27-06-2005 23:08									#31
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Ming has already been mentioned.

	27-06-2005 23:20									#32
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quote: Originally posted by TheStinger Daleks

	27-06-2005 23:43									#33
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"6 billion chinese finger traps."-Gen Ludd



"In a few more hundred years i'm sure will see the complete destruction of the rain forest, the complete melting of the Ice sheets in the antartic, world wide flooding, breaking of the atlantic conveyor system that keeps western europe warmer than it should be and the midwest of USA+ the Carabbean cooler than it would be."-child of Thor

While this might knock back the population, I can't see it wiping us out, or even close. The population would decrease to the point at which it can be sustained by the decreased recources.

"I think it's unlikely that anything named in this thread (except perhaps a meteor) could wipe out humans. What could happen is that the human population could easily be reduced greatly (to say, a few thousand or something). Then smaller, could potentially finish the job."-civman2000

A progressive jackpot where the prizes get really BIG! Sounds reasonable. However unlikely. The remnants of humanity would be spread around pretty good. The "local catastrophes" would have to occur all at once, as people would continue to breed and fill in the areas of past catastrophes. For example, a thousand years after Yellowstone blows, it would be prime real estate again.

"Ming!!"-child of Thor

I said exterminate mankind, not the OT.

"Looking for something to do during downtime at work, Lancer?"-JT

Work is such a bummer, it might not be a bad idea.

Gepap, I'm getting to the point where I agree with you regarding mankind's ability to destroy itself. Partly because your pov seems reasonable, partly because of wishful thinking.

"Mankind is the cancer of the universe."-Alex

I was thinking more along the lines of an infestation of some all consuming insect, and I'm looking for a good exterminator.

"A full-throttle Yellowstone explosion might not entirely wipe us out, but could well reduce our population to levels where subsequent inbreeding would leave us subtly different as a species. Whether we'd still be "human" would be a moot point."-Laz

I think in this case one could find an example of the future of humanity living in trailer parks today.

	27-06-2005 23:48									#34
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Ah now this is my kinda thread!

Ok, big virus, highly infectious, high fatality rate, long incubation period before symptoms become apparent.

Destruction of the rainforests would suck but not cause too many deaths itself, though it would accelerate the greenhouse effect, as well as localised eutrophication which would destroy sources of water upon which much of the 3rd world is dependent.

Killing off the third world would be relatively easy, and that's 80% of the human race. The other 20% is tough because of food-mountains and government resources to tackle diseases etc. Cities OTOH are very vulnerable to certain viruses.

Nuclear war would help.

An economic collapse that would render much of the first world into poverty would then leave it vulnerable to anything that could kill of the third world today. It all depends upon climate and the distribution of humans.

It won't kill all humans outright, the question is whether or not there'll be a viable surviving gene-pool, distributed in such a way that it can be actualised.

	27-06-2005 23:49									#35
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N.B. At the current rate of population expansion and climate change, the human race is doomed to extinction sooner rather than later, by one method or another.

	27-06-2005 23:52									#36
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quote: N.B. At the current rate of population expansion and climate change, the human race is doomed to extinction sooner rather than later, by one method or another.

What population expansion? World population is projected to decline by 2050.

	27-06-2005 23:53									#37
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Nah. I say we muddle through as we always have. We might be reduced to being cavemen again, but I'm sure that had it's good days as well, and there's always cave women...

Raquel Welch, MMmmmm...

	28-06-2005 01:09									#38
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi What population expansion? World population is projected to decline by 2050.

Doubt that, UN estimates population at 2050 to be between 7 and 12 billion...

On the other hand, I guess since you said after 2050, we could start declining, but with 12 billion people, would it really matter?

Anyway, I'm thinking, with our current technology, no naturally created virus could take us down completely, however, a synthetic one might stand a chance, but doubt it...

Global warming could have bad effects, but I think all it'd do is hinder our progression and econmy...

A big asteroid probably wouldn't do it either...we would mostly likely see it before it hits, probably by a few months...enough time to build bunkers, or launch nukes at it...

If aliens landed, we'd most likely win, even if they had superior technology...the fact is, if aliens attacked us, it's most likely that they want our resources...unless the resources include metals and rock, it would be difficult for them to attack us AND preserve the resources they want (food, human hosts, whatever)...unless they slowly took us down by giving us longevity vaccines that make us infertile (an "unknown" side affect), any other method would most likely result in failure...

