Doomsday...

[GrimTerror]

There have been many theories as to how the human race will cease to exist (should it ever happen.) They are all quite interesting to think about in their own way, but if our race (or the world) does end up being vanquished, it can only happen once. Which do you think is the most likely/reasonable/logical way the world or humans will come to an end.

To help get you thinking, i'll list a few ideas...

-SuperNova/Engulfment (Inner planets being destroyed when the sun has entered it's next phase, either by exploding or expanding.)

-Other Cosmological disaster (e.g. Asteroid colliding with the earth)

-Environmental Disaster (e.g. Desertification caused by Global Warming, or floods cause by the melting of the polar Ice-caps)

-Overpopulation (Too many humans are living on the earth, casuing resources to run out completely or being used up quicker than they are replaced.)

-War (Nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.)

-Disease (perhaps some sort of super-bug that manages to cause the human race to be extinct, created by natural or unnatural causes.)

-Prophecy fufillment (In religious Terms, Judgement Day, Armageddon, Apocalypse etc. All religious accounts of the world ending.

-Extra-Terrestial Interference (Other worldly creatures that end up being responsible for the destruction of the planet. In their own ways or one of the above.)

By no means are those restricting options and you are free to discuss your own ideas of how the world/human race will come to an end. The text in brackets are only examples, so you are also free to discuss other aspects of those ideas.

NONE of the viewpoints should be discredited or considered to be bullshit, because non of us know when in the future Doomsday will occur and by what means it will happen. Anything is a possibility, despite how unlikely/ridiculous it may seem.

[L2_1989]

I think that disease and war will be the most likely events that could destroy humanity. If there was a world war now, we would all be dead with nukes, H-bombs, and biological warfare. I bet it would be democracy against terrorism.

For disease, if the avian flu mutated to be airborne, then we're fucked. We need a vaccine fast or we're gonna die.

A supernova is unlikely. It's not going to happen for 5 billion years. Earth will be too hot to sustain life in a billion years.

I can think of alot of ways on how the world will end. Asteroid, religious prophecies, E.T., all that shit. The world will end with war and disease. That's my guess.

[Schwitzer]

I'd say war and overpopulation (slash depleted resources) are the biggest bets. If the human race is ever wiped out - or even severely diminished - I reckon it will most likely be because of something of our own creation.

[GenocideAlive]

I'd say war and overpopulation (slash depleted resources) are the biggest bets. If the human race is ever wiped out - or even severely diminished - I reckon it will most likely be because of something of our own creation.
My bet.

I seriously doubt disease will ever find its way into a method of killing off the entirety of the human population. Diseases are by nature self-limiting.

[LinkTheGameFreak]

I'd say antimatter. My roommate is always going on about it, might as well make itself useful...

Seriously though, my bet would be on humanity turning on each other when a false sign of doom comes - wide spread panic, senseless killing (basically, it's like living in L.A.)

[Weltall]

Overpopulation will never kill every human. It will kill a lot, probably. Same goes with a nuclear war.

I think we have a better chance of dying from and asteroid or comet than waiting for the sun to come and get us.

I think Disease could get us, too.

If ETs somehow could manage to find us, if they wanted us dead, we'd be dead already. And if they haven't found us yet, I don't think they will. Plus, I think it would be hard to space travel.

[GenocideAlive]

Maybe a nice combination of things. AIDS + overpopulation + ETs.

[ScottieIWU]

Something spawning from a failure of evolution or disease or both. I feel like the human species will not be one of the fit species as time passes and we may simply die out before any kind of real outside force can necessarily do much.

[Morkeliph]

This is a fun thread. I'm going with a few things:

Overpopulation/Depletion of Natural Resources: as we get more and more crowded, resources will be more and more strained, especially: water. I think fresh water may ultimately be the most coveted resource globally. Of course, some nations with more wealth and quantity of this resource have an unfair advantage, increasing inequality, which will likely lead to:

War: who knows how ugly this will get? I don't think that nuclear war will be our demise, though it is possible. I think biological warfare has more potential. Consider genetically altered diseases used as weapons that run amuck! Either way, nuclear or epidemiological, I think something of this nature has great potential to destroy humanity.

