The only type of event that could eliminate all human life from the earth would be an astronomical one.
Such a thing would be very difficult or impossible to hide from all global astronomy observers, professional and amateur. A secret that more than a few people know about will not be a secret for long. World leaders would not have the option of deciding to tell us. So we would know.
As to the hypothetical of would I want to know? The answer is yes. Five years is a long time is some respects. I am not painting the damn house again. There would be no point in my going to work anymore because the whole point of the job is training young people for future careers. They are not going to show up either.
And really, no one, no one, even knows if they will even be alive in 5 years, we expect to but anyone can die, anytime.
No escape, no solution? Think of the condemned man who convinces the king to grant a year’s reprieve so he can teach the king’s favorite horse to sing. A friend asks, “Are you mad? Horses can’t sing!” The condemned replies, “A lot can happen in a year. I could die. The king could die. And who knows? The horse could sing.”
Much can happen in five years. And wouldn’t it be funny if observers miscalculated and the anomaly misses Earth? Oops, sorry - our bad. Everyone, resume your normal lives, those of you remaining.
Whether or not doom strikes, remember the adage: a secret can be kept by two if one of them is dead. News of the doom discovery will inevitably leak. Some will believe, some won’t, and many will pay it no mind, being too busy with day-to-day survival. “What, wonks and boffins say the world will end in five years? I’ll be lucky to last till next week.” Panicked believers may usher-in societal collapse and premature genocide. Thus is the Fermi Paradox solved for Earthlings.
Would I want to know and believe? No, I’d rather be killed by surprise. I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers.
I fight the hypothetical. If it’s five years down the line, then there is hope. Maybe we can’t save the planet, or even anyone on it, in that time… but maybe we can. But if we can, then it’s going to need a massive concerted effort of the sort that just can’t be done secretly. We’d all need to pull together, which means that we’d all need to know.
And, heck, even in the worst case where we put in all that effort and still all die anyway, well, I can’t imagine a better way to go out, can you? If we’re going to strike out, let’s strike out swinging for the fences.
I fight the hypothetical. If it’s five years down the line, then there is hope. Maybe we can’t save the planet, or even anyone on it, in that time… but maybe we can. But if we can, then it’s going to need a massive concerted effort of the sort that just can’t be done secretly. We’d all need to pull together, which means that we’d all need to know.
And, heck, even in the worst case where we put in all that effort and still all die anyway, well, I can’t imagine a better way to go out, can you? If we’re going to strike out, let’s strike out swinging for the fences.
Indeed—“turn death into a fighting chance to live.” Or at least, a fighting chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. (Project Orion, your hour is come 'round at last…)
At the very least, it’d give enough time to try and encapsulate and send forth more comprehensive records and testaments of humanity’s existence than two gold-plated phonograph records, a few CD-ROMs, and a rapidly fading bubble of radio signals.
All pull together? You must be joking. When in human history has that EVER happened?
Putting that aside, I don’t think of humanity as that much of a loss to the universe. So what if we could save 1000 people on a spaceship or something, but billions die, I don’t see that as a benefit either – so then humans can find another planet to ruin? If we were going to leave a detailed record, it should include how badly we’ve screwed up this planet due to the inability of most of us to look beyond our own prosperity in the next quarter.
I don’t think humanity deserves to disappear, necessarily, it is still possible that the good done by humans might eventually outweigh the bad, but if it depends on humanity being able to work towards that sort of target together without endless conflict, then we are truly doomed.
That way, I could buy all the liquor I want, write bad checks, borrow shit loads of money with no intention of paying it back before everyone else realizes there’s no use.
And as for the risk of us “ruining” another planet—well, as all the nearest planets or bodies we could get to are, as far as we know, already uninhabited and lifeless, I’m not seeing THAT as a big loss, either.
Plus, considering that we’d take other life besides just Homo Sapiens Sapiens and our gut flora with us—everything from plants to mold, from rats to tardigrades—that’s surely more of a net gain on the pro-biosphere front than just expecting the Coast Redwoods to commit Sati on the pyre of the evil ape-men.
Back in grade school we were talking one day and someone asked what we would do if the world was going to end in a few days and the answers were almost exactly this:
Everyone got kinda quiet when one of the people said ‘what if you did all that and then it didn’t happen?’. No one had a good answer for that.
Obligatory David Bowie song about this. News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet and I knew he was not lying
Wait, this is just hypothetical, right? Or do you know something we don’t??
I think maybe tell the general public, but don’t say it’s 100% inevitable that we’re all gonna die, even if it is true. Frame it that top scientists are working on it, and have the highest confidence of finding a solution. That way people can plan for the worst without society breaking down (hopefully). Then wait until shortly before the end (a week? A month?) to break the truth.