How Will The World End?, by BA

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I'll say Global Warming...because it seems depressingly close.

 

rm -rf / ... most probably.

But, in all seriousness I don't really care nor do I see this is an issue. I believe that everything has its beginning and its end. Many human civilisation has rose and fell, why the human civlisation as a whole should be different?

Call me delusional, but my understanding of life gives me the impression life was created out of sheer luck (on earth at least) and possess no purpose whatsoever. I believe in "Life" in itself, life for life, or, whatever.

I'm not nihilistic I do enjoy life. I think it's in everybody's grasp to live a full and interesting life. But that's life in an individual sense. Life in a collective sense bears no purpose. Giving our understanding of the universe as near infinite, I don't see the earth's or human's life or death having any repercussion at all.

However it doesn't mean human should give up all hope. On the contrary humanity, with all its good and bad, should continue forward for as long as possible.

Err, am I making sense? I'm kinda sleep deprived.

 

Disease - any disease lethal enough to end all life on earth will probably kill its hosts too quickly for it too spread far. If we are really unlucky, there will be a virus that kills within 30 days that spreads via the atmosphere and is lethal in over 90% of cases. with air travel, it would probably mean the death of all or most of the human race. Of course, the earth itself would be fine, it might even breath a sigh of relief.

Comet/meteor: Cant rule it out, but if one its I think we should be able to mitigate the disaster somewhat. huge devastation, but not total - I should imagine we would survive.

AI - not worth bothering about. Even if AI existed, I think its foolish to think they would automatically decide they would rather be rid of us. What good does it do them? They also (at least right now) lack something intrinsic to humans - ambition. Without that, they wont bother.

Aliens - somehow I think that, although there most likely is life elsewhere in the universe, I dont think they will bother to come all the way to our backwater section of the galaxy and kill us. if they want resources, they can find them elsewhere much easier. besides, who says they can even travel faster than light (since, even if FTL travel is possible, using subspace or wormholes or whatever, who says the aliens have it)?

the Sun - we know the Sun is going to die, we even have a fairly good idea when. When that happens, Earth is history.

 

I've been thinking about the Disease one a bit, and I think it could work - something that kills people overnight work because, as Proteus said, it needs time to spread. Something that causes sterility or something that spreads quickly but takes it time to kill/incapacitate could also be viable. And yeah the whole 100% lethality/sterilization would probably be a prerequisite.

 

With a whimper, not a Big Bang - when the sun dies. Realistically, it's the most likely scenario to kill off the whole planet. Any one of the others could (in theory) end human civilisation, but Earth would carry on perfectly well without l'il ol' us. A significantly sizeable object striking Earth may do the job, but it's much less likely.

@BA:

One thing - you state "Sun dies - Gets cold, really cold." That's not correct. For us - and the rest of the inner planets - it'll get hot, really hot. The initial stage of our sun's death will see it expand to many times its current size, engulfing the inner planets and vapourising them. Even if we aren't engulfed, the close proximity to the sun's heat will kill off any life left on the surface. Here is a nice little link that explains the death of our sun in fairly simple terms. This one is a slightly more complicated site, if anyone's interested.

 

OK mate sorry, thanks for the science lesson! I wagged that week.

 

No worries. It is my job, after all.

 

You forgot one part -- two films of such unprecedented quality cannot exist in the same reality, and the existence of two such films in one reality would cause a time paradox, wiping all life from this reality and all the alternate universes.

 

Personally, with robots becoming so advanced these days, I think we'll get wiped out by Terminator-esque killing machines.

But perhaps the Governator will bust out his guns and destroy them for us, I don't know.

 

I'm definately a nuclear war person. Global warming will take a huge chunk of the population, but I doubt it will destroy the human race. Nuclear war, on the other hand, it both rather likely and can pretty well destroy everything. I don't expect the human race to still exist when the sun dies (keep in mind just how long it's going to take for that to happen).

 

Some info to add for a few of these:

Supervolcano - There are actually a number of confirmed supervolcanos around the world, though they only result in local devistation, not global. There are, however, three supervolcanos spread around that are 'overdue' (admittedly by a tiny fraction of their average span between eruptions). If all three went off at once, or in close succession, it may well spell the end for mankind.

Aliens - Always a possibility, never a probability (until it happens )

Overpopulation - Not likely to kill everyone, just cause a drastic decrease

Global warming - In the past, it's come very close to killing everything (pre-cambrien extinction, I think?)

AI - Unless they develop true judgement call abilities, I doubt it.

Sun dies - 4.5 billion years to Sun death and counting (I think less to nova)

Moon dies - Unless you're counting this as an asteroid collision, I don't think so. The moon isn't actually getting closer to us, but further from us. Plus, by the time it actually makes a significant difference, I'm pretty sure the Sun will have gotten us already.