Really, thought, the odds of earth being created as it is in the first place is one out of about a trillion billion million trillion...add on the 1 in a million chance of us killing ourselves, I don't see it happening...

	28-06-2005 01:46									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Sn00py Nano-Viruses? Now that is more scary than a biological one. Holy crap.. What do you do? Build nano-bots to attack them? There would be massive wars waged on at the nano-level just to keep us alive.

I dunno. I'm currently making my way thru Michael Crighton's Prey but I'm not to the end yet, so I don't know if we'll survive.

	28-06-2005 05:09									#40
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seriously, nothing.

	28-06-2005 05:38									#42
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quote: Originally posted by child of Thor I think we just need to carry on as we are. In a few more hundred years i'm sure will see the complete destruction of the rain forest, the complete melting of the Ice sheets in the antartic, world wide flooding, breaking of the atlantic conveyor system that keeps western europe warmer than it should be and the midwest of USA+ the Carabbean cooler than it would be. Depleating ozone - riseing skin cancer rates. Increasing levels of toxicity in our seas/water - falling fertility rates. etc etc. So lets just keep on enjoying the good life while it lasts

all that dinky crap will just make life suckier than it is but in no way could any of it even all combined possibly bring about the extinction of the species.


Even if the rain forests are all wiped out there would still be a massive biomass of plants on earth. There was life before rain forests you know.

(not denying how sad it is to contemplate our species bringing about such irreversible losses.)

	28-06-2005 05:42									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Proteus_MST To be more specific a virus or bacteria which has a) a high rate of mutation b) a long phase of latency where the vistim doesn´t detect any symptomes but is able to infect other persons c) is transmitted by any bodyfluid, be it sweat, urine, sperm, blood or saliva d) after the phase of latency would kill the victims by showing the symptomes of another disease (for example the symptomes of a pneumonia or, much better, the symptomes of a sudden heart attack ) would be fine to do the job

probably there would be too much variation in the human population for any single such virus however sophisticated to successfully replicate in everybody. YOu would probably need at least a half dozen such viruses all released at once to do us all in. Even then if there was warning time, people might hole up in bomb shelters and the virus would likely be more or less inactive within a couple years.

	28-06-2005 05:48									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Whaleboy N.B. At the current rate of population expansion and climate change, the human race is doomed to extinction sooner rather than later, by one method or another.

Can you think of any species that has ever been driven to extinction due to it's population expansion?

	28-06-2005 05:54									#45
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A virus would also likely leave patches of humanity. If it were that deadly, it would kill so fast as to create safe zones.

	28-06-2005 05:56									#46
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Mass Driver weapons.

	28-06-2005 06:10									#47
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If you look at those Earth photos from Nasa or wherever, you will notice that not even 5% of the earth is "taken" by Humans.

I'm talking about things that kill the land, such as buildings and roads.

Irrigation can't be that bad, imagine if we took all the irrigations out, what would be there? That's right, natural vegetation, which would also require water. So it makes little to no difference.



Putting all this aside, I believe that humans aren't actually in control of what is happening within us and around us; we just think we are, I believe that what is actually driving everything that happens (including every little thing each and everyone of us does) is controlled by evolution/existence in motion.

I don't believe that life knows how to destroy itself, it only knows how to survive and if killing off a species is required to make the "whole of life" stronger and bigger, then so be it.

	28-06-2005 06:39									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo Can you think of any species that has ever been driven to extinction due to it's population expansion?

I think Whaleboy is saying: increased population --> increased greenhouse gases --> irreversible climate changes --> extinction.

	28-06-2005 06:45									#49
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Clones of Fez and PA.

	28-06-2005 07:08									#50
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An interstellar bypass.

	28-06-2005 07:32									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Zkribbler I think Whaleboy is saying: increased population --> increased greenhouse gases --> irreversible climate changes --> extinction.

People seriously underestimate the amount of greenhouse change that would apparently be needed to trigger a run away venus style global autoclaving of the earth. There's plenty of evidence that on multiple occasions of Earth's history enormous injections of CO2 have seriously turbocharged some runaway greenhouse effects and yet in no case did it trigger the runaway feedback loop that would somehow need to occur for globabl warming to have a snowballs chance in hell of causing human extinction.

