My perspective on that is that Europeans survived the black plague and smallpox before we understood the first thing about germ theory (I say Europeans because I don’t know what infections affected other areas or were their black plagues). So I don’t see how a new infection will stop us.
Even if some super virus came into being and we had no drugs to fight it, we still have enough info about how the virus can spread to avoid putting ourselves in danger unnecessarily.
Plus you’d have to kill all 7 billion people on earth. Considering that we are spread all over the surface and that there is genetic diversity that is going to be hard. If a virus somehow infects and kills 99% of the human race that still leaves 70 million people left. You can keep human civilization going with 70 million people.
All survival requires is taking these 200 pound bags of water and chemicals and keeping them relatively safe, hydrated and fed.
I think that is more of a blip in our technological evolution. I would bet that in 2 generations (50 years) we will be fed by hydroponics and in vitro meat far more than we are today. Plus we will genetically engineer our crops to be healthier for us. There are already efforts underway to make our crops higher in omega 3s, vitamins, minerals, etc. Seeing what a big problem our diet full of processed foods and sugars is doing to our health, there is incentive to find alternatives.
Plus type 2 diabetes is not the end of life, it is just a disease that tends to hit in middle age. The human race would survive fine if everyone became T2DM tomorrow. It would be an adjustment, but it wouldn’t end civilization.
So your guess is that diabetes will kill humanity? You think that mass produced food is worse than not having medicine, sanitation and running from tigers?
In my opinion, we’re likely to end by giving way to immortal machines that we’ll construct.
Really? Because I believe it (the non-supernatural version), but I certainly do not believe the pyramids thing. To me, it is just a perspective shift, about “standing back” (a few million miles back) and seeing all life on earth as just a collective thin coating of moldy, slimy stuff on the surface of a muddy ball of rock.
Going by scientific evidence uncovered within the Earth, the likelihood of human extinction lies in a cataclysmic event like an asteroid impact, as Oakminster suggested.
The human race is rapidly changing the balance of the eco-system by pollution and exploitation. We will go through a “Dark Ages Part II” if you will. Millions of lives will be lost due to this descend into chaos, but I’m confident that human beings will prevail somehow. Unfortunately, the technological progress made on asteroid destroying/diverting capabilities will have been disrupted and probably not restarted soon enough… and that one day astronomers will make the doomsday call.
“We deeply regret to inform the public that there is a massive asteroid on a collision trajectory with planet Earth. The mass is too great and our technological prowess too limited to do anything about it in time. We are doomed. That is all.”
And of course, what little remains of human societies at that point still existing will collapse into further disorder and chaos. Frankly, I’m rather relieved I won’t be around to see it!
I’m going to take the long view and say mankind will eventually solve many of the problems of overpopulation even if it does come in the wake of a few billion deaths and end close to the time Earth does, when it becomes swallowed up by our expanding sun.
You’re both correct. There is some science behind the original proposal that complex systems with biological and environmental components tend to feedback on each other, occasionally until an equilibrium is reached.
The problem is that some woo-woo-heads took the fact that this theory was given the unfortunate label of the Gaia hypothesis and as Siam Sam noted expanded the theory to include the idea that the planet is sentient and is consciously manipulating it’s environment to somehow protect itself, whatever that’s supposed to mean for a planet.
Now if you want to believe that on the same level as a religion and admit there is zero empirical evidence for it that’s fine, but to put it forth as plausible theory for the destruction of humanity is…questionable at best.
Gaia is the natural environment, controlled by feed back mechanisms. When a species becomes too abundant for the available food supply, it dies off till it reaches a sustainable level.
Mankind has circumvented the feed back through technology, but if new viruses hits the monoculture of industrial farming, there will be a collapse of the food supply.
Of course, when that happened to the Irish during the potato famine they moved to America, but now there’s no new frontier to emmigrate to.
How can anyone look at Planet Earth from space ( without being able to see mankind’s impact ), with all it’s weather patterns, and think it’s just an inanimate ball of mud and water?
Methinks it’s a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees.
Unless current theoretical understanding is entirely wrong, it is impossible using any realistic means to exceed the speed of light. That effectively precludes any intelligent civilization - no matter how capable - from travelling far beyond their own stellar systems. Perhaps the construction and/or operation of generation starships is impractical for voyages longer than a few hundred/thousand years, and so no civilization has spread far beyond their home worlds.
IOW, alien civilizations would colonize the galaxy if they could, but they can’t, due to fundamental physical and technological limitations.
Far more likely, IMO, than claims such as 1) there is no intelligent life out there, or 2) they have already found us/about to find us/living among us.
Agreed, space is just too damn big.
We may someday find an unmanned craft, some type of interstellar probe like Voyager sailing through our solar system. That would be cool as hell, but what do we do? Intercept it? Leave it to it’s mission? I say we grab the sucker
Or maybe it will grab us, and pump chili sauce into the hypersleep containment chambers to reanimate the long-somnolent many-tentacled aliens, who then proceed to…
If you think interstellar colonisation may be impossible, you are welcome to give reasons why that may be. One remote possibility is that our system is surrounded by an impassible barrier; as Voyager 1 is continually getting further away all the time, the minimum radius of this hypothetical barrier is continually increasing.
This statement carries as much weight as these other nonsense arguments:
[ul]
[li]How can anyone look at the complexity of life and not believe in an intelligent designer?[/li][li]How can anyone look at the pyramids and Nazca lines and not understand that they were built by aliens?[/li][li]How can anyone see that autism is often diagnosed after children receive vaccinations and not think it’s the cause?[/ul][/li]In other words, none.
Methinks some one needs to become familiar with the concept of anthropomorphism.
I don’t think of Gaia as having human characteristics. I believe it is “nature” which is incredibly cruel ( just look at animals/ fish/ insects eating each other ) and when mankind becomes overpopulated and really starts messing the planet, humans will be exterminated, just like the dinosaurs were. People like to think that they are “important” on the planet, but we are not- we’re just one species amongst many, but with a bigger brain.