Of course, with either of these, perhaps humanity might not be destroyed altogether. If a few survive disease or nuclear fall-out, there are likely reasons either genetically or culturally that contributed to their survival. Maybe they will be the fathers and mothers of the next strain of human evolution (that's for you FallenLord). Sounds like a good sci-fi movie to me!

[Tissue]

Just would like to say that disease and over population are very unrealistic theories of the extinction of the human race. Humans being numerous have a large genetic pool to recover from any disease. Indeed there are only a few documented instance where disease is actually capable wiping out an entire species. Mostly they will destroy a population in a set area and the remaining survivers will be resistant due to a chance gene or coding, just like the common example of malaria and sickle cell aneamia.

As for overpopulation, the worse that can happen will be the fall of civilisation and culture as it occurs now and all the technological advancements from the past 100 years will be lost. Probably writing and word of mouth will be retained and pass on simple concept on. Afterall overpopulation causes death by starvavion and humans can eat pratically anything-unless they are vegans.

I would like to add overall genetic deteriation as a cause for the death of the human race. No genetic transferance is perfect and as more generations are created, the human body will become more and more riddled with genetic errors. As the human form is pretty much highly "evolved" or "created" depending on your personal philosophy, any changes to the genetic coding will be unlikely to be useful. The human body is already much more suspectable to cancer due to its vulnerbility to mutation and in the end the entire race may be reduced to nothing but a collection of short-lived mental and physical wastes, a shadow of the clean-limbed and highly tuned race that had come before it...

[Rayne]

I read somewhere that between the Qur'an and the Bible, over 1000 prophecies which eventually end up with the apolocalyptic ending have been fulfilled. Its kind of creepy, but I assume facts are facts.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. War is a very rational possibility in my opinion.

[GrimTerror]

I'm sure all the options stated (plus the new one i added) have some sort of means for ending the race or the world. Nuclear War speaks for itself really, we'd be all be wiped out by the explosions. When you think that it could happen even today it's pretty scary. Even if we did somehow survive it, the earth, it's creatures and most likely us too will be inflicted with radiation, casuing radiation poisoning and mutations. Who knows what could happen if Nuclear War actually came about. We'd be either wiped out by one armageddon class explosion, die of radiation poisoning or live on as unnatural mutant freaks.

[Yoda]

I think that the "end" of the human race would happen (if you take out ways associated with religion) would be something of our own doing, likely relating to the environment. A giant nuclear war probably wouldn't destroy the human race entirely, although it would decrease our numbers significantly. I don't think that in most cases either side would risk the end of a human race just to have another sides resources or whatever. Except if the islamic extremists are in control of one. ;) Basically I would say an environmental reason would be the end of humanity (if there is one).

[singo]

A supernova is unlikely. It's not going to happen for 5 billion years.

Or at all, the sun is not big enough to go bang. It will do the inflaty big red hot part though, so if we are not all dead by then we sure as hell will be, even if it doenst go bang. Which is a pity, would be nicer if the end was a bit spectacular.

And taking the long view eventually the natural resources part will have to happen sooner or later. Society might be destroyed whamming humanity back into the stone age, but to rise up again it needs that oil stuff, which is getting burned off at a rate of knots.


Full blown Nuclear War (tm) gets less likely with every year, simply because the only people who are going to risk letting off a Nuke are not countries but are more the Kalashnikov and pickup truck brigade stepping things up a gear, and terrorists are not going to get hold of enough of an arsenal to wipe out the world unless the NNPT is in an even worse state than I think it is.


