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Odds for the survival of the human race 50-50 (pg. 4)
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| Arbiter |
It's all been said before, a thousand times over a thousand years. Each time, new reasons were presented as to why previous predictions of apocalypse failed but this time we were really doomed.
Nothing lasts forever, and humanity will not. Yet to predict that the end may arise in the near future is not sound of mind. Such predictions are completely unscientific in that they attempt to gauge the potential for the spontaneous generation of apocalyptic phenomena.
When someone can demonstrate a deterministic path from the present state of existence to the destruction of humanity, I'll be convinced. At this juncture, however, such conjecture is without scientific basis. Britain's honorary astronomer royal ought to know better than to spread this kind of hysterical speculation. |
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| sash |
| quote: | Originally posted by Alccode
:haha: :haha: You've got to be kidding me. ROGUE MACHINES??? Someone's been watching too much of T2!!! I can personally guarantee you that this "threat" is absolutely and completely bogus and laughable to the extreme. |
taken from http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm
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A nanofactory is self-contained, needing only feedstock and instructions to duplicate itself. If it is connected to a small chemical lab-on-a-chip to make feedstock from organic chemicals, and robotics to gather organic materials, it could be self-sustaining and self-reproducing. Large versions of this would be a harmless curiosity. However, small versions ("gray goo") would make cleanup quite difficult. In the extreme case, if a sufficiently flexible mechanism were released into the biosphere, it could eventually do massive damage. Of course, a concentrated mass of goo would be detectable from its waste heat, but then it has to be cleaned up—every single microscopic particle. This would be especially difficult in the open ocean. A deep-ocean version of the goo would require sieving the entire ocean to clean it up. This may not be practical. An ongoing goo infestation could do damage at least equivalent to invasive biological species, such as the zebra mussel and the "killer alga" in the Mediterranean. A recent paper in Nature reports a strong inverse correlation between natural enemies and damage done by invading species. Gray goo would have no natural enemies.
Although gray goo has essentially no military or commercial value, and only limited terrorist value, it may be used as a tool of blackmail. Another possible source of gray goo releases is irresponsible hobbyists. The challenge of creating and releasing a self-replicating entity is apparently irresistible to a certain personality type, as shown by the large number of computer viruses and worms in existence. Cleaning up a single gray goo outbreak would be quite expensive and would possibly require severe physical disruption of the area of the outbreak. (Atmospheric and oceanic goos deserve special concern for this reason.) We probably cannot tolerate a community of "script kiddies" releasing many modified versions of goo.
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| eLe_vatE |
The threat from super-volcanos is very real and has been proven (kind of), they reckon (they being geologists & scientists I suppose) that a supervolcano errupted around the Greece area quite a long time ago (cant remember figures), causing the sun to be blocked out by giant ash clouds etc., and that 4/5 of the worlds population was wiped out, this theory made sence to gene biologists who were puzzled previously by the fact that all humans share a suprisingly similar gene pool considering our 'time of existence'
....so if this hadnt have happened, there'd be even more variation in human characteristics, and the world population would probably have increased to its carrying capacity and crahsed by now aswell, scary thought :(
something that could potentially drastically decrease (but not wipe out) world population is.......the world popultion, the food supply of the world can only support a certain number (they reckon around 12-15 billion), and when this carrying capacity has been reached, there is the potential for population crash, just as happens to animal populations when their food supply cannot support the numbers, obviously the human pop. crash wouldn't be that drastic as we'd revert to all measures possible to curb the downfall (produce loads of food at all costs). But if world population 'levels off' when the limiting factors (not enough food) start to initiate, the crash could be a non-event, but its just a thought (not of mine heh). |
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| Project T |
| quote: | Originally posted by eLe_vatE
The threat from super-volcanos is very real and has been proven (kind of), they reckon (they being geologists & scientists I suppose) that a supervolcano errupted around the Greece area quite a long time ago (cant remember figures), causing the sun to be blocked out by giant ash clouds etc., and that 4/5 of the worlds population was wiped out, this theory made sence to gene biologists who were puzzled previously by the fact that all humans share a suprisingly similar gene pool considering our 'time of existence'
....so if this hadnt have happened, there'd be even more variation in human characteristics, and the world population would probably have increased to its carrying capacity and crahsed by now aswell, scary thought :(
something that could potentially drastically decrease (but not wipe out) world population is.......the world popultion, the food supply of the world can only support a certain number (they reckon around 12-15 billion), and when this carrying capacity has been reached, there is the potential for population crash, just as happens to animal populations when their food supply cannot support the numbers, obviously the human pop. crash wouldn't be that drastic as we'd revert to all measures possible to curb the downfall (produce loads of food at all costs). But if world population 'levels off' when the limiting factors (not enough food) start to initiate, the crash could be a non-event, but its just a thought (not of mine heh). |
im gonna disagree with you through some lower school basic geography for fun value ;)
for those that don't know, all countries can be rated on something called a demographic transition model which basically is a graph of birth vs death rates. stage 1 is most undeveloped and stage 5 is totally developed to current knowledge. that is over-simplifying it a bit, however, for this point it is known that many countries that are in stage 5 are losing population, although the world's natural increase is still on the up. It has been anticipated by (i think, but can't remember) 2150 that (providing we haven't destroyed ourselves) that every country in the world will be industrialised. Soon after world population will decrease before we actually run out of food. By that time i expect space travel will have been advanced due to some kind of World War (which i hope doesn't happen but odds on it will) and we should be able to provide minimal settlement on that moon of Jupiter which I can't remember the name of, Carasma or summat like that anyways. Point is, we won't run out of food, and yes i'm typing lots of coz i can't think of anything else 2 do hehe :) |
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| eLe_vatE |
| what you said is right Luke, but if current rate of growth continues (which is probably will due to Africa alone), world population could reach 12/13 billion as soon as 10/15 years, when growth rates in Africa and parts of Latin America & Asia will still be real high. |
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| evil_bastard |
How many people are genuinely scared at the thought of the human race ending?
