How will the human race become extinct? (sci fi, issue, virus)
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"Ain't thay out thar a-playin' them Doolin' Banjos?"
Ah tell you, its a gittin harder and harder to find fat men who can squeal lak a pig. City boys just caint get up the breath cause they bin sittin around diddlin and playin them video games.
The world, as far as any individual is concerned, comes to an end every night when falling into dreamless sleep. Ever wake up and wonder who that is lying next to you in bed? The old world was destroyed and a new one was snuck in. Gotta watch out for them tricky multiverses.
Of all the organisms on the planet we're the only one's that build progressively more powerful tools to fight our own kind. Same for biological warefare as well.
So likely, if some intervening cataclysm doesn't occur, we'll kill ourselves off.
Not sure, we could go extinct from plague or war, but I mostly think it will come from some huge natural disaster--whether sudden or creeping upon us as an Ice Age or Climate Change heating things up...
The poet Robert Frost put it well, I thought, in his poem, quoted below:
"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 I had to perish twice I think I would know enough of hate to say
That for destruction ice is also great and would suffice"
Imagine if there was some impending disaster that was certain to render the entire planet into oblivion. It'd be great if there were a way to evacuate the planet with everyone who wanted to leave. I'd guess it would be thousands of years from now, if not longer, before such a technology would be able to accomodate such a massive exodus of who knows how many billions of people.
Right now, the population of the planet is estimated to be almost 6.8 billion people. The projected population by 2100 could be 13 billion. By 2300, some projections suggest it could go as high as 36.4 billion. How would you evacuate 36.4 billion people? Simple answer is that you can't. Most likely such an evacuation would be done on a selective basis. A few would be chosen to evacuate and the rest would be left behind.
Of course there's the other problem: where to relocate all these evacuees?
On the optimistic side, I think the human race will manage to exist, although the population may decline in significant numbers. In the far distant future, assuming any unforeseen catastrophes are avoided, humans will continue to evolve into who knows what form. Homo sapiens will eventually become extinct. We may have already left the planet by then and migrated to gigantic artificial space habitats that are able to move out of the solar system and slowly around other parts of the galaxy.
I don't think overpopulation will be our undoing. Those population projections were calculated in the 1970s most likely, since then our scientists have estimated that the world population will peak around 2050 at 9-11 billion and then start to slowly decline. Just take a look at global birthrates-across the board they decline as a country develops.
Of course, that's still a s**tload of people to evacuate!
The question of where to evacuate these people is far more interesting! That is why we must now take the first steps of settling the solar system. I'm not talking about terraforming Mars here-although that is a fun topic it is in the far distant future. In the meantime we should concentrate on the industrialization and commercialization of near Earth space. Start by moving heavy industry and power generation (combination of nuclear and solar) either into orbit or lagrange point between the Earth and moon depending on the need. Of course to do this we will have to do better than combustion engines taking us into orbit. A space elevator would do this magnificently but has the downsides of being a tempting target for terrorists and its huge start-up cost.
Give companies and people an economic reason to go into space and I guarantee that it will be made affordable. The top-down approach used so far by Nasa hasn't been adequate but that's for another discussion
To revisit the topic of terraforming Mars, we really should give it some serious consideration in a few hundred years if we still can't travel faster than light. When the sun swells out to the orbit of Venus in 5 billion years it will be nice to have a little summer getaway to cool off.
Thankfully most of these numbers are in the billions! Of more immediate concern are biological hazards/ plagues or a possible impact from space. Thankfully the ones that probably killed the dinosaurs are so incredibly rare that if we are still around we will have the means to deal with them. For now, neither a worldwide deadly pandemic nor a small to mid-size impact would likely kill every single human. Although the collapse of civilization is plausible. As far as global warming is concerned, itmight make this planet miserable in the future I don't think it threatens our very survival as a species.
This could all be a mute point if the singularity or events predicted in many holy books occur!
I don't think overpopulation will be our undoing. Those population projections were calculated in the 1970s most likely, since then our scientists have estimated that the world population will peak around 2050 at 9-11 billion and then start to slowly decline. Just take a look at global birthrates-across the board they decline as a country develops.
Of course, that's still a s**tload of people to evacuate!
The question of where to evacuate these people is far more interesting! That is why we must now take the first steps of settling the solar system. I'm not talking about terraforming Mars here-although that is a fun topic it is in the far distant future. In the meantime we should concentrate on the industrialization and commercialization of near Earth space. Start by moving heavy industry and power generation (combination of nuclear and solar) either into orbit or lagrange point between the Earth and moon depending on the need. Of course to do this we will have to do better than combustion engines taking us into orbit. A space elevator would do this magnificently but has the downsides of being a tempting target for terrorists and its huge start-up cost.
Give companies and people an economic reason to go into space and I guarantee that it will be made affordable. The top-down approach used so far by Nasa hasn't been adequate but that's for another discussion
To revisit the topic of terraforming Mars, we really should give it some serious consideration in a few hundred years if we still can't travel faster than light. When the sun swells out to the orbit of Venus in 5 billion years it will be nice to have a little summer getaway to cool off.
