I know that logically we are… should we just sit around and watch MTV and Survivor (I actually chose that at random before realizing its double meaning).
Should the human species just sit around we’ll probably be hit by a massive plague or climate change or overpopulation or our own destruction (via pollution or war or nukes… whatever)… or more than likely a combination of all.
Say for some reason we’re able to hold on long enough to not be the next trilobites and we’re on this ride until the carnie says off (Mr. Sun dies and fries planet Earth in the process).
If we put our minds to it could we escape?
This relies on a few assumptions:
Nothing happens that would kill off our technological advancement (or at least nothing permanent… another enlightenment… or a dozen of them… whatever… is fine).
We have a place to go (even if we huddle a few thousand people on a moon of Saturn for a while I think we can all agree we’d be screwed as a species just as well).
This is a biggie… though I think we have a few other things to worry about before it. Will we have a place to go at THE END. Isn’t the universe going to a chilly, dead end eventually? I read in the book Hyperspace, IIRC, that intelligent life has to master something about parallel universes and wormholes to get out of this one.
And lastly… we decide its a good thing to do (I don’t know about you, but maybe McMars wrappers floating around Olympus Mons isn’t the best idea).
Any ideas?
Could we make the human race… or at least some form of intelligent… something… get out? (I’m not counting Voyager… An empty can thrown vaguely at the stars is space junk)
If we’re able to survive our own detritus and come to terms with our own resource use and garbage generation, a la the successful Diamant’s Collapse (I think we’re more likely to do ourselves in than anything else), we could conceivably send out missions to perpetuate ourselves. Whether or not we actually would, I don’t know. It would be exceedingly expernsive, and there’s no obvious money in it. Major space missions are the work, I think, of a vibrant technological civilization at the peak of its game, not in decline, so you’d need an excuse to divert resources to an idealistic, altruistic goal when the living is good, and stick with it for a long time. Maybe if you had religious fanaticism behind it, or a rule of long-looking philosophers. Otherwise, it’s easier, cheaper, and more fun to cultivate a pop garden of Britney Spears and sports heroes, or make war on your neighbors than to worry about the legacy of my great to the nth grandchildren long after I’m dead.
While it’s noble to assume the human race would somehow look after the larger goal of survival as a species, in practice only Me, Myself and I are actual considerations when it’s time to survive. Unlike the TV show it won’t be by vote a la 7th grade clique groups.
Whether its AGW or the Big Comet, only proximate and narrow self-centered interests will be undertaken. Should it ever come time to bail because TEOTWAWKI is finally near, rest assured any efforts will be undertaken by, and to the benefit of, a very small group–one which has the resources. Their goal will be to save themselves and not “mankind.”
As to the means and destination, your science fiction is as good as mine, I suspect, and there are plenty of folks who enjoy the speculation.
As an aside, how about a TV show where the Survivor has to Survive…life? While I have never seen the show, my understanding is that the “surviving” involves surviving a vote elimination, as opposed to actually surviving. I am worried the polloi will be waiting for some sort of democratic vote when TEOTWAWKI comes. While they are figuring out how to take the vote, the real Survivors will have bailed with the remaining resources.
I think depression is the one that’s going to kill us all. Eventually, we will all be too smart for our own good; thinking that everything is pointless. :dubious: Eventually no one sees their point to their existence. We’re all going to commit suicide… as one! :eek:
We will all go together When we go
Ev’ry Hottentot and Ev’ry Eskimo
When the air becomes Uranious
we will all go Simultaneous
Yes, we’lll All Go Together
Yes, we’ll All Go Together
Yes, We All Will Go Together
When We Go!
I am, however, reminded of a line from a Woody Allen movie to the effect that after he found out when he was 12 that the sun would go nova in 10 billion years, he decided it wasn’t worth it to eat his broccoli.
If we simply must contemplate these things, try browsing Exit Mundi. It’ll give you a lot to lose sleep over if you’re the nervous, imaginative type. You might also find the article “Human Extinction” at Wikipedia a good reason to start drinking heavily.