I doubt I'm alone in saying that the thought has never ever worried me. |
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| Galapidate |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
How many people are genuinely scared at the thought of the human race ending?
I doubt I'm alone in saying that the thought has never ever worried me. |
I'm with you man. I don't see how anyone could be scared of the end of the human race/world when they know they won't live to see it. They'd be dead anyway, so why worry? :D |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
How many people are genuinely scared at the thought of the human race ending?
I doubt I'm alone in saying that the thought has never ever worried me. |
Well, just about the entire world during the Cold War... |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
I doubt it. |
Cuban missile crisis?
Edit: Plus there's a LOT of stuff we don't know about with the silent service (submarine warfare). When nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines were invented, it was actually forecasted that first strike scenarios could actually succeed and some generals were pushing for an attack. It's good that cooler heads prevailed. |
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| evil_bastard |
To say the entire world was genuinely scared the human race would end is hysterical. People go about their daily lives, most don't care that much and certainly aren't scared. Many people barely know what's going on.
There is a permanent threat of nuclear holocaust or any other massive disaster. Aside from the impersonal and unprecedented nature of such a catastrophe, if I were genuinely frightened of nuclear holocaust, I'd be permanently frightened and would live a pretty miserable life.
I don't know about you but the things I fear are far more relevant to me and seem far more likely to occur. Perhaps I'm just spectacularly selfish, but most people I speak to say the same thing. Whether you're a businessmen in London, a farmer in Ecuador or a mercenary in Sierra Leone, you're more likely to be concerned with what's relevant to you. Perhaps your imagination is far more vivid than mine, but I find the end of the human race an impossible scenario to imagine or comprehend, and that's probably why it doesn't scare me. Perhaps if my situation changed I might be, but that's my point. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
To say the entire world was genuinely scared the human race would end is hysterical. People go about their daily lives, most don't care that much and certainly aren't scared. Many people barely know what's going on.
There is a permanent threat of nuclear holocaust or any other massive disaster. Aside from the impersonal and unprecedented nature of such a catastrophe, if I were genuinely frightened of nuclear holocaust, I'd be permanently frightened and would live a pretty miserable life.
I don't know about you but the things I fear are far more relevant to me and seem far more likely to occur. Perhaps I'm just spectacularly selfish, but most people I speak to say the same thing. Whether you're a businessmen in London, a farmer in Ecuador or a mercenary in Sierra Leone, you're more likely to be concerned with what's relevant to you. Perhaps your imagination is far more vivid than mine, but I find the end of the human race an impossible scenario to imagine or comprehend, and that's probably why it doesn't scare me. Perhaps if my situation changed I might be, but that's my point. |
Perhaps the ENTIRE extinction of the human race is a scenario that would likely never occurr (although one could never claim such a statement with absolute certainty with respects to nuclear war) it's a fairly safe assumption to believe that the population of Earth could EASILY be reduced to several million people with the direct effects of nuclear blasts, subsequent fallout effects, and the nuclear winter to follow. Estimates quote figures as high as 50% of all species could become extinct. Who knows what effect this could have on the ecosystem and our resulting food sources. What plants would we grow without any sun light for months if not years on end? What meat would we harvest without any plants to feed them? This is not a threat now, but at the height of the cold war this was a VERY real threat in the back of most people's minds. I found this source to be an EXCELLENT analysis of possible nuclear exchanges from limited attacks to an all out war. It's interesting in a morbid sort of way and provides some explanation of why the US and Russia went to such extents to try to outdo each other even when it came to morally reprehensible acts.
The second half of the article becomes very interesting:
http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/pagepub/CH2.html
Given the fact that both sides possessed 10,000 + high yield weapons I find the worst case scenario described to be very feasible. |
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