This is a bit of a carry-on from the last post, and I promise this is as depressing and pessimistic as it will get (most likely.) Because there's been a lot of kerfuffle over how humanity will get snuffed out. Mayan prophecies, Christian prophecies, volcanoes, asteroids, blah blah blah.
But there are, as far I know, only four or so certifiable ways that humanity will end up facing its own demise. Each one is just as likely as the next, although some may be more so than others, and all are probably more realistic than what we see in movies. Frankly, I'd sooner believe the world being killed off by the cast of TOWIE than Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that's just me.
And we start off with the most likely:
1) SUICIDE BY WMD
I wish I was joking. Nuclear bombs are the first technology that could render humanity extinct by choice. In contrast, the dinosaurs had nothing to stop the KT asteroid from crashing into earth like a game of Russian Roulette going horrexifully wrong (well done if you got that).
Granted, the fact that we aren't all radiation-mutated zombies by now means that this isn't as serious a threat as we think, since most governments can be trusted to show some self restraint.
But then there are also bioweapons and nanotechnology. While the latter is still far off, the former is serious enough for agencies like the Dept. of Defence in America to begin investing in vaccines. If and when bioweapons become a reality, anybody with a few million of their chosen currency and some top scientists can create it, and it only takes two ideologues to bio-terrorize the human race into infinity (and beyond!)
2) SUICIDE BY ACCIDENT
Some people might think "Really? Accident?" but then, isn't that what global warming is, really? True, it might not drive us entirely extinct, but we can never fully predict the consequences of a dramatic increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. Either way, global warming will have a big impact whatever it does.
Fuel shortage, economic collapse, massive crop failure, all of these could lead to humanity kicking the proverbial bucket. The economy's failed in the past, and can do so again, fuel shortages means tough luck getting food around the world, and more so when the food isn't even around.
An interesting one for me was "suicide by strangelet". This is basically where the scientist try to create something, and end up creating rabid were-bunnies with chlamydia. Granted, it's most likely where physics gets experimented on, because that could blow the entire universe to shreds, but it's still possible from chemists or biologists.
And then there's technological advancement, to the point where we end up replacing ourselves with computers. Great fun, right?
3) MURDER
Now this one surprised me. The first one, not so much, though, because we could always get bumped off by aliens. We've practically been shouting to the universe where we are with a century's worth of radio signals, we've sent them scraps of a culture from 20 or 30 years ago, and more importantly, we sent bits of DNA up there with it. We've basically handed aliens our weaknesses on a plate.
The alternative scenario in this category is a "Wrath of God" type thing, which can happen in one of two ways. Either God does exist and he throws a Noah's Ark style temper tantrum, or we don't exist except as a virtual existence "game" on a giant computer and the plug gets pulled. Frankly, I'd bet on God's temper.
4) NATURAL DEATH
Of all the ways we could go, some of the ones in this category are by far the most interesting. There are Gamma Rays, caused by gamma ray bursters or supernovae, which puncture the ozone layer and thus kill off a lot of terrestrial species. There's the whole existential "we don't exist" shtick, which I don't buy at all.
The three most likely are asteroids, pandemics or a super volcano, which I will try and cover in another post very, very soon. Asteroids are famous for knocking off the dinosaurs from their proverbial perch, and even though the chances of an asteroid getting us in the near future are incredibly low, we haven't charted many of the comets and asteroids that could hit home.
That said, there's as high a chance as 1/300 of an asteroid large enough for human extinction to hit us in 2880 (good luck being alive to see that!) On top of that, there are many nuclear capable countries who haven't got the tech to tell the difference between a nuclear blast and an intergalactic dump. So the asteroids could spark a nuclear war too.
And then, there are pandemics. I'm not really talking about bird or swine flu, although those could always cross the human barrier at some point; I mean pandemics like the Black Death, the bubonic plague. Since the Black Death killed off over 33% of the European population when it first appeared in 1348, and some strains of the Ebola virus have a mortality rate of 90%. Pandemics are not to be taken lightly, and I say this as a daughter of doctors.
And since I plan on covering volcanoes, super or otherwise, in my next post, I leave you with a Joel C. Rosenberg quote:
"We are living on the brink of the apocalypse, but the world is asleep."
No comments:
Post a Comment