How will it end?

[Dac]

At the rate mankind is creating technology to kill him all the more faster wat do you believe will cause us to be eradicated from this earth...personally it would be from overpopulation followed closely with world hunger and thirst..

[Funka Genocide]

I'm a bright eyed optimist, so I say the eradication of man from this planet will be due to an intergalactic exodus which will occur sometime before the Sun explodes. Spreading the human species throughout the universe. As good as we are at killing eachother, were even better at making more of us, I mean seriously, what would you rather do? ;)

[Fifthfiend]

How will it end?

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Its really hard to say. I mean we're perfectly capable of killing ourselves off, between our Nukes & making the Earth less & less habitable.

But then again, maybe once the problems get so bad that politicians can't claim they no longer exist, things might start to happen and we'll come back from that brink.

Frankly, prediciting the end is a bit hard, as there are too many variables to predict.

Then again, maybe it'll be the Giant Star Goat which gets us in the end.

Sky Warrior Bob

[Martyr]

Even after nuclear war, overpopulation, lack of food and water, fossil fuel depletion, and any other disaster, humans probably won't die off. We're dumb, but we're hardy. I don't think we can kill eachother off completely. There'll always be some survivors who can rebuild.

So, how will it really end? There's 2 schools of thought:

1. Somebody's religion turns out to be correct, and therein lies the solution.
2. Evolution is correct, and, because humans have peaked amazingly, they'll be overthrown when the crocodiles gain the capacity for high technology.

There is a fourth, I guess...
That is the asssumption that, by the time the sun goes out, humans will have no ability to travel to a habitable planet. This is largely possible because we are always at risk of running out of Earthly resources that we need to study the stars. But even still, we should be able to inprovise forever, or so I'd think. So this end is unlikely.

[MP37a]

Let's see the possible ways I believe the human race could end:
1.) nuclear war
2.) giant asteroid
3.) the moon falls out of earth's orbit causing a shift in earth's gravity causing mass flooding and earthquakes
4.) an alien species came and killed us
5.) the apocalypse
6.) the sun will burn out which we'll find out in the next 8 minutes
7.) a new disease will break out that causes the dead to rise and prey on the living
8.) Mutants did it
9.) Robots did it
10.) Killer Tomatoes did it
11.) I did it

[cruelty13]

I am also quite optimistic. I really don't care much if I die older then 50 or 60, and I will commit suicide if the world will definetly end. But I think humans won't just die out. I believe humans will evolve on and humans won't die out, Homo Sapiens Sapiens will die out and be replaced with something smarter, better and possibly peacefuller. There might even be many species.

[Illuminatus]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mke/exitmundi.htm

[videogamerz2000]

All I have to say is..... the Matrix.

[Zweihander]

Hokay, so, here's the earth. It's chilling. "Damn, that is a sweet Earth" you might say. Ruling out the icecaps melting, meteors becoming crashing into us, the ozone layer leaving, and the sun exploding, we're definitaly going to blow ourselves up.

Hokay, so basically, we've got China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the UK, and us, with nukes. We've got about 2600 more than anybody else, whatever. Hanyway, One day, we decides those Chinese sons of a bitches are goin' down. So, we launch a nuke at china. While its on its way, China is like "SHIT SHIT who tha fuck is shooting at us?" "Oh well, FIRE MISSILES!"

Then France is like "Shit guys, because missiles are coming! Fire our shit!" "But I am le tired!" "Well, have a nap. THEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!!!"

Meanwhile, Austraila is down there like "wtf mates?" India, Israel and Pkaistan launch their shit, and we got missiles flying everywhere, passing each other. Russia is like "AAHH MOTHERLAND!!!!!" Then England is like "'bout that time, eh chaps?" "Roight-o."

So now, the US is like, "Fuck, we're dumbasses," Canada's like "What's goin' on, eh?" Austraila's still like "wtf?" Mars is laughing at us, and some huge meteor's like "Well, fuck that."

So, now we got nuclear winter, and everyone's dead, 'cept Austraila, and their still like "wtf?". But they'll be dead soon. Fucking kangaroos.

BUT, assuming we don't blow ourselves up, all us Californians just have to worry about California breaking off from the United States. To go hang with Hawaii. Alaska can come too.

Transcript of "The End of the World" (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php)

But seriously, I'm waiting for the meteors to come and kill us all. The glaciers are waay too slow.

[h4x.m4g3]

The world will end when a politicians start telling the truth. At which time Japan will launch a series of Ninja assinations meanwhile planting evidence that points toward other countries. Then it will all end exactly as in "The End of The World" see above post.

