What will be the end of humanity?

[Narz]

Environmental collapse & peak oil will destroy modern civilization (within 30-50 years conservative estimate) but civilization =/ humanity. I can't see humanity getting wiped out unless global warming turns out to be of Lovelockian proportions.

 

[El_Machinae]

My official position is that posthumans will eventually outnumber humans, though humans will probably stick around for awhile too.

However, to get to that stage, a whole bunch of things need to go right, and there are many, many people who seem to be determined to upset our progress/sustainability (or both).

My largest worry is ecologically collapse. Most people don't realise how large of an effect we've had on our environment. As well, most people don't seem to care that there are ecological tipping points, where the loss of one element can spiral and destroy other elements of an ecological system.

Our current economies are based on overconsuming the environment in order to live well. And sometimes, in order to pass certain economic goals, we'll overconsume the environment even more. I'm guessing that if we run into an ecologically-caused source of poverty, some people will increase their rapacity to compensate.

Of course, there are people who're working on sustainability. They're vastly outnumbered and outfunded, though, by people who aren't. And some types of ecological destruction cannot be undone.

 

[Dann]

Other - technology gone wrong.

Maybe a new fast replicating airborne virus resistant to everything and can survive on just the Nitrogen in the air. Or perhaps self-sufficient self-replicating nanobots who came to realize that all organic life is but a nuisance. Or new weapons that make today's nukes look like firecrackers accidentally firing.

 

[IglooDame]

So you guys really don't think mankind will evolve?

I think we've already hit the limits of "natural" evolution - stupid people are able to produce as many (and seemingly more) viable offspring as smart ones, and I can't think of any physical genetic abnormalities which would cause higher population rates over generations.

We have (or soon will develop) the capability to evolve our offspring, but frankly I don't think we'll adjust things so much that we're no longer fundamentally human - "homo sapiens" covers our ancestors going back how far, again?

 

[Darth_Pugwash]

In terms of natural selection I think we're pretty much done evolving, unless something triggers a collapse of civilization / mass population loss and we end up back at square one. We might start 'evolving' ourselves with technology or genetics in the future though.

What will finally wipe out humanity? I suppose the optimistic, ultra-long-term answer is heat death although that can hardly be called optimistic, depending on how you look at it. Honestly heat death would be such a depressing way for us to go out, in some ways I'd rather we bit the dust fighting off hordes of aliens or something, Private Hudson style.

 

[IglooDame]

In terms of natural selection I think we're pretty much done evolving, unless something triggers a collapse of civilization / mass population loss and we end up back at square one. We might start 'evolving' ourselves with technology or genetics in the future though.

What will finally wipe out humanity? I suppose the optimistic, ultra-long-term answer is heat death although that can hardly be called optimistic, depending on how you look at it. Honestly heat death would be such a depressing way for us to go out, in some ways I'd rather we bit the dust fighting off hordes of aliens or something, Private Hudson style.

Given that we've got another three billion years until the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies get to second base with each other, and another ninety trillion or so after that to where the heat death stuff starts to get serious, I have every confidence that the human race will figure out a way to keep going, much as we're currently starting to react to global warming. Who knows, maybe my destiny in life is to be the Al Gore of Universal Heat Death. I'll have a movie called "An Inconvenient Big Truth".

 

[Nike Zeus]

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_from_Big_Bang_to_Heat_Death, I'm thinking we die out sometime early in the degenerate era; assuming we make it to interstellar colonization. I'm holding out for a zombie apocalypse, or something equally cool.

 

[El_Machinae]

We're not done evolving at all, actually. Evolution happens whenever a species gains the ability to thrive in a new environment. Now, climate-wise, we tend to homogenise our environments. However, economically we're gaining more and more diversity. When it comes to feeding one's offspring, there are more 'economic environments' available to branch into an specialise.

As well, we're able to gain more and more genetic diversity because we're able to try new combinations of genes that have never been tried before.

However, our ability to 'evolve' our children unnaturally will vastly surpase any regular evolution.

Igloo: thanks for worrying about heatdeath. It's on my radar, but I'm hoping someone else will handle it.

 

[Zarn]

All these are possibilities:

Hippies
Croutons
Liechtenstein
Obama
Boy bands
That one crayon/ marker/ etc in the pack, where you use it and it is a slightly different color than you originally expected, thus ruining your creation

I guess non-conventional combat could help.

 

[scy12]

We're not done evolving at all, actually. Evolution happens whenever a species gains the ability to thrive in a new environment. Now, climate-wise, we tend to homogenise our environments. However, economically we're gaining more and more diversity. When it comes to feeding one's offspring, there are more 'economic environments' available to branch into an specialise.

As well, we're able to gain more and more genetic diversity because we're able to try new combinations of genes that have never been tried before.

However, our ability to 'evolve' our children unnaturally will vastly surpase any regular evolution.

Igloo: thanks for worrying about heatdeath. It's on my radar, but I'm hoping someone else will handle it.

I think we've already hit the limits of "natural" evolution - stupid people are able to produce as many (and seemingly more) viable offspring as smart ones, and I can't think of any physical genetic abnormalities which would cause higher population rates over generations.

Ahm No people are generall smarter today than they where 2000 years ago. That means that the stupid people who breed today are smarter than the above average people who breaded 2000 and more years ago.

The survival of the fittest approach that was practiced in Africa , and some other islands of their unidustrial societies was totally destroyed when it was put to test against Europeans where more Stupid people in your opinion bread. Many tribes where even extinct.

So i would go with either deadly virus that we don't have the technology yet to fight or something else ,extremely destructive that humanity has yet to find the technology to fight against. If something like this ever happens. Even super volcanoes eruption or asteroid impact will not be the end of humanity. But it may be the end of human civilization and that would be just as bad.

 

[The Fishman]

When I win a conquest victory!

 

[scy12]

When I win a conquest victory!

But your civilization lives on. Oh wait ... The rumors i heard about an Alien civilization in the game must be truth. What are the activation keys ? Ald+Ctrl+Delete ?

 

[The Fishman]

But your civilization lives on. Oh wait ... The rumors i heard about an Alien civilization in the game must be truth. What are the activation keys ? Ald+Ctrl+Delete ?

Okay, when the AI goes and nukes everybody in Next War then...

 

[Cygnus X-1]

All these are possibilities:

Hippies
Croutons
Liechtenstein
Obama
Boy bands
That one crayon/ marker/ etc in the pack, where you use it and it is a slightly different color than you originally expected, thus ruining your creation

I guess non-conventional combat could help.

run from the Hippie Obama boy band with their hit song about croutons and Liechtenstien