[Closed] What will be the demise of the human race?

What will be the demise of the human race?

The human race.

****ing and cakes. deadly mix

When you say demise, you talking about extinction or collapse of civilization

North Korea.

Bearnecessities +1

While necessity is the mother of invention one day we'll push the natural order too far.

I think natural climate change making areas uninhabitable, and reducing food sources, and of course there has always been exactly the same amount of water on earth, no more, no less, and now we are very close to having more people than the water can support.

Certainly mankind will go long long long before the planet does. I think we'll be very lucky to last another thousands years. Of course the chosen few might populate another planet somewhere.

One day the blue whales will decide they've had enough

Piemonster : I'd go collapse of civilisation then total extinction.

Kaesae knows.

There's a side of me that wants Yellowstone to go KABOOM just to see the news pictures.

29'ers.

Me, my children and my grandchildren will all be long dead by then. Meh.

probably something accidental like the flu researchers who want to see if they can mutate the H5N1 virus to make it easily transmittable from human to human which it can't do naturally very well yet to study it.

Bear in mind that normal H5N1 has a 50% mortality rate which far more deadly than any previous flu pandemic of 1918 and that there are over 50 serious accidents or breaches of bio-security at BSL 3 or 4 facilities in the UK annually and at some point the "small risk" becomes "oh cock!"

just look at the 2007 foot and mouth outbreak caused by a breach of bio-security at pribright. Now just imagine that with something fun like ebola or hantaan virus.

The white coats will do for us all one day*

*or we'll just overpopulate the planet and run out of resources as we are stupid species that is of no evolutionary or ecological benefit to the natural order and will soon extinguish itself in a pathetic whimper and be replaced by mutant monkey cockroach babies riding giant ants.

The meek? pah! The Geeks will inherit the Earth. They will be a mile underground when their computers take over and destroy us all Skynet style. Bill Gates being such a massive philanthropist trying to eradicate polio etc IT'S JUST A FRONT! I know your long game Gates! The future world will be colonised by people without social skills and "crazy" t-shirts.

We've already developed the means to destroy all life on the planet.
Human fallability guarantees that one day a series of mistakes will make that possibility an inevitable reality.

probably something accidental like the flu researchers who want to see if they can mutate the H5N1 virus to make it easily transmittable from human to human which it can't do naturally very well yet to study it.

Yep, something like that!

We're just waiting for it to happen.

And on that cheery note, goodnight....

What will be the demise of the human race?

Judging by the responses on here every time they are mentioned

I would imagine it will be Winter Tyres.

Lovely. I'll get some paracetamol in just in case.

****ing and cakes

Master baker eh?

War, famine, disease...in that order
But seriously, I would actually laugh if god does come back and it all ends in the rapture, as an atheist, boy, will I have egg on my face.

Oh how anti-biotics can be becoming less effective working to kill off adapting diseases/bacteria.

Personally I think it will be some form of superbug that causes us issues long before the effects of climate change come into play. This will be followed closely by overpopulation and the demand for food outweighing supply.

What are your thoughts?

Bacteriophages will probably solve that problem in the medium turn. In the long term nanotechnology will.

probably something accidental like the flu researchers who want to see if they can mutate the H5N1 virus to make it easily transmittable from human to human which it can't do naturally very well yet to study it.

Statistically H5N1 will mutate one day in the not too distant future. I believe all the mutations they had were found in the wild, they just combined them. The difference is do you want the 'white coats' who obviously don't know what they're doing preempting it by mutating it themselves and creating a vaccine, whilst running a very very very low risk of it getting out of a CAT IV lab. Neither is the mortality rate likely to be as high as the often quoted 50 percent level.

Also where are you getting your data on biosecurity breaches? The Guardian?

Besides, the only things that will wipe out the human race is an atomic war, a large asteroid, yellowstone or transhumanism.

The flu won't and neither will climate change.

Ever seen the film "Idiocracy"? 🙂

Ever seen the film "Idiocracy"?

Yeah actually I found a paper a while back that stated the human race was going to drop in IQ level....

I laughed my balls off until I found that the paper was pretty compelling....

I'll try to find it.

What are your thoughts?

Maggots should be eliminated.

bwaarp - Member

transhumanism.

That's my serious bet (though the whales idea wasn't totally daft). We've got all sorts of ways we can knock ourselves back to the stone age but not to wipe us out completely... but once we get seriously into augmentation/uploading/transforming we'll either a) adapt ourselves til we're not recognisably human, or b) stick an electrode in our pleasure centres and pistons in our arms, and **** ourselves to death.

Though I guess even then there'll be weirdos that want to stay primitive, much like the welsh have done.

That's my serious bet (though the whales idea wasn't totally daft). We've got all sorts of ways we can knock ourselves back to the stone age but not to wipe us out completely... but once we get seriously into augmentation/uploading/transforming we'll either a) adapt ourselves til we're not recognisably human, or b) stick an electrode in our pleasure centres and pistons in our arms, and **** ourselves to death.

Though I guess even then there'll be weirdos that want to stay primitive, much like the welsh have done.

I say bring it on. Brave new world and all that.

Personally, I'd love the chance to to augment my self to the point that I could go into stasis for 1000 years and go and explore space. The only point in life I see, is to experience and understand the universe in which we live in - anything that heightens my ability to do so is a bonus. Got shit to explore, we need another age for those of us who wish we'd been Christopher Columbus - to much sitting around waiting for the serious mind blowing stuff to happen at the moment.

