The title pretty much says it, though if we evolve into another species (and another after that and on and on if necessary), for the purposes of this poll let’s continue to call our descendant species “human”.
Also, if humanity reduced to a few tens of thousands of people scurrying around picking through rubble like rats, we’ll say that’s sufficient to count as the end of society.
I’d be pretty surprised if we got to the point of meaningful colonization of other worlds. And since even a full-scale thermonuclear war can’t kill everybody, it’s just a matter of time before a big rock hits us. Or something else from the stars, but I’m guessing a rock is more likely. Those things are everywhere.
I chose “the Human race will never end”.
I think we are a pretty hardy stock, all things considered. Shit, many of us have NEANDERTHAL genes…I imagine OUR genes will be at least as persistent.
Plus, I don’t go in for “end times” ideas much.
Human “society” wil never end as long as there are humans around, even a relative few stragglers. We flock to one another like opposing magnetic poles.
Obviously, this PLANET, solar system and even Universe will end someday, but I predict 1. humans will have colonized the far reaches by then and at least some DNA will survive and 2. the Universe ends…HELLO! You are getting into some crazy long-term shit there. 
Seems to me that we will ultimately run out of resources and in the process destroy the environment for ourselves and many other species.
Hope I’m wrong.
What VarlosZ said. Big rock from sky smash.
The Earth will be incinerated as the Sun expands. Every living organism will be reduced carbon eons earlier. Behooves us to get off the orb in some sort of colony.
I can’t find the link, which was from some other thread, that links to a gent’s TEOTWAWKI events, and one of them is my favorite. It is that our simulator is turned off, just like the matrix, except we don’t have bodies. The odds of our being inside a simulator are just too high to ignore, he wrote…
Awesome.
Anyone have the link?
That just buys us another lousy 5 billion years or so. Hardly seems worth the effort.
How come there are two of these polls?
I think Sunstone basically has it right. Most species go extinct simply by declining slowly and then just fail to reproduce and there is no reason to think otherwise. Of course, we have superior methods that could wipe us out. Say a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Or Iran and Israel. Or North Korea and just about anybody. The last shows that you don’t even need religion to bring it about. But it helps.
I was about to post something similar to this. but as Sunstone has already said it I’ll just say
‘this’.
But I think it’ll be more complicated. Lack of resources will mean reduction in population, but the reduction in population will mean resources are consumed more slowly. I think this introduces uncertainty so it will be difficult to predict exactly what form the extinction of the human race will take, but It will be related to the running out of resources.
Edit to add: My answer is based on optimism that we will ‘outgrow’ the tendency to War. If I’m being realistic we’ll probably destroy ourselves with War long before resources run out. As individuals we can be clever, creative, enlightened, good natured, but as a group we are mind numbingly stupid, suicidal, ignorant, deluded.
Or it’ll be robot Nazi zombies riding sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.
I don’t think it will. We are a pretty resilient species, and as time goes on we gain more tools to maintain our civilization against various stressors.
In the period of about 1910-1954 Russian society lost about 70 million people to numerous wars and famines (they had about 150 million in 1910). But despite losing half their population in 40 years their civilization survived.
I chose Other, for three possible scenarios:
Low fertility goes worldwide as all countries go through the demographic transition, falling below replacement levels as they already are in Europe and developed Asia. Falling population means less specialization of labor, causing economic growth to reverse, humans revert back to a relatively poor, primitive civilization that is much more prone to extinction from chance events.
Runaway technology of some sort - nanotech, self-improving AI, or the like.
Alien contact not going well. Starfaring aliens may well be benign, but if they’re malign, outclassed humans will go squish with great force, no chance for a valiant counterattack a la pulp SF.
Human society will end when we have no further need for one another. With enough automation of agriculture, industry, etc., we will enjoy a post-scarcity existence where each person has access to effectively unlimited free goods and services; each person could have their own private planet if they wish. Interdependence will be a thing of the past, so we will only interact with people with which we wish to interact. Society, in the sense of a network of interdependent people with rules and conventions for interaction, will be obsolete.