My personal bet? either impact from an asteroid or a comet, of half a continents worth of magma letting loose all at once. Or the one causing the other (meteor setting off the vulcanism that is, its hard to think how volcanos can influence asteroids). Nothing so premeditated as a war, just simple bastardyness on the part of the universe.

[SHISHKABOB]

I think that if people use their heads and decide to go to the stars and live out there then most of those theories of doomsday are out. Except for Aliens and Religious and the religious is already gonna happen so Aliens are most likely in my opinion the reason for future doomsday (if they are powerful enough) for now I will go with asteroids or something like that. The sun thing is out too because by the time it goes kablooie we will all be dead or we'll be like all over the galaxy by then.

[Eru]

War, disease, and poverty are the controls for overpopulation, in a sense, they cancel each other out. This leaves us with religious and cosmic phenomena wiping out the earth, or some unexpected event like breakdown of the nuclear weapons system or something to that effect occuring. By far the most likely in my opinion is the possibility of being wiped out by an asteroid or black hole. Engulfment will be millions of years from now so hopefully we'll have a reasonably sized civilization to cope with it.

[Healer_Shaiera]

Alright, interest in the thread... too much to resist...

Practically looking at it, nuclear weapons are the number one contributors. At our time, supernovas would not be that much of a problem. Aliens? Unproven, religious prophecies? Possible. Objects from outside the atmosphere? Yes, total ozone layer depletion, very much possible.

As stated by many, war, but as seen; there would always be the dominant and surviving party (one point of the war theory) May it be nuclear or any other method, the attacker would always think of survival. That for me is not considered to be a total wipe-out. The very sure thing I see is the sun and its obviously deadly rays.

[GrimTerror]

Who knows what the future of Technology will bring though. It could very well be that if we keep progressing in out Techno advancements, the Nuclear missiles we see today may only be a small step to great weapons of mass destruction. We've come this far from using Sticks and Stones as weapons, who's to say we will stop now?

Whether we will advance enough to colonize other planets effectively, I can't really say. Wasn't it said before that by 2001 we would be living on the moon or something? Obviously a big miscalculation there...

[loads_of_fun]

it is a proven sicentific face that the andromeda gaxily
will collid with ours in ~500,000 million years, idk what will happen
befor that but when that does happen the super massive
back holes on the center of the gaxilys will "eat" almost
every thing

i belive that is how it will ultimatley end

[Neo]

I would be more scared of biological weapons then nuclear ones.

USSR had enough to kill the population of the earth 10 times over.

Thats pretty fucking scary.

-Neo

[Healer_Shaiera]

A rethinking... I transfer my vote to the dangerous, craving for knowledge, curious and judgemental human mind. Invention after invention, production after production, I would expect that even before any intense wars or galaxial events would occur; we would be wiped out by an accident... or a madman's belief

[loads_of_fun]

or a madman's beliefare you calling me a madman?

[GrimTerror]

LOF, don't take this thread to spamming hell with you.

Maybe terrorists will end it all by some stupid religious belief that they are doing good. When looked at in that light, they seem to be very ignorant and stupid...

[SuiCidAl-KiSmEt]

The world will end when StarCraft II comes out; everyone will be so overwhelmed and die by how great it is. No, just kidding.

Many people think that nothing lasts forever; I think the human race will. Even after the Earth or the Sun blows up, people would already retreated and colonized other worlds. Astronomers already found another planet that could turn out to be another Earth. I think there will be one point in time, that humans would already colonize many parts of the Galaxy.

Although, there might be some threats that could danger human existence, like a Nuclear War, or Terrorism, I think humans are smart enough to prevent a global disaster.

[GrimTerror]

Oh I really wouldn't put my faith into humans. They can be very stupid. I'm not sure about colonizing all the other planets though, we've been watching too much Sci-fi. Take note of the requirements we would need. Water, Air and food. Earth can only flourish because of it's optimum distance from the sun and it's atmosphere. I don't see how we could survive on a planet that has no water, a planet that has no atmosphere that protects it from the sun's rays or keeps heat in the planet. Taking water wouldn't really be practical either...