[Hamelin]

Overpopulation will never be a problem. Ever. Here's why: There is not an even distrobution of resouces. If this was true, right now there would not be a single starving person in the world. Because of this, no matter how many people there end up being, the food will still go to feed a few people well enough, and a bunch of people not very well at all. Those people will eventually stabilize when birth rates become so high as to reach famine levels in those areas. As for the people with food already, they'll just go on normally.

Same goes for energy, and whatever else we need.

[Stabbitty Death]

Let me tell you a story. I was playing Age of Empires with my friend over a lan conection and was losing very badly because he used cheat codes. Every thing I had was destroyed, but he still hadn't been declared the victor. I then realized that I still had one more worker. I then created a new town, better than the one before, and repopulated it with more workers, and eventually, an army. Finally, when I attacked him, I lost patheticly. But that's beside's the point. The point is that no matter how bad something like a nuclear war is, there will probably be more people living to rebuild civilization. It would take something as catastrophic like the sun exploding to completely wipe out all humans.

[Lucas]

nuclear war would kill everyone in area proximity and cause a climate change, as well as inflict radiation poisoning on huge tracts of the earth. trebuchets and bombard cannons don't do that.

[Feuermachtspass]

I think that the whole nuclear winter theory was just a scare tactic started by the pacifists during the cold war. Yes, it was stupid of us to make as many nukes as we did, but the only reason we did it was that the russians were stupid enough to try to match us. Ideally, no one else would have gotten the bomb at all. And as if the FRENCH would even have a use for it...

point being, i dont think that we ever will enter a nuclear war, and if we did, it wouldnt be widespread. even if it WERE widespread, i think the scientists that went on about nuclear winter were just pulling stuff out of their butts anyway. we would survive.

Overpopulation would never destroy us, because the strongest would steal whatever food their neighbors have and this would leave our race even stronger (and more corrupt, if you can believe it possible) than before.

Meteor strikes are possible, i guess, but strange as it may seem, a move like the one pulled in armageddon IS at least somewhat feasible (or not...who knows...does anyone else feel like there are way too many movies about the world ending by way of giant meteor?). But would a giant meteor even enter our solar system? all the asteroids in the asteroid belt are already in an orbit where they wont collide with earth. isnt it likely that an asteroid from outside out solar system will just form an orbit as well? and how many asteroids are blown out of their solar systems to escape the gravity of their sun anyway?

That pretty much just leaves someones religion being right (my money is on mine, but i am somewhat biased on that score).

[C-dog]

It will never "end". I mean, the sun will EVENTUALLY explode, but that's so far away it's not even worth mentioning. It will never END for us, but it will change. Humans are the most adaptable creatures nature has produced. A world-wide nuclear war would kill the majority of us. However, some would survive, even if their lifespans were cut short 60 years by radiation, that's still enough time to mature and re-produce. It would be an ugly 10000 years of surviving on a waste-land planet. Maybe hell-like would be a more appropriate description, but we would still survive somehow. Different senario: Disease. The current population IS too large. It's unnaturally large and it's due time for a superbug to appear and wipe out most of us. Even then, a few would survive though. That's the bennefit of sexual reproduction; there are always a few who are immune to some new disease.

I could go on with other senarios, but the result is the same. A few would survive and rebuild. The only important question is will I survive to rebuild? (assuming the world falls apart in my lifetime, which isn't an inrealistic possibility.)

Interesting fact: The mayan(sp?) calender predicts the end of the world in December of the year 2012.

[Mattias]

It will all end when I die. After I die I wont care how it will end cause it wont have any impact on me accept destroying my grave. Which hopefully wont hurt, and wont upset my thousands of boquets sent be my admirerers.

[Feuermachtspass]

We are NOT overpopulated! That is just a lie told by environmentalist wackos. You know how they say that the U.S. is becoming too urbanized and that we're sucking out all of the natural environment in the country? It turns out that a whopping five percent of our country is urbanized.

We aren't going to run out of room in the next couple of millenia. Speaking on just a national scale, the birthrate is going down, so the whole overpopulation theory is, in short, a load of bull crap.

[Elminster_Amaur]

The US produces enough food to feed everyone on earth. The real problem is that no one wants their food to be given away.