Asteroid - Real possibility in terms of effect and predictability. Truth is, our Near Earth Asteroids program is terrible. A few years ago there was a pretty big one (size of Vermont?) that we didn't notice until it was almost on top of us. It missed by a few million miles or something. That being said, most of the stray matterial fell onto one planet or another long ago, and odds of a serious impact decrease with time. There are still some real nasties in the Asteroid Belt and the Oort Cloud, but it'd take something big (or a lot of little things) to move them out of orbit.

Disease - Drastically reduce the population, sure; wipe it out, not likely. And likely won't have any effect on most of the rest of life on earth.

Other man-made events - From what I've heard, at the height of the Cold War, US had enough nukes to totally irradiate the surface of the planet 12 times over, USSR only had enough for a paltry 4.5 times. Of course, that leaves cockroaches and anything under the sea. Still, could wipe out humanity easily enough.

God - If I'm right, this is how it will end, guaranteed. If I (and other religions) am wrong, this won't be it, guaranteed.

 

Making a distinction between world as in this planet and which this poll appears to be using and the definition I customarily use which includes this universe and associated regions (heaven/hell etc).

Supervolcano
Possible, but would likely require near simultaneous detonation of multiple volcanoes to achieve complete destruction. (One eruption may be able to trigger others though - I'm a chemist so I'll leave that to the geolgists among us.)

Alien invasion
This is a very difficult one to define. Attempting to provide motives to species that are likely to have evolved on planets significantly differently to ours, as well as are technologically significantly more advanced is almost impossible. It may be that they are xenophobic and would like nothing better than to exterminate us, or they may 'come in peace'.

Asteroid or other big space **** hitting us
Certainly as things stand, this one seems unlikely. The highest on the Torino scale Torino Scale that any known object posesses is 1 which essentially means that likelihood of collision is extremely unlikely and further investigation should rule out any collision altogether. Saying that, all that is needed is a random collision in the asteroid belt and things could get a lot more interesting Solar System: Lethal billiards

Nuclear War
Now this is the big one. Potentially this one could lead to the almost complete extinction of life as we know it. Even a small localised war between two countries using approximately 50 Hiroshima sized weapons each has been estimated to lead to a death toll of 33.4 million just from the weapons themselves and lead to severe climate affects around the world. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061211090729.htm
To put that into context, the USA has warheads that are 125 times as powerful in its arsenal. http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/United_States_Nuclear_Arsenal.pdf

Overpopulation
Highly unlikely to prove a significant effect. The only likelihood is that it might lead to international frictions and therein lead to the above.

Global Warming
I don't even want to touch on this one - it has been so politicised and utilised by both sides of the environmental barrier that any discussion really should be held in one of the Alleys.

Artificial Intelligence
Now this is a fun one. Even assuming that a true 'artificial' intelligence is possible and there isn't some biological requirement for true intelligence, there are a number of problems that would have to be overcome before the AIs take over the Earth. Firstly, after all the films such as 2001 and Terminator, are we to assume that the constraints placed on any fledging AI won't be significantly beyond its ability to breach? Also there would seem to be very little benefit to the destruction of all those who could potentially upgrade/repair its systems.

Sun dies
This will lead to the extermination of all life, however by this time we hopefully have developed the abilities to move planets. If nothing else, some kind of Generation ship ought to be possible, even with today's technology.

Moon dies
See above - the timelines required for this to happen are sufficient for there to be alternatives.

Disease
This one is unlikely for the reasons that others have given - there is likely to be natural resistance as well as transmission difficulties. Whilst it may end human civilisation as we know it, small self contained compounds are likely to survive.

Now if we start talking about the destruction of my definition of 'world', then none of these will do it. You'd be looking at something that would have to be significantly more powerful than gods are accepted to be!

 

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 it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

sorry, couldn't resist. How will the world end? It has to be something on the galactic scale, as I don't equal human extinction with the end of the world.

 

Evidence about robot warfare:
http://www.physorg.com/news125855836.html

Soon, geeks will be able to take over the world with armies of robots...

 

World (As in Multiverse): It wont, as far as I'm concerned, but if I have to pick an option:

Someone learns its True name and misspells it...

Our dear little Planet Blue: Sun withering into a dwarf star...

Human race: We're quite imaginative, we'll think of something... or we will become the victims of random statistics improbability flux. No thing is perfectly impossible.

 

Here's a thought:
The world will end when I (substitute the reader) die, and you can't prove to me otherwise.

 

I'm more concerned whether the world even began...and you can't prove to me that it has.

 

I am dissapointed that so many of you did not vote for the most obvious. We are now sending rays, waves stuff and pieces or junk out of our solar system. Sooner or later someone whit other political ideas, to put it in a current perspective, will take a look.

Face it, when you play a RTS game, do you give yourself away to the other side that already has its base in place, its heroes trained, and looking for the next harvest place. Well we do.

Most of the other tings will cost someone money, making them not logical to implement. Be prepared.

 

To continue the analogy, that's assuming the other side is even on the same map as us. They may have far more pressing concerns on their own map to deal with.

Incidentally, I would say that most of the other things don't cost money.

 

Big minuses in the global economy come with no price tags attached. All recessions are free of charge?