# What's the biggest thing humanity should be worrying about? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2014, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352 "2014-03-23T12:23:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/61 "2014-03-30T21:07:49Z")
Y3K. ---
**Author:** ![Joshuagenes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Joshuagenes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joshuagenes)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/62 "2014-04-09T02:25:34Z")
Being that every decision is a moral one, it is worthwhile to worry about. Making morally good decisions will profit universally and eternally first before it will profit locally and presently, such is the encapsulation of a God like decision. Worrying about much else will just take years off your life and won’t profit you any. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/63 "2014-04-09T02:47:47Z")
In inhumane policies such as zero tolerance, not accounting for the human factor (that we make errors), and lack of concern for ourselves and our neighbors. ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/64 "2014-04-09T03:19:54Z")
I have never before seen a thread that was so much of a Rorschach test. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/65 "2014-04-09T03:38:28Z")
> [@B.Serum](#): > > I have never before seen a thread that was so much of a Rorschach test. _Hrrm._ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/66 "2014-04-09T06:17:51Z")
As of 2-day it may be Ebola and like minded viruses. Word around the campfire is that scientists have never seen it spread as it has been doing so recently. Here’s the link: > **[WHO: Ebola outbreak one of 'most challenging' | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/health/africa-ebola/)** > > The Ebola outbreak in coastal West Africa is still contained to Guinea and Liberia, WHO announced Tuesday. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/67 "2014-04-09T07:09:19Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > I’m gonna say the “growing religiosity” one because I think nothing can match religion for evil potential. Most things sort themselves out reasonably soon if there’s no religion involved. > > I actually like to imagine what humankind would have been like without religion. I bet we’d have cured cancer and had the World Wide Web 10,000 years ago. I’m sure that’s why North Korea is the most advanced state on Earth… :rolleyes: Humans being what they are, they would sooner kill over some other ideology if not for religion ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/68 "2014-04-09T13:47:49Z")
Growing religiosity? That’s not even a thing. ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/69 "2014-04-10T13:12:57Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > I think we face a collapse of the biosphere as a result of human activities. That is a direct consequence of anthropomorphic climate change albeit more subtle. Pollution. Poison. When the soil fails to grow crops we will be in deep do do. We are in the direct middle of the collapse of the biosphere. The biosphere is collapsing all around us, but not until it directly affects human economics, fecundity, or lifestyle does it register as a Bad Thing. The collapse is ongoing, and is rarely a headline. The biosphere doesn’t just surrender all at once, it dies a little bit at a time. Wherever you are, your ecosystem is probably mostly dead already. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/70 "2014-04-10T15:40:27Z")
[Gamma-ray bursts.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burst) Well, they _are_ pretty big… ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/71 "2014-04-11T11:07:07Z")
One thing, more than any other: _Energy_. Fossil fuel depletion and peak oil; this is only a problem because our civilisation needs the energy in the fossil fuel. The fuel may be combusted, but all the atoms remain on Earth, so we are not _destroying_ the fuel, just using the energy it contains. Global warming; this is a problem with the energy budget of the Earth. Add more greenhouse gases and the energy retained by the Earth increases. To solve this problem would require the use of more energy - we could shade the planet, by building a sunshade from material mined on the Moon, for instance, or reduce the carbon content of the atmosphere using [artificial photosynthesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis), which would require energy from somewhere. If artificial photosynthesis were commonplace, we might even need to add carbon to the atmosphere to avoid global cooling. Poverty could be alleviated by increasing energy use in every community to American or European levels, and thanks to the [demographic transition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition) this would probably solve the population question too - richer countries have lower fertility rates than poorer countries, so much so that we might even need to worry about a declining population, like Japan. Food production for our modern world is also very dependent on inputs of energy on an industrial scale - energy for fertilisers, mechanisation, pesticides, distribution, processing, and more. Without easily available energy much of the world would starve. With arbitrarily large inputs of energy we could even repair the ecosphere, or at least significantly large parts of it. Nature reserves are expensive in terms of land, and may occupy locations that could be used for agriculture or other human activities. Supporting a large, rich, but probably declining population on the Earth while simultaneously maintaining a rich ecosphere would be an expensive process - and a very energy-intensive one. So - solve the energy problem, and you’ve solved most of the other problems too. Unfortunately the energy problem does not have an easy solution - we did have a relatively easy solution in the 20th century, in the form of cheap oil - this is no longer the case. ---
