# How will humanity end? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 13, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745 "2013-09-13T03:45:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/41 "2013-09-14T16:54:47Z")
Everything will suddenly turn black and Journey will be singing “Don’t Stop Believing” in the background. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/42 "2013-09-14T17:53:17Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > GDP growth will make it easier to afford a kid. GDP has been growing, cyclically, for decades, is it easier to afford children now than it was 70 years ago? ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/43 "2013-09-14T17:55:46Z")
The last two humans will die while engaging in an online debate, neither of them convinced. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/44 "2013-09-14T18:06:14Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > **How will humanity end?** _whimper_ ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/45 "2013-09-14T18:14:58Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Some say fire; some ice. Some say luke warm water. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/46 "2013-09-14T18:15:45Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > The last two humans will die while engaging in an online debate, neither of them convinced. I can see the victor, posting more and more to amplify his screed, pounding the loser’s points into the choking dust until at last his frustration with being ignored causes him to stand up, shout at the screen, pop-and-drop. Humanity will end with a stroke. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/47 "2013-09-14T18:31:09Z")
> [@For You](#): > > GDP has been growing, cyclically, for decades, is it easier to afford children now than it was 70 years ago? If you are providing them the same lifestyle they had 70 years ago, yes. But as wealth increases so do wants, needs and luxuries. I don’t know if our demands will continue to grow for perpetuity though. After a while, you probably reach a point where things are by and large ‘good enough’ and more wealth just provides luxuries, not wants/needs. But that could just be BS on my part. The first industrial revolution only started 250 years ago, and we are talking about the human race hundreds if not thousands of years in the future. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/48 "2013-09-14T19:08:35Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > But why do people stop having kids? My impression it is a mix of > > 1. Life isn’t that great so people don’t want to expose their potential kids to a life of vulnerability and pain > 2. Kids are expensive > 3. Kids require a lot of attention and take away your freedom Okay, but there are others of us who do not feel that way at all, even currently. For instance, I have four kids and would not mind having more (although I probably will not). We are, obviously, passing on our genes and socialising our children, while the people you describe are not. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/49 "2013-09-14T21:18:49Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Because space is really, really big. A thousand previous spacefaring civilizations could easily overlook our local cluster. Time is bigger. Say, at point in time X, you have those thousand spacefaring civilizations. In a blink of the cosmic time – say, two thousand years – most successful colonies would be just as much of a spacefaring civilization as the mother planet was. Or maybe a bit more, because the colonists are all descended from people who were themselves willing to explore and colonize. Even if only a small portion of spacefaring civilizations establish colonies, and only a small portion of colonies survive for long, the thousand colonies will lead to a million colonies which will lead to a billion colonies which will lead the to the galaxy being filled with intelligent life from whatever species became spacefaring first. Since earth doesn’t seen to be a place that would come first (due to there being many older solar systems), and this galaxy isn’t so filled, I suspect that all such colonies fail. Do I strongly believe this? No, because in an area so unknown, there have to be tremendous surprises. But I do think that whatever causes humanity to end will have a heck of a lot to do with having evolved under fertility conditions which suddenly changed due to technological advance. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/50 "2013-09-14T21:27:57Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Time is bigger. That makes no sense, you’re comparing apples and oranges. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Say, at point in time X, you have those thousand spacefaring civilizations. What if there are zero spacefaring civilizations? It may simply be impossible. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/51 "2013-09-14T21:52:35Z")
Or what if it’s possible, but a huge pain in the ass that they don’t find worthwhile to pursue on that scale? I also, contra Sagan and most SETI types, think that it is quite possible that the odds against both life’s formation, and its developing consciousness, and finally a level of intelligence and technological civilisation that allows for space colonisation, are much hugher than they allow for. We may be alone, or there may be just one in every 100 galaxies or whatever. If the latter, there may be billions and billions (heh, another Sagan callback) of spacefaring civilisations out there, but none in our galaxy. And spacefarers may not bother to go beyond their own galaxies for obvious reasons. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/52 "2013-09-14T21:58:51Z")
