NationStates Jolt Archive

With the recent stories of pandemics, and analyzing past events there will probably be another critical event that could wipe out most of humanity. Nuclear warfare has always seemed the closest possibility, but for now world leaders seem smart enough not to try it. Global Pandemic seems another viable choice with superviruses developing. Others think an asteroid is more likely than any of these.

Humanity will survive all those things. The question is how and how many.

Nuclear warfare has always seemed the closest possibility, but for now world leaders seem smart enough not to try it.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece
Doh.

Natural selection. We will be replaced by intelligent ants. *nod*

LG shall destroy us all in a cataclysm of comic silliness.

The spaghetti noodle of doom will claim us all...

I voted for human crisis event, though actually I think it's likely to be a mix of factors if anything.

Humans are resillient, but right now we're facing the potential culmination of a series of escallating crises, all in a relatively short period of time. Global Warming, terrorism and prolifferation of WMDs, resources running out, and the economic collapse. Any one of these would be difficult, and likely to lead to increased conflict and poverty, but all of them hitting together would be catastrophic. Any resources will likely be taken up by dealing with the first couple, leaving us helpless against the rest.

LG shall destroy us all in a cataclysm of comic silliness.

Only if I can beat the ants. :)

Didn't we already have a thread on this just a few months ago? Or am I just crazy?

I'd say Global Pandemic (Human or Nature caused) or Global Warming...though that's pretty much the same thing...

Only if I can beat the ants. :)

Well, I've got an excerpt from an ancient religious text prophesising your victory:

"If the silliness of a thousand whoopy cushions
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendour of the Mighty one...
I am become Goofball,
The shatterer of Worlds"

:)

Well, I've got an excerpt from an ancient religious text prophesising your victory:

"If the silliness of a thousand whoopy cushions
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendour of the Mighty one...
I am become Goofball,
The shatterer of Worlds"

:)

Hey, if we have a rubber chicken in every pot and a balloon animal in every dog house consider me in.

Hey, if we have a rubber chicken in every pot and a balloon animal in every dog house consider me in.

I've been trying to start a Cult of the LG for a while now. Consider yourself member number 2

Aside from a cosmic radiation burst, I doubt most of those things would destroy humanity. They'd severely cripple it, probably irrecoverably collapse civilization (since no future generation will have the luxury of fossil fuels like we do). But killing off a plague species like humanity doesn't come easy. You only need to miss a group of a few hundred, and 10 thousand years later they're all over the place again.

I suspect it would take two or more of these things to happen at the same time to wipe us out completely.

Cosmic radiation burst. Not even colonizing another planet will help us there.

Any of the others, we'd survive.

None of the above.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece
Doh.

Too bad that article was written almost 2 years ago...


I think that cancer is going to wipe out a good number of people. It's so prolific now, think about 10 years from now; if they can't find a cure.

Nuclear holocaust is a close second.

Call me old fashioned but the old staple of global thermonuclear war still gives me cold sweats

nukes, or zombies...global warming i guess will get you if you live in low lying areas

we will all be screwed when the Earth is raped by a giant space octopus in March

call me crazy but what if I'm actually correct?

I think that cancer is going to wipe out a good number of people. It's so prolific now, think about 10 years from now; if they can't find a cure.

O_o

nukes, or zombies...global warming i guess will get you if you live in low lying areas

fortunately nukes will counteract the other two :)

It will be a combination of our own stupidities that shall destroy our species and it will happen over the next thousand years.

climate change and population expansion will lead to rising food and fuel prices (also driven by resource depletion) and a hungry population is always more open to extreme political ideas and religion masking world war more likely.

resource use driven by crass consumerism/capitalism in the west will deplete world resources leading to war between nations over what remains.

these wars will cause nuclear and biological weapons to be used

in any case the Human race is too rigid and unable to think outside of it's little world view to survive.

If its lucky a small number of humans will survive and then the whole cycle starts over again.

The human race irritates me so much, we are capable of so much innovation but we seem to spend it all inventing new ways to either enslave peoples minds and stop them from thinking for themselves, enslave peoples bodies and steal the fruits of there labour from them or just kill each other

I am hoping that wildebeest undergo a sudden evolutionary change tha turns them into pack hunting super predators. Having eaten all the lions and crocodiles in the Great Rift Valley they sweep majestically northwards through Africa killing every living thing including humans. By the time the world wakes up to the threat millions of them are surging out of Africa into Europe and Asia.