I look at the end of the human race in the same way that I look at my own death as an individual. It’s something that’s going to happen sooner or later. I’d rather later than sooner, but the fact remains that it could happen any second. Both collectively and individually, we live every moment of our lives on the edge of an abyss. A Stoic attitude can be very helpful here.
I’ll just leave you with the following inspirational thought:
The universe is utterly indifferent to our existence. We are the creation of a meaningless flux of atoms, our every thought and action is controlled by the laws of physics and chemistry, free will is an illusion created by the complexity of the material world, our deepest values and highest aspirations are mirages, and all human suffering is meaningless and absurd. There is no God, no heaven or hell, no reincarnation or life after death, and we’re all going to die.
The world is not that bad, some people really think this is just a whistle stop on the way to infinity. Give people credit for being able to figure it out.
I ran across this article this morning, it might cheer you up a little.
for those concerned about such things, are you bothered by the fact that our descendants would most likely not fit the label ‘Humans’, or even humanoids?
And that they might not even be as intelligent as we are? That the human species might devolve back to the ape level? (Stephen Baxter’s *Evolution: A Novel * is a fascinating read, by the way.)
Sheesh, I can’t believe that I’m an optimist, relative to other Dopers. But I guess I am.
*Humans being wiped out *
Of all the apocolyptic scenarios, most wouldn’t cause human extinction. Obviously disease, peak oil, crazy weather scenarios won’t do it.
But I think even a massive nuclear war, with the sun getting blocked out and the earth bathed in radiation for centuries or longer…wouldn’t be enough. I’m sure that they’d be places where the radiation was low enough to survive (all right, “bathed” isn’t quite the right term), and it doesn’t take much energy to light a greenhouse.
I’m not saying huge numbers would survive, but I suspect that more people than popular opinion would suggest.
Of those scenarios that would cause human extinction (nearby supernova, advanced extraterrestrials with a grudge (forget the movies, we’d have no chance) etc). They are far less likely to happen in the foreseeable future. And mankind can achieve a great deal in the foreseeable future.
End of civilisation
There are a lot of things that could bring this about. But I can’t help feeling that they would just be a blip in the grand scheme of things. It’s not as though we could eliminate all trace of our current civilisations. Everything will get back to normal in far less time than it took for us to get here the first time IMO.
Ended by depression
I think what’s more likely is ended by pleasure. A really kickass VR system would devestate the human birth rate
Again though, it wouldn’t take us out. It just means procreation would be a very deliberate, organised phenomenon.
Heat death
I wouldn’t worry about it. I mean, we’re talking billions of years. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to suggest that we could potentially learn how to spawn new universes or whatever in this time (yes, it’s far fetched but predicting human technology even a century into the future is far fetched, let alone billions of years).
I suggest you watch Man vs Wild or Survivorman. Both shows are about a trained outdoorsman attempting to survive in the wild for a period of time with minimal equipment. I think Survivorman is more authentic because Les actually goes out alone and drags his own camera equipment with him while his support team waits about a week. You might also watch Deadliest Catch about Alaska crab fishermen. The only “contest” they have is to not get killed long enough to catch enough crab to sell so they can survive until next season.
Billions of years from now when the sun goes red giant, we will probably have a) colonized most of the solar system, if not other planets and b) evolved into something that is not recognizable as human. Remember that we modern homo-sapiens have only been around for about 200,000 years and civilization only for about 10,000.
There was an episode of the new Doctor Who that addressed this theme.
I don’t thing they know for certain yet if the Universe will end in a Big Crunch, a Big Rip or just slowly drift apart and die a slow heat death. Whoever is around at the end “wins” I guess.
Short of developing wormholes into parallel dimensions or something, there would be no place to go. In the case of heat death or a big rip, the last species might not even consider that there was someplace to go to since their sky would likely be completely black - all stars and galaxies having long since torn themselves apart or faded out of existance before their civilization formed. Towards the end, it would be likely there wouldn’t be enough energy around to do anything.
Good idea for who? As someone already pointed out, survival is ultimately a selfish exercise. The world might be better off (whatever that means) reverting back to a natural utopia but if there are no humans around to see it, who gives a fuck?
You say that now, but what happens when humanity provokes the ire of the Moon weasels? There’s a good reason why we haven’t been back to the Moon in decades.
