Humanity's end game

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
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Having just watched Transcendence (it's not as bad as they say) I feel compelled to make a vaguely but not really related thread.

What do you think will happen to the human race in the next few millennia? Feel free to add things that aren't on the list. I'm mostly thinking about longevity.

1. Extinction event renders lifespan null and void. Either the extinction of all life on Earth, or just us. Will it be bird-flu, a meteor or wiped out by aliens? You decide.

2. Unlimited lifespan through scientific discovery coupled with genetic engineering. Still recognisably human, and still organic. Would everyone be able to live forever or just a few? How long do you think before we get there? Are you disappointed that it won't come in time to save you, personally? How does it make you feel to think that future generations will be able to live indefinitely should they want to, but you won't?

3. Science never figures out why we die, or scientists discover that the reason we die is so fundamental to the laws of physics that it can't be fixed. We don't give up, and continue to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. But we all die, eventually.

4. Enslaved by aliens who breed us as slaves/alien dog food/disposable love toys. Short, painful, miserable lives. These aliens suck, but hey, they did give us the pyramids.

5. We stop being human and become something else. Either creating inorganic bodies or having no bodies at all. Doesn't sound likely, but I was running out of ideas at this point.

6. We're all in the Matrix.

7. At some future point, before any of the above can happen, the Creator intervenes and ... does what? What do you believe happens then?
 
I personally think it will a continued path of depleting earths resources and irreparable long term damage to the environment leading to a long and drawn out reduction in quality of life. Mix in several catastrophic wars over a prolonged period. I dont think we we will necessarily become extinct as such, we'll just mess it up so bad its not worth continuing.
 
I think if we don't annihilate ourselves with WMD, we will separate into two different forms of humanity. The strong and the rich vs the weak and poor. Humanity will exhaust Earth's materials in an unsustainable manner but by the time this happens, the stronger species will have developed technology to leave the planet and the weaker species will be left behind to perish. Unless we are able advance to our knowledge to utilise energy in ways we cannot comprehend, it doesn't look good for the majority of our species
 
We live in a universe similar to that of the Culture novels by Ian M. Banks.

Plastic surgery and implants are rife, look how you want, with as big a **** as you like, shaped however you want it. Drug glands that allow us to enjoy all the drugs of the universe. Live and let live philosophies.
 
xs2man said:
We live in a universe similar to that of the Culture novels by Ian M. Banks.

Plastic surgery and implants are rife, look how you want, with as big a **** as you like, shaped however you want it. Drug glands that allow us to enjoy all the drugs of the universe. Live and let live philosophies.
Click to expand...

...Of course, in the Culture universe, Earth has been left un-Contacted as a 'study' ;)
 
i was going to post human survival thread the other day but i thought it a little premature :p i guess not.

look at the media and games and a lot of related media to do with survival. its almost as if we are getting ready for some apocalyptic survival event .

all the big tv channels are showing survival shows. all the big games getting news and being played are survival related.

its like we are forcing ourselves into a situation media wise.
 
It's very likely that in the future many of the problems I've had in my life(joint pain, migraines) will be simply dealt with and would completely change my life. As it stands i wouldn't want to live beyond 100 years, in fact I feel like living for 100 years now would be pretty awful.

If you could live longer with the health you have in say mid twenties, sure, living ages longer with most of that time feeling old and useless, nope.

Living forever, no interest in that at all. Lots of people have made lots of quotes about life only having meaning due to being relatively short. Imagine what your life would be if you could life for 5000 years, or forever, what the hell would you do?
 
An asteroid impact which causes mass extinction occurs roughly once every 100 million years on average, fortunately for us the last one was the Chicxulub Event 65 million years ago which is believed to have finally wiped out the dinosaurs. However, of course, statistics such as this are based on a number of assumptions and given that there are still estimated to be thousands of asteroids/comets in our Solar System with highly eccentric elliptical orbits it is entirely possible that we could be hit by one suddenly - by the time we found out it's on a collision course it would be too late for us to do anything about it really.

Also, there are potentially hundreds of objects with Parabolic or Hyperbolic (unbound) orbits which enter our Solar System never to return again - one of these could so happen to be on a collision course. But still, the probability of a mass extinction causing asteroid impacting us any time soon are pretty low - however a city destroying asteroid/comet event is actually worryingly likely.

We are 'overdue' for a pandemic and, unfortunately, if one develops then it would be easier than ever for it to spread across the entire globe within a matter of days/weeks due to worldwide transportation. However, we have survived pandemics before and will again - the next one, depending upon how deadly it is, will severely reduce our numbers and cripple humanity's progress technologically and economically.
 
I recon that as the earths atmosphere is polluted more and more, we will reach a point where despite medical advances, the upward trend of how old people are living to will start to reverse, and I imagine it will be quite dramatic when it does.

I also imagine something like Elysium will occur, maybe in space, maybe a giant fortified building on earth, who knows, but basically somewhere that the rich can buy into with perfect everything.
 
PhysicsMan94 said:
We are 'overdue' for a pandemic and, unfortunately, if one develops then it would be easier than ever for it to spread across the entire globe within a matter of days/weeks due to worldwide transportation. However, we have survived pandemics before and will again - the next one, depending upon how deadly it is, will severely reduce our numbers and cripple humanity's progress technologically and economically.
Click to expand...

The Black Death of the Middle Ages was a pandemic of epic proportions. Indeed nothing we are aware of either before or after has come close to matching up. While it was undoubtably horrifying to life, or die, through and I most certainly wouldn't want to experience anything like it, it didn't cripple technology or economy in the medium to long term. Indeed it's recognised by experts to have facilitated an era of prosperity, social mobility and reform that simply would not have been possible without it. England, for example, had become overpopulated and underfed as a result of several years of famine prior to the plague. By the time the plague was finished, those who survived found food, work and housing more abundant, serfs and peasants were able to negotiate the terms of their tenancy in a way they had never imagined before. In other words those that survived were significantly better off than they ever were before the pandemic happened.

Of course the thought that periodic 'culling' of the human race by disease or war is essential in an ecological sense doesn't sit sit well with us humans
 
There are only two outcomes in reality. Do you really not believe you have a soul? Socrates the founder of Western philisophy was so certain he willingly went to his death and supped the hemlock. Jesus is real guys, wake up from your sleep. You really think people of the past and present were all idiots or brainwashed/indoctrinated that they would willingly go to their deaths. i.e. Ancient Christians singing hymns whilst being killed in Roman amphitheatres? Or modern day North Koreans? (Just two examples of many.
We are very close to the end.

. We realise there is a creator who gave his son to reunite us to God and we live forever.

. The earth is destroyed through a nuclear catastrophe and or something slamming into the planet and we all die pretty quickly. Except the elite in their bunkers in bedrock, who try to hide from the calamity and hide in fear.

Revelation 6:15
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

One more thing, this is extremely vital you read with an open heart.
 
A short story I read some while ago and almost completely forgotten had another possible ending for humanity;

Improvements in technology increased prosperity for everyone.

Prosperity decreased the birth rate.

Genuine AIs occured and rapidly improved. Robots also improved, as would be expected with improved technology.

Artificial people surpassed all humans in all abilities, physical and intellectual. This increased the rate of improvement in technology.

Prosperity increased.

The birth rate decreased.

Mental health issues increased. There was nothing any human could do that artificial people couldn't do far better...so what could any human do?

The birth rate decreased.

Further along that path, humanity would die out from lack of interest.
 
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