[The Tortured one]

Dammit i was gonna post the indispensible Exit mundi, but someone beat me too it.

first of all, Overpopulation in a Malthusian sense would never happen, because that perscribes to the theory that people have as many children as they can afford, which is certainly not true. In developed countries like the United States and Europe, people tend to not have as many children as they need, the average amount of children families in the U.S have is 2.7 (odd isn't it? I wonder where the other .3 went) children, compared to back during the pre-industrial revolution era, when people had lots of children. As more and more of the world becomes developed, there will be less babies coming out, it's an almost universal axiom in developed countries. Right now the main population explosion is in Africa and southeastern Asia, where people need lots of children to tend the farms and work to support them (also partly due to the oppresive dicatorship governments who steal a great deal, the United States sends huge amounts of aid to foreign countries, but most of that aid ends up going into those corrupt governments who use the food to feed their armies)

now with the advent of more advanced contraception (and the continued quest to find the perfect contraceptive) there will be even less children being born. In my opinion, the population of humans will eventually level off, unless we do something that will greatly enhance the amount of resources going around, like a second agricultural revolution or colonizing another planet or something.

Nuclear war has not been a problem since the end of the cold war, and even then, Soviet nuclear capabilities have always been greatly exaggerated. Only a third of their nuclear missiles were actually real, most of their armies carried old demilitarized rifles when they marched in parades. America was just acting paranoid and the soviets were just feigning stregnth, if war had broken out the U.S would have crushed the soviets. It wasn't until the 80's that the Soviets ever matched the Americans.

If you really are that worried about nuclear war, why aren't you supporting the SDI system?

I don't think we will ever get taken out by Robots either. I saw a quote once that I found rather amusing, it was "Deep Blue may be better at chess then I am, but i will always be the better kick-boxer" With all the paranioa surrounding robots, i don't think that it is likely.

Alien invasion is really out there. Besides the fact that in all likelyness we may never find an alien, in the event they were going to invade us, wouldn't they have done so a hundred years ago BEFORE we had these big multi-megaton weapons which are capable of turning anything within a few square miles into a mess radioactive particles, which as an added bonus leaves a messy cleanup job?

Reminds me of a short story science fiction I read, where a Soldier who died on Utah beach during WW2 had his soul captured by aliens, who wanted him to describe Earth's defensive capabilities. He found he could use his mind and merely by thinking about it, he could project an image. At first he was imagining Sherman tanks and B-17 bombers and soldiers with Garands, but when he saw the alien's look of pleasure, he began to imagine soldiers with personal shields, gigantice spaceships, super-insane weapons, and an entire battlefleet from the solarian federation of planets bringing aid to occupied France. The alien then said, "we shall return in a few thousand years, when your people have neutron torpedoed themselves into oblivion" and released him to his death.

the only way i see for humans to die out is for reasons beyond our control, such as an enviromental disaster of epic proportions. I'm not refering to pollutions and other hippie nightmares, I'm refering to things like asteriods, or supervolcanoes, or ice ages, or a friggin black hole or something.

[AntiGnostic]

Over-population isn't happening, and it won't ever happen. In fact, many countries are facing a fertility crisis, with birth rates below the replacement level.

As for the end of the world, that will only happen when Christ comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

And his kingdom shall have no end. ;)

As for nuclear war, it could happen, and we would find a way to survive. I just don't believe it will ever happen. It is possible, but not very probable.

nuclear war would kill everyone in area proximity and cause a climate change, as well as inflict radiation poisoning on huge tracts of the earth. trebuchets and bombard cannons don't do that.

Now all we need is nuclear trebuchets! :D

[Ll!H]

I believe humans will evolve on and humans won't die out, Homo Sapiens Sapiens will die out and be replaced with something smarter, better and possibly peacefuller. There might even be many species.

humans don't do a whole lot of natural evolving anymore. we've transcended survival of the fittest, producing a system where the weakest are given the most care. society itself becomes an entity feeding off and catering to the least adapted mutations possible. these people whom nature would have weeded out are allowed to further their inadequate genetic information. cripples, mentally deficients, homosexuals, and generally stupid people (while except for the latter, i really don't disagree with their continued existence) technically shouldn't be here. all results of condensed population. but that's ok, rock on man.
any evolution in the future of the human race will be the result of genetic engineering, creating humans who's very architecture will be designed for a specific task. we could go back to the system where a family's last name will designate their occupation. so, in a way, the evolution of man will result in a degradation of the societal entity, reverting it to a well-oiled but infantile being. but, unavoidably, someone will rise up and argue with this system. a revolution and coupe results, and a new America-like system is attempted, but as each human can still only perform one task well, this system will be poorly supported and will ultimately fall itself. many many many people die. so, the evolution of man will actually be its destruction. let's hope we don't evolve, eh?

[Ll!H]

Interesting fact: The mayan(sp?) calender predicts the end of the world in December of the year 2012.

dude! i totally heard that before! i'm betting it'll be on the 12th, because that would just satiate my obsessively mathematic mind to have the end of the world result on 12-12-12.