We'll probably manage to wreck the planet beyond the point that it is able to sustain life. If we haven't managed to colonize other planets by then, well...that's all she wrote.

Too bad that article was written almost 2 years ago...

I don't think that really invalidates the premise that some world leaders might be a bit too ready to push the big red button.

Global warming will do us in, by causing trans-tropical disease movements and mass displacement of human beings in addition to food shortages and war.

cockbergs (http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?Giant_ice_penis_-_is_climate_change_to_blame?&in_article_id=304450&in_page_id=2)

I shall destroy humanity.

Gay marriage.

=)

Nukes... If it doesn't kill us, we'll all be sterile.:(

Supervolcano gonna kick the shit out of us.


Sho'nuff.

Ever played the fallout series of games?

...yeah.

With the recent stories of pandemics, and analyzing past events there will probably be another critical event that could wipe out most of humanity. Nuclear warfare has always seemed the closest possibility, but for now world leaders seem smart enough not to try it. Global Pandemic seems another viable choice with superviruses developing. Others think an asteroid is more likely than any of these.
If you watch much TV, you can be sure humanity will perish from either global warming or from the germs left on shopping carts.

Oddly enough I've recently been involved in a lot a Business Continuity planning based around a large pandemic in the UK.

You'll all be pleased to know that the UK's largest energy supplier has plans in place that allow us to continue sending you bils and selling you HomeCare even with up to 75% of our workforce unable to come to work.

Whether we'd be able to honour the HomeCare contracts is another matter....




In answer to the OP, call me an optimist but I don't think humanity will ever die out. Sure we're stupid en-mass but in small groups with a particualr problem to solve we're pretty damn spiffy and I think we'll always find a way to survive.

by accident.

We will be replaced by intelligent ants.

False. We will be replaced by super intelligent ant colonies. Ants will be only slightly smarter than they are now but the colony as a whole will make humans look like retarded children.

Very, very large exploding zepplin.

By our own hand, no doubt.

Wrath of God, man, 2012 is COMING!

I dont think humanity would snuff itself out. I truly believe we will survive to colonize other worlds. The one possible scenerio would be a war with another intelligent race. Humanity has a taste for blood however there could be very ruthless intelligence out there that we wouldn't even have to provoke. We could be peacefully minding our own business and get a pearl harbor from another intelligent race. Potentially going quietly into the night without a fight. :eek:

If I had to guess I'd say nuclear war. But who knows.

I voted Human Crisis Event, but really, it depends more on the reaction to that event than the event itself.

I'd wager that the first time a bio-engineered weapon is utilized will probably be the last...but if I'm right, I can't collect.

Impact event. All of the others are too self-limiting to one degree or another and could resolve long before an extinction threshold is hit. This is especially true of pandemics; unless we create a superflu that is so deadly and so communicable that it can overcome the self-limiting effects of rapid mortality, this is a very remote risk. Hell, even in The Stand enough people survived the epidemic to more than repopulate the Earth.

Impact events, however, are the most definite cause of mass extinctions in the history of life on Earth; there are likely others, but this is the one thing we've got clear signs that it caused a mass extinction. Some of the others were triggered by events that are no longer plausible, but for as long as this planet's here there's a chance of something big slamming in to it.

War and famine are the most likely.

One morning, everyone is going to wake-up and realize just how goddamned pointless this whole charade is. Some people will react by rioting, others by committing suicide, but many will just sit at home and wait until their resources run out and they starve to death.

I voted 1. Nuclear destruction.

If extermination by aliens was on the list, I'd have voted that.

Suicide or being murdered, basically.

New Theory: Humanity will be wiped out by watching too many movies like Wall-E.

Wall-E is like a puppy made out of butter, so cute its bad for you. We will die off because of the cuteness factor of movies such as that one.

I'm hoping for some kind of mass panic revolt riot thingy. I have guns, ammo, lasting food and a large supply of fuel. I'll be king.

Impact Event, it's not even close. As we've seen in the past. If a big enough one hit earth, it would be all over.

That or a gamma ray burst. Though I should point out that a gamma ray burst would mean the end of just about everything on earth. EVERYTHING!