How much time is Left?

[andvruss]

I just want to be alive long enough to be able to play civ in virtual reality.

 

[Theige]

Originally posted by andvruss
I just want to be alive long enough to be able to play civ in virtual reality.

You need to get a life buddy

no offence

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Here are my predictions (no quatrains I promise): The 21st century will see limited nuclear exchanges being used routinely in warfare. Designer plagues will also sweep the planet, and the human population on Earth will decline by more than half. By the middle of the 22nd century, the remnants of humanity will be united in a one world government dominated by a resurgent, U.S.A., which by then will have become a military dictatorship. This period will be known as the Second Pax Americana. This will endure till the begining of the 23rd century. At this point a series of weak Presidents will allow the Empire to dissolve, and within a generation it'll be gone. Wars will rage across the globe again for a few decades, but after the smoke clears, the Lunar and Martian former colonies will lead the miserable survivors on Earth into a new space based era for humanity. By the 25th century, more humans will live in space and on other planets than on Earth.

 

[andvruss]

Originally posted by theage


You need to get a life buddy

no offence

...I like civ, I play every once in a while and I go on long streches playing/not playing it. I do have a life (school). Anyways, who wouldn't want to play civ virtual reality. you could be like Napoleon, or your own troops and fight battles (-the pain).

 

[Theige]

i like civ to

but there are about a thousand things i would like to see more before i die

 

[HighlandWarrior]

10 months.

 

[sourboy]

Originally posted by Dumb pothead
Here are my predictions (no quatrains I promise): The 21st century will see limited nuclear exchanges being used routinely in warfare. Designer plagues will also sweep the planet, and the human population on Earth will decline by more than half. By the middle of the 22nd century, the remnants of humanity will be united in a one world government dominated by a resurgent, U.S.A., which by then will have become a military dictatorship. This period will be known as the Second Pax Americana. This will endure till the begining of the 23rd century. At this point a series of weak Presidents will allow the Empire to dissolve, and within a generation it'll be gone. Wars will rage across the globe again for a few decades, but after the smoke clears, the Lunar and Martian former colonies will lead the miserable survivors on Earth into a new space based era for humanity. By the 25th century, more humans will live in space and on other planets than on Earth.

thats a pretty in depth prediction...but what is your reasoning behind it, as it could very well work that way?

 

[Bacon King]

Isn't the world supposed to end on December 12 2012?

 

[Perfection]

Nope, it's not supposed to end then

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Originally posted by sourboy
thats a pretty in depth prediction...but what is your reasoning behind it, as it could very well work that way?

Some of the details may be poetic license, but I think it will more less go down this way. Smaller nukes are on the horizon right now. The U.S. decided recently to begin researching smaller nukes that can be used on the battlefield. Inevitable, this will force other countries to begin developing more sophisticated battlefield nukes as well. They'll be used eventually, probably with increasing frequency as time goes on. Small battlefield nukes wouldnt have the same deterrent effect that civilian-targetted doomsday nukes have, and whatever limited deterrent effect they do possess will diminish with each successive use. As for the designer plagues, I think even a casual glance at the bio medical field today shows that we're on the cusp of a whole new era. Designer plagues are the least of it. Because of the increasing military value of space, I think that even in the face of genocidal, nuclear/bio wars, the space "race" will continue and we'll go ahead and establish permanent settlements on the moon and Mars. Except for the Lunar bases which might be in the line of fire from the battles on Earth, I think most of our extra planetary colonies will come out of the troubles relatively unscathed. Most likely they'll thrive as the terrestial nations become exhausted from wars, the fallout and the plagues,and will allow them to become independent. Phew, fortelling the future is hard work, no wonder Nostradamus was a Dumb Opiumhead!

 

[Mescalhead]

In a few decades we may be able to make a virus or bacteria lethal enough to kill 8/10 of humanity.


As far as nuclear armegeddon is concerned, theres not enough of them.


Remember there are 6 billion people ladies and gentlemen.

 

[The Yankee]

Four minutes.

Oh.....crap....

 

[PantheraTigris2]

Originally posted by Esckey
23rd of December, 2098.

Hmmm... it's quite... interesting that you picked that date in particular. I'd be exactly 120 on that day, my B-day.

...and, I've always said I wanted to get to (touch) 120, but no more. Also, there's what the Bible says about 120-year lifespans.

Hmmm....

 

[Dr Jimbo]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV
If we got hit by an asteroid it would have to be fairly large, something the size of Texas.

Is that an accurate estimate, based on your sources in the film Armageddon?

Just kidding

 

[Gothmog]

First we must differentiate between the end of current society, the end of the homo sapien, and the end of any of our future descendents.

I think our current society has a pretty short shelf life, on the order of 100s to 1000s of years.

Here is what the Copernican anthropic principle (to paraphrase: we are not special) has to say about the species homo sapien.

There have been approximately 70 billion homo sapiens, thus assuming we are not in a special location within that group a 95 % confidence interval gives a total number of additional homo sapiens as 1 billion to 2.7 trillion.

It has taken approximately 200000 years for there to have been 70 billion homo sapiens, thus we expect the above estimate of future homo sapiens to take 5100 years to 7.8 million years to exist (again at a 95 % confidence interval)

As far as any of our future descendents, we would have to have some information about the form of those descendents, but making the assumption that there will be another species past homo sapien extends the time frame referenced above by at least a couple orders of magnitude.

 

[Free Enterprise]

Laser technology may help to counter nuclear technology already many anti-missle and anti-artillery system are in development stages.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

The world will last for you as long as you are there to witness it. When you die, your world will end.

Also, history has seen much worse times than this. But it is only now that we are experimenting and tinkering with nature itself (creating super-diseases) and creating our own form of life (Nanomachines) that things get dangerous. Though, if they can make a virus to wipe out >80% of the population, they can create a virus (Or nanobot) to kill it.

But yes, the world will end when I die. well, at least for me it will end. Anything after that is not my problem, but I can only assume we lived for at least 10,000 years to date, or maybe up to 500,000 (lets not get into the date debate). Though then we have seen much more dangerous times than now. We can live on, that is the thing about humankind.

 

[gozpel]

In one million years, earth will recover, it's only man that died out.

The crucial facts are that only 2 nations refused to sign the Kyoto-protocol, which for one sane reason wants to lower the green house gasses.

Nation one, where I live and where you get penalized by excessive fines if you kick down a tree....is Australia.
No 1 in the world of destroying the ozone layer, and so very funnily describing the problem as a world problem. When the ozone layer destruction happens exactly over the Australian congeresse's heads?

Nation two is the blessed United States of America. They refused because, some limited countries in didn't follow fishing quotas? and other countries didn't keep their agreements in the past.

What junk! America is the BIGGEST pollutioner on earth and find small means to define their position against it. And Australia, as one of the biggest fans of environmental management, just laugh in the face of any citizen with concerns.

Now the "Third world" is just beginning their pollution, compared to what the west world has been doing for over a century.

200 years max, and we are history.

Well, a few settlers sitting on a rock in space won't help mankind survive. They will perish as well.

 

[CurtSibling]

The world will end when I give the order.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Gothmog has a strong point. What do we really want: to preserve our current way of life and our current form, or to preserve a more general form of humanity, perhaps imbodied into another species (homo trans-sapiens?). An idea would be simply to preserve what we have learned and pass it along to whoever (or whatever) will follow.

One of my initial points was how long will it last until the world will be unrecognizable to a man currently living in 2003? Moreso, how long will it be until our descendents will no longer resemble us biologically?