Attack of the Evil Flying Monkeys.
Be very afraid. They fling poo.
Evil poo!!!
either:
a) we evolve into something else, which will eat humans to the brink of extinction (the Morlock hypothesis)
b) asteroid impact
This is the way the World ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper…
Either:
- We will survive and evolve/ mutate/ build our replacements, and humanity as we know it will disappear (except maybe for a few primitives living in preserves); OR
- We will die with a drawn-out whimper from a combination of ecological collapse and resource depletion, along with a couple of fits of thermonuclear stupidity.
The next hundred years will more or less decide this question.
Answering the question at its utmost broadest (what will eliminate human beings?), I would suspect some cosmic event, at an unknown (but extremely unlikely to be anytime soon) distance from the present, and outside of our control, will end it all.
What sort of humanity is present at the destruction, mind you, is another, probably unanswerable, question…
The Internet.
the Vogons will hold their latest poetry recital here, then in a fit of spite, will blow up the planet
S. Gamma Ray Burst
Wouldn’t we hulkify after that? OOOoooh, I get it “Hulk Smash (humankind)!”
What kind of futurist are you? It’s answerable! Use your imagination! …and maybe some extra exclamation points! The risk, if you are wrong, is that the religion based on your teachings will crumble. Big deal! Take a chance!
I hold with those who favor fire…
I really hope it’s Bob Newhart.
Crosses Fingers
Seriously though, probably a combination of factors will eradicate a large number of humans but I seriously doubt we will be killed off completely until the sun expands to the point where the earth can’t support human life anymore. That’s a little ways off though.
I also think reality TV might be the death of us all. I have no proof though.
Just so you know, the book has nothing to do with the end of mankind.
Granted sharks can wreak havoc upon mankind who dares enter the sea, but I’m doubtful that sharks could wipe out all of mankind. But if they teamed up with dolphins and octopuses…well then, we’re doomed.
Ooooh, no. Not even close. Say that three times and the corpse of Isaac Asimov will rise from the grave and strangle that movie’s directer.
So say it ! SAY IT ! !
A) Will lead to N) and that will lead to D) The flesh/brain eating variety from there everything goes down hill.
Well if I told you, then you’d just try to stop me.
Social Darwinism run riot.
Once they have Hitler’s brain implanted in them, there will be no stopping them.
I bet we keep on living and evolving until the planet becomes inhospitable, either because the sun is dying, major climate change (not this silly global warming stuff. I mean REAL climate change like what killed the dinosaurs), or something similar. We can survive some pretty tough environments though, so I can’t imagine a scenario that kills every last human until the sun is gone. So we have what, a couple of million years? Or is it just hundreds of thousands?