# A Poll: How will the human society end? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 16, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828 "2010-11-16T04:14:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/21 "2010-11-16T21:09:56Z")
> [@Mister\_Owl](#): > > Where is the option for “we will spread across the universe like a plague of cockroaches?” We should be so lucky. > [@Fugazi](#): > > Here on the Dope I would have expected zombie apocalypse to be one of the choices. Well, I voted “Plague” - it could be a zombie plague. Actually, I tried to vote for multiple things; I think it will be a death of a thousand cuts, rather than one spectacular thing. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/22 "2010-11-16T21:35:00Z")
[A Malthusian Castastrophe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe). Whether it’s because of “peak oil,” “peak water,” or “peak whatever,” I don’t think population growth is sustainable, and we’ll be in for a “market correction” within a couple hundred years, if not 100. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/23 "2010-11-17T00:15:58Z")
No “heat death of the universe”? Because if none of the others get us, that one will. ---
**Author:** ![gurujulp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba9def/32.png) [@gurujulp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gurujulp)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/24 "2010-11-17T00:36:01Z")
I picked industrial poisoning of the environment, as a singularity event, whether nano or AI, could be defined that way… ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/25 "2010-11-17T00:40:07Z")
> [@Mister\_Owl](#): > > Where is the option for “we will spread across the universe like a plague of cockroaches?” I was going to say Other: we evolve into another species. But I like this. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/26 "2010-11-17T00:49:23Z")
With apologies for not properly attributing Wikipedia, we’ll end up like this: evolve into a furry species resembling seals: though possibly still able to walk upright (it is not explicitly mentioned, but it is stated that they occasionally catch land animals), they have a snout with teeth adapted for catching fish, a streamlined skull and flipper-like hands with rudimentary fingers (described as “nubbins”). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/27 "2010-11-17T01:05:11Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > > [@Mister Owl](#): > > > > Where is the option for “we will spread across the universe like a plague of cockroaches?” > > I was going to say Other: we evolve into another species. But I like this. We evolve into cockroaches? ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/28 "2010-11-17T01:40:16Z")
I voted “Asteroid”. I don’t think we can do ourselves in. There are simply too many of us. We can certainly kill off large portions of the population and make things unpleasant for those remaining, but I don’t think we can destroy society. I also don’t think we’re going to evolve ourselves out of existence. Perhaps in quite a few million years that might happen, but before then we’re gonna get whacked with a big chunk of rock. It’s happened before and it will happen again, and I don’t think there’s anything we’re going to be able to do about it when it does. ---
**Author:** ![Sablicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Sablicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sablicious)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/29 "2010-12-25T16:34:04Z")
**Technological Singularity** and we all become Blue Pills in red jello-filled sacks that leech our bodies’ electrical current! (Copyright The Matrix™, 1999) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/30 "2010-12-25T16:51:58Z")
We’ll go post-physical. Pure thought. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/31 "2010-12-25T17:14:04Z")
Apathy. If the impending doom is fast, we will give up, and if the impending doom is slow and maybe preventable, we’ll talk ourselves to death. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/32 "2010-12-25T20:10:43Z")
I’m with the natural calamity crowd. I don’t think we’ll ever have the means to do ourselves in with a singular catastrophic event. And I just don’t see a Hugo Drax amassing the resources necessary to kill us off by design. So it’s the umpteen trillion to one asteroid shot. Or supermassive solar flare. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/33 "2010-12-25T22:32:03Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > We’ll go post-physical. Pure thought. Pure thought? Human thought can be many things, but it will never be pure. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/34 "2010-12-25T22:43:38Z")
By fire. Or ice. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/35 "2010-12-26T00:52:05Z")
We get distracted by [superstimuli](http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_western/), nobody reproduces. > [@](#): > > Simon Funk’s online novel After Life depicts (among other plot points) the planned extermination of biological Homo sapiens - not by marching robot armies, but by artificial children that are much cuter and sweeter and more fun to raise than real children. Perhaps the demographic collapse of advanced societies happens because the market supplies ever-more-tempting alternatives to having children, while the attractiveness of changing diapers remains constant over time. Where are the advertising billboards that say “BREED”? Who will pay professional image consultants to make arguing with sullen teenagers seem more alluring than a vacation in Tahiti? > > “In the end,” Simon Funk wrote, “the human species was simply marketed out of existence.” ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/36 "2010-12-26T02:02:03Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > By fire. Or ice. Dammit. I was going to say that. I guess I’ll hold with those who favor fire. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/37 "2010-12-26T23:28:37Z")
Voted “Other” Greed + shortsightedness + stupidity = KAPUT. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/38 "2010-12-27T20:17:24Z")
Just in case God exists, I voted “Rapture”. So what if it seems like a longshot, I may be correct, then you’d look a bit of a fool wouldn’t you? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/39 "2010-12-27T21:06:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Simon Funk’s online novel After Life depicts (among other plot points) the planned extermination of biological Homo sapiens - not by marching robot armies, but by artificial children that are much cuter and sweeter and more fun to raise than real children. Like…puppies? I went for the asteroid thing. Those things seem to be whizzing all over the damn place, and they’ve hit us before. I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll do ourselves in. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828/40 "2010-12-27T23:33:44Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > Like…puppies? Puppies are pretty cute, but they’re not _designed_ to be optimally cute. It’s the difference between eating an actual sugar cane and eating a candy bar. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-will-the-human-society-end/560828.md?page=3)