[ScottieIWU]

I don't see how we could survive on a planet that has no water, a planet that has no atmosphere that protects it from the sun's rays or keeps heat in the planet.

Assuming we could begin colonization to begin with, we would probably build some kind of shelter with Earth-like conditions on a planet that was mostly similar to earth. That way, we could thrive in our shelters but still exist, although probalby not comfortably, on the surface of another planet.

If that were the case, and we found a planet similar enough to earth that we could live there, chances are evolution would continue and we'd see a kind of divergance of the species, those on Earth and those on the colony.

However, that's assuming we can colonize, build structures on those planets that would keep us in earth-like conditions and then that we survived in those colonies long enough for evolution to be noticable. That, and we assume that we'd live that long.

[Healer_Shaiera]

are you calling me a madman?
I wasn't replying to anyone, just stating my belief. All the more, I've also taken a natural calamity to be the cause. But... I still see beliefs as a major factor

[Ubergopher]

If I ingore what I believe as a religion (Christianity) then I figure the world will more than likey end in one of these ways, not in order of belivablity, jsut as they come to me

1. Aliens
2. Asteroid collision

One idea I came up with that doesn't deals with the end of life on Eearth, but not the human race itself is a colony war in the future between Earth and Mars,

[EvilEggCracker]

I reckon that Mankind will expand and colonise other planets (with the help of aliens(seriously!)) until the universe stops expanding and starts folding in

OR

Either we die of Nuclear war or Aliens kill everyone and everything in a quest to dominate the universe and/or steal all our (depleting) resources.

[GrimTerror]

If the sun either Expands or Explodes, the Inner planets are pretty much screwed (that means us too.) Even if we could survive the Explosion/Expansion of the sun, without the sun itself we'd still be erased from existance in a number of ways.

-Without the suns heat, the earth will freeze over. Think it's cold in winter? That's only us facing away from the sun, so what would it be like with no sun?

-Without the Sun's light, plants wont be able to photosynthisize (unless done so artificially) meaning there will be no oxygen/Carbon Dioxide exchange on our earth. The absence of the Sun will cause other natural disruptions as well (Like effecting the Water Cycle.)

The only way I think that humans could survive in the future (assuming they survive that long, which is doubtful) is by preventing the sun from reaching it's next stage by somehow providing it with an endless supply of Hydrogen. I remember my teacher telling me from Physics that the sun will reach it's next stage when it runs out of Hydrogen, but the other details on it are a bit hazy to me.

I wish I could see how this world will come to an end. I think it's something I'd really enjoy seeing.

[SHISHKABOB]

Hey Grim about colonizing planets, a planet doesn't need an atmosphere to have us be able to survive on it. We just probably wouldn't go to one that didn't except for mining purposes. Someday we're getting off this rock and I hope some uber noober religious freak doesn't screw it up because they don't think it's "right" to go to other planets.

Edit: and uh about the sun going kablooie, that's not going to happen for a while and by then we will be out of here. Even at sublight speeds just shooting a ship out into space we could get to another planet before it went.

[Dark_Magneto]

All we can do is stall for time at best. In the long run, we're all dead (http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm).

[Revan332]

I have no idea how the world will end.....and I rather not find out how lol

[Ragnarox]

Overpopulation, resource depletion, war and disease are closely linked doomsday theories being that overpopulation and quickly disappearing resources greatly amplifies the effects of the other two. Thats how I think humans as they stand now will die out. Although I'm sure a few will survive, replenish the planet...and then the same thing happens all over again. Of course this is lying on the assumption that the planet heals itself within that amount of time.

[Neo]

That is not an appropiate response to an IR topic, and on top of that, this is an older thread.

Unless you feel you can contribute something important to the topic on hand, its bette rto make a new thread on the same topic, or dont post at all.

-Neo