Oh everyone could become callous, self-absorbed jerks without a shred of hu– oh, wait … ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/53 "2013-09-15T01:45:50Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > What if there are zero spacefaring civilizations? I was responding to a prior post that posited such exist, and considering implications if that’s true. I indeed suspect that the galaxy we are in doesn’t have any. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Or what if it’s possible, but a huge pain in the ass that they don’t find worthwhile to pursue on that scale? Most nation-states, on this planet or another, would indeed find it to be too big of a PITA. Most centuries, people\* would indeed find it too big of a PITA. But how can it be that millenium after millenium after millenium, under all the varying political and economic systems, it is always too big of a PITA? There must be some reason it is always too big of a PITA, and I already suggested one (demographic collapse). And we aren’t just talking about it being too big of a PITA to visit in biological person. It is also apparently too big of a PITA to colonize with robots.\*\* And it even is too big of a PITA to try making contact with the kind of powerful and advanced radio that surely will be possible, for humans, to transmit, say, 3,000 years from now (baring collapse of human civilization in that time). > [@](#): > > I also, contra Sagan and most SETI types, think that it is quite possible that the odds against both life’s formation, and its developing consciousness, and finally a level of intelligence and technological civilisation that allows for space colonisation, are much hugher than they allow for. I also suspect that such a level (obviously a lot more advanced than us, as we are not about to colonize space) is virtually unknown. Then comes the question of how that can be, given that other seemingly earth-like planets are much older than ours. Yes, it could be that while seemingly earth-like older planets exist, actual older earth-like planets do not. Astronomy over the next, say, century, should be able to resolve this. * * * - I’m using people to mean any species roughly at our level of intelligence, not just earth’s homo sapiens. \*\* Or, if the civilization is more on the idealistic side, to use robots to stop genocide. And, if a prime directive prevents this, I am supposed to believe that 100.00 percent of potentially spacefaring societies accepts the prime directive. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/54 "2013-09-15T02:12:07Z")
All that the logic requires is that no spacefaring civilization has ever found it worthwhile to come _here_. Personally I find it eminently reasonable that there are–or have been–multiple such civilizations. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/55 "2013-09-15T02:23:52Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > … And it even is too big of a PITA to try making contact with the kind of powerful and advanced radio that surely will be possible … Well, sheesh, epiphany time. On another thread, I mentioned that if you point a laser at Alpha Centauri, dust notwithstanding, by the time it gets there in four plus years, the beam will be quite a bit more than a billion miles wide, with attendant reduction in localized strength. No “radio” is going to be powerful enough to detect from any distance (to sort a signal out). Only one thing we know of can transmit information across inter_stellar_ distances. seti has been looking in the wrong place, it is right there in front of us ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/56 "2013-09-15T05:44:51Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I also suspect that such a level (obviously a lot more advanced than us, as we are not about to colonize space) is virtually unknown. Then comes the question of how that can be, given that other seemingly earth-like planets are much older than ours. > > Yes, it could be that while seemingly earth-like older planets exist, actual older earth-like planets do not. Astronomy over the next, say, century, should be able to resolve this. I don’t think it will, because I’m not convinced it’s the right question. Your premise, which is shared by many others, is that it is the prevalence or scarcity of earthlike planets that is the decisive factor. What I’m suggesting is that it may be that even on earthlike planets, it is exceedingly unlikely that intelligent life will form. That if you visit a million or billion such planets–wet and warm but not too hot, etc.–you may either find no life at all, or just a bunch of slime, or even crawly critters and fish but nothing with technology. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/57 "2013-09-16T05:28:49Z")
Critical overpopulation. Not enough food or natural resources to sustain us, and people start murdering each other for handfuls of water and crumbs of bread. (Basically, what happened to Thane’s people in _Mass Effect 2.)_ The solution: Colony starships. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/58 "2013-09-16T05:30:51Z")
Incidentally, there’s a very good [magazine article](http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld#.UjaXNH9huSo) that lists 20 possibles. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/59 "2013-09-16T05:56:20Z")
There are many more events that would “nuke us back to the stone age” than would actually wipe us out. That’s because, unlike the dinosaurs, humans are extremely adaptable, even when just acting as individuals. And even “back to the stone age” scenarios will just be a blip in the long run. Any post-apocalyptic society will find a nice trail of breadcrumbs buried in the ground leading them back to wifi and skyscrapers. So IMO the most likely scenario is now that we will successfully spread to other star systems. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745/60 "2013-09-16T06:27:43Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > Incidentally, there’s a very good [magazine article](http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld#.UjaXNH9huSo) that lists 20 possibles. There’s also this web-site, [Exit Mundi](http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-humanity-end/668745.md?page=4)