[Otaku Son]

The US produces enough food to feed everyone on earth. The real problem is that no one wants their food to be given away.
Limited resources. Eventually, that food will no longer be able to be produced, because the Earth will become barren and overrun with fecal matter. If the sun doesn't go Supernova and destroy Earth, first.

I agree with the whole, "Survival of the fittest is no longer in effect" thing. Not only that, but none of us are really capable of survivng those conditions anyway, because of all the antibodies and other drugs we're given. And as with cars, our legs are becoming weaker. With computers, so are our brains. We're slowly returning back to the basic organisms from which we evolved. In the Super Mario Bros. movie, they called this, "de-evolution." And I know that's the technical term anyway, I just like to use geek references whenever possible.

LI!H, please observe how easily I edited this post.

[CHICAGO¤lollie]

Dude! As in Ll!H! Yeah! You're double-posting. :p

Beat me to it why don't ya.. :rolleyes:

As for how the world will explode, I'm going with this (URL http://www.media.ebaumsworld.com/endofworld.swf) theory. It's logical enough.

[Otaku Son]

Maybe it's just my computer, but I'm getting a 404. Or, wait, is that supposed to be how the world will end?

Alien typing at a search engine: "Search for 'Planet Earth.'"
[Results found, alien clicks link, spaceship goes to tht destination]
"404 - Planet Not Found"

[cruelty13]

But actually, what does it matter anyway: wether it is a big explosion, we freeze to death, drown or aliens think we're lttle bugs; sooner or later we will all die. And if we don't become politicians, who are perhaps PM's, our opinion doesn't matter! So go with the 20's saying - "live fast and die young!"

[The Tortured one]

Limited resources. Eventually, that food will no longer be able to be produced, because the Earth will become barren and overrun with fecal matter. If the sun doesn't go Supernova and destroy Earth, first.

first of all, the sun isn't scheduled to die for another 3 billion years. It will swell to red giant size, and continue to exist for another 50 mil or so.

so in any case, I think we have plenty of time to come up with a solution before THAT happens.

They were predicting food shortages back in the late 19th century. Malthus predicted a massive economic collapse as food supply matched population. But you know what? it hasn't happened. We have an astronomically higher population then we did in the 18th century, and there is still plenty of food and space to go around. Technology is making the growth and supply of food larger then ever, and if space really is a big problem, just wait for them to perfect hydroponic growth in space. Theres all the space we need up there. And with that private jet going up, the final frontier may not be as far away as some people might think

oh, and as to the world being covered in fecal matter, are you suggesting bacteria is going to die out?

[Osterbaum]

By the time something like this is going to happen we will just fly out of earth and search for new planets. If not...then we will just die...

[cruelty13]

Let's remember kids: we'll all probobally be dead by any of that happens and you basicly aren't very related to your grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-children anyway. So why worry at all.

[Osterbaum]

I dont expect it to take that long...We are speeding al these things up...

[cruelty13]

All right, then it's just grand-grand-grand children. I still don't care for them if I on't get to see them.

[swordmaster]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mke/exitmundi.htm

My vote is with the grain one.

[Ganurath]

My vision of the future:
GWB is going to get reelected, allowing him enough time to continue his campaign of conquest in Iraq. His administration, keeping money in mind as much as GWB's personal issues with Saddam, will spread the warfare to other mideast nations until most, including Saudi, are American soil. Between local religious groups, remaining mideast nations, and potentially North Korea, full-out war will insue. GWB will call upon NATO for aid. All but Turkey will either help or declare indifference. Turkey's support of mideast nations will destroy NATO. Between Bush and Kim, a nuke will go off. Most likely Bush, because Kim would only do so if truly desperate. This will get a bunch of indifferent nations to come down on America, potentially France and/or China. From this, nuclear armageddeon. Granted, many will survive. Africa and South America die out first due to lack of food and medicine. India will suffer terrible losses for these reasons. North America, being on the recieving end of a lot of nuking, and dependence on premium living conditions, will fall into anarchy at best and lose all life at worst. Europe goes at about the same time for the same reasons, as does northern Asia. China, Indonesia, and Australia will struggle and manage a tribal/anarchistic state. Overall, humanity is put back several centuries, allowing for a asteroid to strike or something like that.

[shiney]

Too much spam and people trying to be funny or cool in this topic, for the discussion forum.

If you want to remake it, do so, but quit posting the exact same theories that 10 people have already posted, don't make nonsensical remarks, don't spam, blah blah blah. That garbage is for the general forum, this forum is for actual serious discussion.

For those of you who took this topic seriously, sorry.