# Long-Term Prospects For Humanity **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 24, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968 "2011-05-24T01:23:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/21 "2011-05-24T17:39:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Long-Term Prospects For Humanity Not good. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/22 "2011-05-24T17:48:17Z")
We’ve got approximately [5½ billion years to evacuate the Earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Life_Cycle.svg), or else we’re all fucked. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/23 "2011-05-24T18:36:27Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Since as long ago as 40,000 years there has been a conflict between the human population and the human standard of living. More people leads to more scarcity. This leads to some kind of technological advance. This leads to more plenty. This leads to more people. And so the cycle continues. > > Until 40,000 years ago humans were dependent on hunting large, slow moving animals that could be dangerous, but could also be killed using fairly primitive weapons. When these prey animals declined in number, so did the number of human hunters, giving the prey animals the opportunity to increase in number. > > Beginning about 40,000 years ago our ancestors developed better weapons, such as the spear thrower which greatly increased the range of the spear. This was followed by the bow and arrow, which may have been invented about 15,000 years ago. Dogs were domesticated about this time. They made hunting even more efficient. > > Better weapons enabled our ancestors to exterminate the large, slow moving animals in much of the world, while hunting smaller, faster animals, like dear. When these became scarce, agriculture developed. When wood became scarce, coal was used. > > Nevertheless, we should not expect technological advances to be the automatic result of population growth. Whenever the human population has outpaced the food supply the result has been disease epidemics, war and famine. Slightly longer than three thousand years ago this seems to have happened in the Near East, and in what is now Greece and Turkey. The result was a significant decline in the human population, and in the plastic arts. The Hittite and Mycenaean civilizations collapsed. The Greeks forgot how to use the Linear B writing method they had devised. The civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon went into decline. > > Because epidemics reduce the human population without destroying buildings, the Bubonic Plague in Europe was followed by a higher standard of living. Because there were fewer people, there was more of everything good to go around. > > Currently, the birth rate is declining, but it is not declining fast enough. Computer technology is as much a curse as a blessing, because it reduces the economic value of many job skills. I expect global warming to continue, and to have a very harmful effect on the climate. > > For the next several hundred years I do not expect the Second Coming of Christ. I do expect the appearance of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: pestilence, war, and famine will result in death on a massive scale. I disagree with that myself. Why would the human population outstripping the food supply have an effect on pestilence? I can understand famine and war, but the relationship with disease doesn’t seem like there would be a connection. I think plagues and pestilence are pretty much a thing of the past because medical technology has advanced to the point where we understand enough about how microbial diseases are contracted, prevented and cured. Even with a disease like HIV which we can’t cure we still understand how to prevent contraction/transmission and how to control symptoms in those infected. The black plague can be stopped with hygiene, sanitation and $4 antibiotics in today’s world. Even when it appears in places like India it is nothing like it was 700 years ago. I’ve heard up to half all humans who have ever lived on earth have died of malaria (I believe that quote was from a world respected malaria researcher, but I don’t know how true it is or who it was). Even if not true, billions of humans have died from the disease since our species was created. But now malaria can be prevented and treated if a nation has a basic level of wealth. So the greatest plague ever is now controllable. As far as famine, I don’t think that is a risk either. For every 100 bushels of corn grown about 50-60 are used to feed livestock with another 20+ used for ethanol. So that leaves 20-30% of the corn supply, at most, being used as human food. According to this, if all global cropland was used to make corn and 100% of corn was used to feed people the earth could support 33 billion people. > **[How Many People Can the Earth Support?](http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-many-people-can-earth-support.html)** > > What is the maximum number of people that the Earth could support at a minimal level of sustenance? To answer this question, lets look at ho... And if all farms on earth were as productive as US farms the earth could make enough corn to support 77 billion people. And that is with contemporary levels of productivity. Yields per acre of agricultural staples are expected to double or triple over the next few decades due to advances in science. The earths population is set to stabalize at 9-10 billion over this century, so there is more than enough food for everyone, if crop yields double by 2050 and all landmass is used to make corn for human use and at US productivity levels, that is enough corn for 160 billion people. So it is more a matter of priorities. The worst that’ll happen is people have to give up meat, not famine. All in all, I don’t see famine or pestilence in our future. War over natural resources maybe (we already do that with oil and land, but may do that with water in the near future). ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/24 "2011-05-24T21:09:23Z")
I think the only thing we can predict about the future of Humanity is that we can’t possibly predict it. It sounds pithy, I know, but it’s true. Do you think that anyone would’ve suspected, even twenty years ago, that we would not only have a device which would allow us to access the sum total of human knowledge… but to be able to hold that device in one hand? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/25 "2011-05-24T21:32:34Z")
Six steps forward, four steps back possibly. Barring nuclear war, fullscale global climate degradation I think beyond the next couple of centuries things could start looking good for our long term survival, at least until we evolve into something unrecognisable as humanity, or our universe ends. Whichever comes first. Once we develop sufficiently to project ourselves or our culture in some way into interstellar space and get established a bit, I think it’ll be very hard to snuff us out. Getting to that point might be difficult however. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/26 "2011-05-25T00:54:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course we might grow more religious. Vast social changes disturb a lot of people – they need something to cling to. As if fear is the only motivation to become religious. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/27 "2011-05-25T02:40:50Z")
The OP would probably be better served with a lot more focus, (breaking it down to multiple threads on separate areas of endeavor, perhaps), but it is not a debate, in any event. Off to IMHO. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/28 "2011-05-25T04:00:59Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > As if fear is the only motivation to become religious. Good point – mustn’t forget greed! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968/29 "2011-05-25T05:25:53Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Good point – mustn’t forget greed! And despair. Many believers have long held that despair is good because it brings people to faith, therefore anything that reduces despair in the world is evil. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-prospects-for-humanity/582968.md?page=1)