**Author:** ![buddy431](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@buddy431](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddy431)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/72 "2014-04-13T06:39:08Z")
I would say that humanity does not face any credible threats to its continued existence right now (and hasn’t for quite some time). Yeah, climate change will be expensive, but it won’t kill everyone. Yes, water will be an issue in some areas, but not in all areas. I think nukes probably have the largest potential to drastically decimate humanity, perhaps even to extinction (though I think this would be hard, even with nukes). We say that nuclear war is unlikely now, and I agree. But compared to the timescales that we talk about for asteroid impacts, and even drastic climate change, politics evolves on a very short timescale. We went from no threat of nuclear war in 1914, to a high threat in the 50s and 60s, to now what we consider a “low” threat, in a scant hundred years. 100 years is a blink of the eye on the timescale of the human species (which is in turn a blink of the eye on geologic or astronomical timescales). ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/73 "2014-04-13T09:49:05Z")
I hate to say it but the world is due for a major climatic change like a sudden ice age. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/74 "2014-04-13T09:53:42Z")
I doubt that is true. Even if there were no anthropogenic global warming (and there is) the most recent estimate for the return of an ice age is fifty thousand years; see [An Exceptionally Long Interglacial Ahead?](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/297/5585/1287) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/75 "2014-04-13T10:59:03Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I hate to say it but the world is due for a major climatic change like a sudden ice age. Correct me if I’m wrong but sudden ice ages during the Pleistocene were caused by positive feedback: cooling oceans absorb CO2, which cools the surface, which cools the oceans, and so on. Oceans are not getting cooler: they’re getting warmer. > [@marshmallow](#): > > Global warming … Worst case, we’re in the Carboniferous period. I assume you refer to the Late Carboniferous. The Early Carboniferous was quite warm. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/76 "2014-04-13T12:36:17Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Overpopulation is the root cause of several other problems, including AGW. Loss of biodiversity due to overfishing and dependence on high-tech agriculture (e.g. GMO) is caused by our high population. It is my understanding that the amount of resources available per person has increased worldwide and is currently higher than ever - even though world human population has never been higher. Also, there is less death through war than there has ever been AFAIK. More to your point, why would one assume that current and developing technologies will not be able to handle the problems you mention? There is rapidly developing technology for desalinization, there is no evidence that GMO foods have been shown to have particularly harmful effects, and aquaculture is a developing industry. Around the world people are healthier and live longer now than they ever have. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/77 "2014-04-13T14:03:25Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > It is my understanding that the amount of resources available per person has increased worldwide and is currently higher than ever - even though world human population has never been higher. Also, there is less death through war than there has ever been AFAIK. More to your point, why would one assume that current and developing technologies will not be able to handle the problems you mention? There is rapidly developing technology for desalinization, there is no evidence that GMO foods have been shown to have particularly harmful effects, and aquaculture is a developing industry. Around the world people are healthier and live longer now than they ever have. And in the world of food production, they are growing more and more food on less land. Even meat production is up with use of methods like fodder feeding and hydroponics. [http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/cat1;ft\_ag\_growing\_supplies;ft\_hydroponic\_supplies.html](http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/cat1;ft_ag_growing_supplies;ft_hydroponic_supplies.html) ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/78 "2014-04-13T14:04:32Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I hate to say it but the world is due for a major climatic change like a sudden ice age. But your not taking into account extinction level events that are caused by meteors and others space based causes. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/79 "2014-04-13T20:37:51Z")
My votes: 1. That if we don’t come up with an affordable long-term source of energy, technological civilization will collapse in the next hundred years. 2. That nature is slowly dying. At this rate our descendants are going to live in a world in which machines and engineered organisms will totally displace natural ecosystems. ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352/80 "2014-04-13T23:17:55Z")
Future weapons of mass destruction may not have the same limitations as nukes. Nation states have managed to avoid annihilation so far, which gives me hope that it’s possible to avoid nuclear war entirely. I’d give humanity a much smaller chance of survival if wealthy individuals or small organizations get the choice of causing widespread destruction. Future weapons might include things like nanotechnology, biological weapons or something we haven’t even imagined yet. For all we know, in 100 years it may be possible to create a global catastrophe in a well stocked lab. If it becomes possible for a Doomsday cult to create an actual doomsday, then how do you even begin to deal with that? Absolute surveillance? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-thing-humanity-should-be-worrying-about/684352.md?page=5)