Thankfully most of these numbers are in the billions! Of more immediate concern are biological hazards/ plagues or a possible impact from space. Thankfully the ones that probably killed the dinosaurs are so incredibly rare that if we are still around we will have the means to deal with them. For now, neither a worldwide deadly pandemic nor a small to mid-size impact would likely kill every single human. Although the collapse of civilization is plausible. As far as global warming is concerned, itmight make this planet miserable in the future I don't think it threatens our very survival as a species.
This could all be a mute point if the singularity or events predicted in many holy books occur!
I agree, if the estimates were from the 1970s, they might not mean much. However, the figures and references I cited are more recent. I've since included links to those references. The UN reference was revised March 24, 2004. The IIASA reference is a 2007 update. As I indicated, there are several projections shown ranging through low, medium and high. I listed those on the high side. You know, plan for the worst and hope for the best. LOL!
2100 is almost a century away, and 2300 about 300 years from now. They are long range estimates and of course subject to change. But they are determined on a wide range of data based on historical international trends, potential scenarios, etc. The thing is that global population (birth rates vs death rates) is still soaring on a global basis. If it continues to do so in the centuries ahead, we can expect staggering numbers in global population. If they decline for any number of reasons, then the numbers would either stabilize or decline.
I'm not sure which countries you're talking about that point to a decline in global population. One would think that the U.S., several European, and Australia would have a trend in lower populations. However, these areas have seen increases in populations due to mass migrations from less developed countries. The U.S. has seen a whopping surge of migrants over the last few decades. And a good number of those migrants are continuing to have large families.
If you've spent any time in Asia as I have, then you can clearly see much higher numbers of younger people in the work force. This is very noticable in countries like Thailand. I don't recall off hand what the percentages are, but people over 50 are in the minority. Thailand is trying to take a progressive approach to stabilize the birth rate, and is succeeeding in some way, but mostly among those in the middle and upper income brackets who are better educated and want smaller families. Is it making a difference overall? It depends on how you look at it. Even if people limit the number of children to say, two kids per family, the rate of increase may appear to have slowed down, but it's still not declining overall. A look at India and it's neighbors gives a glimpse of what overpopulation looks like. China has a staggering population, and although it have been trying to stem the growth rate with its one child per family rule, the growth rate continues to rise. The continent of Africa is a location where population control is virtually non-existent in some parts.
I would have to disagree that global population is declining across the board. It's just the reverse. In some areas around the planet, birth rates are declining by virtue of smaller families, but overall, the birth rates globally are still increasing. So even if you knock off a few billion from the estimated figures of the next 100-300 years, how much of an overall decline is that in terms of the numbers of living people on the planet? Not much.
I agree that a migration off the planet makes sense, especially if the world population continues increasing, whether rapid or gradual. At the present time, we do indeed send people into space, but we still have no real idea if people could make long term migrations into space in large numbers and be able to thrive and survive, regardless of economic or any other reason. Unless we find a new technology to be able to economically transport people into space, the only ones who will go there for a long time to come would be mostly those on scientific missions. There are a lot of obstacles to overcome first. I do think it could be feasible, even likely, for large scale migration into space in the more distant future though.
What we'd need is some kind of low cost mass transit space system, at least low enough costwise to be like the cost of airfare today, or even fares that are a few thousand dollars. But that means a completely different technology than we presently have. In the meantime, life on the planet will still have to deal with conditions as they arise. If population numbers dramatically plunge, what would that do to funding large scale space programs? The main factor that could make it happen is large scale international investment from nations and private enterprise.
It's possible some kind of global pandemic could pop up and wipe out massive numbers of people. Sure, ther'd be survivors, but if the loss is large enough, what will that do to the prospect of continuing to explore space? How would it be financed? Would there be enough people left with the technical know-how and expertise?
I would think any so-called singularity, or events predicted in holy books, will be the least of our concerns to survive the future. Even if we manage to survive as a species long into the future, most likely we will continue to evolve until there is a new species and homo sapiens joins the ranks of extinction with other earlier humans.
I think the most likely end to the human race would be sterility. I know nobody mentions it, but look at the numbers. Infertility is on the rise, and multiplying, and our environment is perpetuating it.
Other then that, I dont think any other cause, short of the earth running in to the sun, would end everything, and by that time, man will likely have colonized other planets or even galaxies . Even catastrophic events (like a meteor) would likely net some human survivors, who could repopulate.
Man is far more adaptive and intellegent then past extinctions.
Last edited by Randomdude; 08-06-2009 at 02:31 PM..
1. Humanity will end with an incurable common flu.
2. God will hit the reset button.
3. Obama will become allies with Osama and Nuke all the other United Nations.
4. One day, when everyone goes to sleep they will never wake up again.
5. Terrorist attack by Aliens.
6. Yo mama is so fat that she will squash every human being. (that was lame)
7. Magneto will devise a plan to exterminate regular humans and allow mutants to rule the earth.
8. A Native American scientist will create a virus that will kill every ethnicity exept Native Americans and wild buffalos.
9. Humans will evolve into an obese, big headed, short legged beings that will breathe lard instead of oxygen.
10. You die.
I love that site. Alllllll kinds of ways for the human race to go extinct.
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Which gun, which gun... decisions, decisions....