But hey.

EDIT: Oh and shagging.

PayPal gift

maggots!

what if the medium term bacteriophages start a fight with the long term nanotechnology and start a prolonged war in the miniscule?

I like the idea that we are one conciousness, just seperate. And it'd be better for us to find ways to converge and to become one conciousness to better ourselves together. I mean everybody. Take away the politics and land masses and Corporate power etc. Everyone as one together. Now that's a great ideolagy, but it will take hundreds of years before it will ever come true. before we can all get over fighting amongst ourselves about power and control. I do think that is something to strive for. I have also had a few beers 😀

probably dwindle in numbers as the ecosystem crumbles, then go down to a few hundred/thousand somewhere. Something else would evolve to take our place at the top of the food chain. intelligence is an evolutionary experiment.

Also where are you getting your data on biosecurity breaches? The Guardian?

funnily enough the HSE, RIDDOR and WHO reports as that's part of what I do out there in the real non-STW world. As is accident investigation in specialist facilities.

the CDC data on similar incidents is rather astonishing as well.

If you have a look at the World Health Organisations, Laboratory Bio-safety manual for risk assessment and for risk assessment of work with GMO's of you will see how easy it is for human error to creep in.

interestingly enough last person to die to pneumonic plague [i]Y.Pestis[/i] in the UK was in 1969 at a high security Lab. Last person to die in the USA handling a "weakened strain" that was supposed to be safe for lab work was in 2009.

Research is vital, but there are times where the "minimal risk" of a breach is still too high. Once the genie is out of the bottle you can't put it back.

[i]But seriously, I would actually laugh if god does come back and it all ends in the rapture, as an atheist, boy, will I have egg on my face. [/i]

It's alright, he can see inside you and know whether you're good or not. it's the religious people who need to worry about that one.

I'm putting my money on someone inventing the most powerful bomb ever, testing it one Tuesday afternoon and annihilating the universe. (Which I appreciate is an idea I've stolen from someone else).

If not that then dumb people.

Ton's colonic, the Mayans didn't anticipate that one.

Yellowstone.

Ton's colonic, the Mayans didn't anticipate that one.

It was foretold in the picolax engravings.

Spelling.

It's alright, he can see inside you and know whether you're good or not.

So Santa's real!!!! 😯

Islamic fundimentalism - or the Western worlds 'handling' of it.

Blister packaging.

Once all the worlds resources are placed out of our reach inside impervious blister packaging we shall surely all perish.

Islamic fundimentalism - or the Western worlds 'handling' of it.

Or to put it more bluntly and in chronological order
Jewish loons + Christian loons + Islamic loons = End of humanity, or at least the eradication of religion!

Me may move onto better things once the bearded elephant in the sky is put to rest.

get a grip Freeagent ffs! how do you even leave the house? lol! as in messing about taking the pish.

My mate who works at CERN will trip over his own flat feet and land on a vital part of the Large Hardon Collider in the instant between it destroying the world and remaking it.

Either that, or the Higgs Boson will decide it doesn't exist after all, and so all matter will suddenly vanish.

get a grip Freeagent ffs! how do you even leave the house?

Aliens.

Funnily enough the HSE, RIDDOR and WHO reports as that's part of what I do out there in the real non-STW world.

There's a Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) [url= http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/fmd/documents/govstatement_fmd2007.pdf ]PDF[/url] article on it as well. Probability that the source was Pirbright 'almost certainly'.

This thread is OVER.

Prime Minister Farage
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and President Palin should do it
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'democracy'

What will be the end of the human race? The human race.

Dr Doom has spoken.

misaligned valves and tyre logos

Population growth...too many people and not enough resources, especially fresh water, as we approach that time, famine strikes, wars break out...billions die.

On the plus side there will be less traffic...

Judging by the other thread - a lack of faith. Runs for nearest door! 😉

If we actually manage to create technology that'll allow us to terraform planets and get to said planets in reasonable time then I'm not sure anything ever will be. Big if that though. Otherwise, who knows - there are plenty of things that could take a nice chunk out of the population of the human race. At what point does that chunk become so big that we can't recover from it? Or what sort of event does it take to ensure that even with a fair sized chunk left we can't recover?

There's enough people with enough ingenuity and enough people with enough money to pay them to be ingenious that at least an elite core will survive right up until the world ceases to be capable of supporting life. After that they'll probably spend a rather long time travelling through space looking for somewhere new.

In the meantime wars over religion and resources will probably make the world an unpleasant place for large sectors of the population. Apple and Microsoft may be called upon to hand out huge quantities of free product loaded with 'Angry Birds' to act as a pacifier to hostile groups.

Itll be a zombie apocalypse, already started in some towns or maybe we will become the Borg permanently plugged into tech.

Either way we won't see happening just have vague feeling things ain't what they used to be.

I get that feeling now!

Halfords "Mechanics"

I can't see a global nuclear war anymore, but I reckon a combination of virus outbreaks, wars over resources/water, and climate change will seriously thin out the population in the relatively near future. To actually totally wipe out humans in one go would need a Yellowstone volcano/asteroid type event, but I think a combination of less dramatic events will lead to people just dwindling away over a longish period, perhaps evolving into something else that we wouldn't call human or eventually being supplanted by something else.
I'm not so optimistic about a Kurzweil-type singularity or colonising other planets to the point that the human race could keep going indefinitely.

Substandard Chinese made carbon frames.

Anyone mentioned that fact that we're [url= http://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/ ]running out of soil[/url]?