# How will the world end?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 5, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291 "2016-04-05T20:28:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/21 "2016-04-06T15:06:26Z")
Mine, in cardio-respiratory arrest. The rest of y’all can do whatever you want.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/22 "2016-04-06T16:58:24Z")
> [@TheChileanBlob](#):
>
> Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice.
Or [both](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZocvme6cYc).
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/23 "2016-04-06T17:25:37Z")
I plan to watch it from my table in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/24 "2016-04-06T17:28:04Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> In a bang . . . followed by a whole lot of whimpers.
Sounds like a vigorous S&M date.
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### Author:  [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/25 "2016-04-06T17:55:14Z")
> [@Quartz](#):
>
> [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future) has this covered.
>
> According to Wiki, the Earth will only support multi-cellular life for another 800 million years. Lack of CO2 is going to be a big problem.
Looking ahead even further, basically all matter in the universe will eventually collapse into a massive black hole. The subatomic particles will evaporate and generate another big bang, starting the entire process over again. Mind blown!
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/26 "2016-04-06T17:59:37Z")
Define the terms “world” and “end”,
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### Author:  [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/27 "2016-04-06T19:10:53Z")
In fire.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/28 "2016-04-07T05:26:31Z")
“This is how the world ends: Not with a bang, but a whimsy.”
– Dust jacket of one edition of _Cat’s Cradle_ by Vonnegut, circa 1970
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### Author:  [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/29 "2016-04-07T05:36:37Z")
The turtle gets a case of the hiccups, one of the elephants gets bucked off, and we go spinning off into the void like a giant space frisbee.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/30 "2016-04-07T07:28:01Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Then the tardigrades will proliferate, eventually evolving to become the new Master Race.
The ADORABLE Master Race, I think you mean…
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### Author:  [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/31 "2016-04-07T07:39:31Z")
The world will end as soon as [144,000 male Jewish virgins](http://biblehub.com/kjv/revelation/14.htm) complete their Bible studies classes.
> [@Quartz](#):
>
> According to Wiki, the Earth will only support multi-cellular life for another 800 million years. Lack of CO2 is going to be a big problem.
So we are actually helping prolong the life of multi-cellular organisms by stocking up on CO2?
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### Author:  [@TwoCarrotSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoCarrotSnowman)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/32 "2016-04-07T18:37:08Z")
> [@The\_Vorlon](#):
>
> In fire.
You’ve been waiting twelve years for this thread to come up, haven’t you? 🙂
Well played.
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### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/33 "2016-04-07T19:10:09Z")
The BIG GNAB
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/34 "2016-04-07T22:53:54Z")
Try EXIT MUNDi, a collection of end of the world scenarios.
[http://www.exitmundi.nl/](http://www.exitmundi.nl/)
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/35 "2016-04-07T23:09:25Z")
World? Do you mean the earth, all life on earth, or human life on earth? they are not the same thing.
realistically, I think humans will transcend biology and become a species of machine intelligence. That’ll spell the end of human life just because we moved past it. Beyond that, I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2016, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/36 "2016-04-08T01:20:27Z")
> [@escaped](#):
>
> 1. nucklear war
> 2. astroids hitting earth
> 3. climate change
> 4. sun dies.
By **Technological Singularity**. The Old Testament has very much information on the subject.
You should ask science writers for possible scenarios.
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### Author:  [@TwoCarrotSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoCarrotSnowman)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/37 "2016-04-08T08:58:07Z")
As others have said, there’s a difference between a) end of human life, b) end of all life and c) total destruction of the planet.
If we’re talking about the latter, then it would either end by being swallowed up by the sun, or perhaps because of malign actions by a vastly superior alien civilisation. Anyone checked the planning office on Alpha Centauri recently?
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2016, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/38 "2016-04-08T11:39:23Z")
Aliens my butt.
The planet will be destroyed by some xkcd-inspired experiment gone wrong: [Laser Pointer](https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/) (one shining example among many)
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### Author:  [@Blackstock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackstock)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2016, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/39 "2016-04-08T11:49:26Z")
It will end with the same speed and intensity it has started: when resources are exhausted and life is no longer sustainable. After that, everything that’s left of us will be blown away over thousands and millions of years until the planet becomes a barren rock flying within or without orbit, and one day some other civilization will find us across the universe and give us a unique name such as “PW2-00002”. They can hardly wait to probe our world for a potential form of life, and it will make headlines across their globe when that probe finally makes it, and the last image it will broadcast back to their world before the battery dies is one in which there is a plastic bag bearing the words Spinneys, which - back on DX1-00001 - they’ll find quite strange, and they’ll probably end up writing poetry and singing songs entitled Spinneys.
That’s how.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-world-end/751291/40 "2016-04-08T12:02:43Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#):
>
> The world will end as soon as [144,000 male Jewish virgins](http://biblehub.com/kjv/revelation/14.htm) complete their Bible studies classes.
>
> So we are actually helping prolong the life of multi-cellular organisms by stocking up on CO2?
Rather than generating CO2 right away, it would be better to not burn it at all since then it would be in the non-volatile ground. However, according to a Wikipedia cite I can’t find right now, we may be heading toward another Ice Age in the short-term _geological_ future (as opposed to the fake “global cooling” scare that didn’t exist in the 70s), so we might also want to stockpile CO2-generating stuff for our descendants tens of thousands of years in the future to stave that off for a few centuries or millennia.
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