuclear war would most likely leave survivors somewhere. A huge cataclysm like the sun turning into a giant star or a very large meteor is more realistic in my opinion, but the first is due in an abysmal long time, and the second might very well never happen at all.

In case I was there I guess I'd just ponder the chances of survival and if it really was the last show I'd just grab a soda and watch it.

Upwelling of mass amounts of CO₂ from the ocean, thereby poisoning the air. Or, enough CO₂ enters the ocean and acidifies the water to a degree in which no life can live (which would obviously kill off land organisms as well).

Cavara said:

I assume you mean the red giant phase of the sun's life cycle? True, that will not happen for another five billion years. But the earth will begin to feel the effects of changes in the sun quite a bit sooner than that. In a mere billion years, the sun will be about 10% brighter than it is now, and that will be sufficient to cause runaway evaporation of the oceans. Much of the hydrogen will eventually be permanently lost to space.

Another consequence of increased solar luminosity is a higher weathering rate of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In perhaps 600 million years or so, carbon dioxide levels will fall too low for plants using C₃ carbon fixation to continue photosynthesis. Even plants using C₄ photosynthesis will eventually die off as well, thus they will stop producing the oxygen necessary for animal life to survive.

So, humanity has roughly half a billion years to get off this rock, or change the earth's orbit so that it orbits farther from the sun. The flip side is that the solar system's habitable zone will expand, thus some of the icy moons (e.g. Europa or Enceladus) may become habitable in the distant future.

Cavara said:

Uh, large asteroids (over 5 km in diameter) hit the Earth on average about once every 10 million years. That does pose somewhat of a threat to humanity!

This post has been edited by wacko: 04 September 2012 - 04:27 PM

wacko, on 04 September 2012 - 04:25 PM, said:

One can hope that humanity will survive at least another 1000 years.

The Dalek's invade.

Just kidding, in all seriousness, I'd say we'd destroy ourselves with the amount of nukes the US and Soviet Union built during the Cold War.

But that's just my theory.

Moosack said:

It'd be quite a feat for our species to make itself extinct in only a thousand years. Whatever humans may do to themselves or their environment in that time, you can likely count on a few survivors somewhere.

Still, evolution may eventually solve the problem. After all, nothing says that humans must become more intelligent...

I have a theory that when the Sun runs it's course in a star's life, it will explode, thus, either:
A. takes most of the solar system with it
or
B: leaves the solar system in total darkness with no warmth for any form of life, thus we could possibly freeze to death.
It's just me, though.

If by "explode", you mean go supernova, our sun is not massive enough to do that. After the red giant stage (during which it vaporizes Mercury, Venus and possibly Earth), the sun will eject its outer layers, and the core will cool and fade into a white dwarf star. The remaining planets' orbits are likely to be altered in the process; some may collide or be ejected from the solar system.