Global warming will probably shake things up enough that practically everybody on earth will condemn those who allowed it to oocur, but there doesn't seem to be the slightest shred of reason to believe that all it takes is a trebling of earths historically very modest CO2 levels to cause a totally unprecedented effect on the earth's climate.

There has to be a reason venus' history wasn't ever repeated on earth and it's probably a very robust counter feedback mechanism of some sort. Perhaps when loading of the atmosphere with massive water vapor occurs (which is essential to have any sort of venus greenhouse effect), planets at about earths distance from the Sun experience massive glaciation at the poles or something similer.

	28-06-2005 07:42									#52
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You don't even need global warming to destroy the world, the more "conventional" effects pollution is enough in itself.

	28-06-2005 07:43									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo Can you think of any species that has ever been driven to extinction due to it's population expansion?

Wasn't there a number of mass-extinctions in earth's history caused by exactly that?

	28-06-2005 08:09									#54
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quote: Originally posted by General Ludd Wasn't there a number of mass-extinctions in earth's history caused by exactly that?

I'd certainly like to read about any such extinctions

	28-06-2005 13:07									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo probably there would be too much variation in the human population for any single such virus however sophisticated to successfully replicate in everybody. YOu would probably need at least a half dozen such viruses all released at once to do us all in. Even then if there was warning time, people might hole up in bomb shelters and the virus would likely be more or less inactive within a couple years.

All points are probably covered by the attributes mentioned:
The high rate of mutation means, that the virus/bacteria itself creates variations as it goes from victim to victim. Perhaps this will be enough to cover all variations of humans.

And the virus is designed with stealth in foreground, so that mankind hopefully doesn´t even know what hit them by:

Having a long Phase of latency without any symptomes and then a short phase where the disease breaks out in the victim, killing it within short time.
Furthermore the virus/bacteria imitates the symptomes of other diseases as it breaks out, so that the doctors who treat the victims don´t get suspicious that the victim might die of a new disease but rather think it was something they know well. (and at the point the disease breaks out the first infected person hopefully already made contact to numerous other persons, thereby spreading it over a large area [if the phase of latency is sevreal weeks and the victim travels often this would ebe an ideal combination ])
The only point where the world would get warned in time would be of course, if informations of the plans to release such a virus would leak out.

But of course there are small spots where humans live isolated (for example small indian tribes within the rainforest).
Therefore I should introduce a fifth attribute the disease should have:
e) All kinds of animals should be the vectors of the disease. They themselves are not affected by the disease, but they can infect humans the same way that they could get infected by another human carrying the diesease (i.e. by means of bodyfluids and perhaps also by feces)

	28-06-2005 13:08									#56
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Dodo birds?

	28-06-2005 16:08									#57
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Dr. Strangelove - it would require aliens with mass driver weapons, otherwise the humans using them survive.

Now that is one scenario that has been bandied about, which is less likely now but could, with nuclear proliferation, return. That's the surprise asteroid strike that cause a widespread nuclear exchange. Between the two you might just drop hunmanity to isolated pockets without enough genetic diversity.

	28-06-2005 16:10									#58
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quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I see no one reads my posts...

	28-06-2005 18:05									#59
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Y'all are probably gonna laugh, but I think HIV is well on the way to destroying mankind.

Firstly, it's spread by sex and needle drugs, which are two of the things people are never gonna stop doing. It's always fatal, even though the patients' life can be prolonged with massive cocktails of drugs. And the havoc it wreaks with social structures (look at southern Africa) could kill as many people as the virus itself if it runs out of control.

All it needs is a faster transmission path (and there's precedent; a broadly similar immune disease of sheep, whose name I can't remember right now, is airborne) and you can kiss the human race good-bye.

	28-06-2005 18:26									#60
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The disease in question is in Iceland and Greenland. It is highly fatal. HIV is not always fatal either. It has a 90% plus fatality rate, but there is enough survivability that we will make it. Humanity survived Syphlis, which is broadly similiar - highly communuicable (more so than AIDS but for a shorter window), highly lethal with an extremely delayed incubation period.