How will humanity end? With a bang? With a whimper? Or ... ??

[sear]

It is a cliché that humanity will end either in a bang, or a whimper.

Not necessarily so.

Since President Trump has taken office, the doomsday clock has been advanced. We're closer to "midnight" (doomsday) than we were during the Obama administration.

Hoist by our own petard? Nuclear weapons are an obvious fear. And with the tubby boy in Pyongyang rattling his sabre, we may have elevated reason for concern.

But actually, the more dangerous doomsday weapon would be a rapidly fatal disease that is very contagious.
And there are currently multiple potential sources to develop such doomsday weapons, in U.S. universities, or the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta (level 4 containment), in Russia, China, India, & perhaps Israel etc.

We already augment our bodies with prostheses.
Corrective lenses are quite common.

Murderer Oscar Pistorius became a world-renown athlete running on prosthetic legs that gave him a competitive advantage over his able-bodied competition.

How long will it be before humans reach the half-way point? Half biological, and half artificial / cybernetic?

- or -

Will a huge planet-killing asteroid shatter Earth into minute fragments, shutting down the U.S. government so the Republicans won't have to bother?

[aboutime]

Joke's on you. NOBODY WILL KNOW IT when it happens. If it happens.

It's like dying. YOU won't know it when it happens. Who will you tell???

[sear]

"Joke's on you. NOBODY WILL KNOW IT when it happens. If it happens." at #2

"NOBODY WILL KNOW IT when it happens, if it happens" instantaneously.

But those dying of a slow-moving cancer, or other similar gradual onset diseases can be aware of it for years, and even track its progress.

Famine is an obvious example here.
Global warming is another obvious example, whether anthropogenic or not.*

"Who will you tell???" at #2

That's what psychologist Joy Browne refers to as a "there & then" question.

But the topic is "here & now".

And there are several trends we see which provide plausible scenarios.

* Astronomers insist for example that while we can enjoy Earth's sun while it remains in its white dwarf phase, that when it goes red giant, it will subsume Earth's orbit, reducing to zero the number of possible biological survivors on Earth.
Star Trek fans may think there are technical solutions to that. Perhaps there are.
But at very least, such "solutions" would require either "warp drive", little more than sci-fi hocus-pocus at this point; or inter-generational expeditions.

[aboutime]

"Joke's on you. NOBODY WILL KNOW IT when it happens. If it happens." at #2

"NOBODY WILL KNOW IT when it happens, if it happens" instantaneously.

But those dying of a slow-moving cancer, or other similar gradual onset diseases can be aware of it for years, and even track its progress.

Famine is an obvious example here.
Global warming is another obvious example, whether anthropogenic or not.*

"Who will you tell???" at #2

That's what psychologist Joy Browne refers to as a "there & then" question.

But the topic is "here & now".

And there are several trends we see which provide plausible scenarios.

* Astronomers insist for example that while we can enjoy Earth's sun while it remains in its white dwarf phase, that when it goes red giant, it will subsume Earth's orbit, reducing to zero the number of possible biological survivors on Earth.
Star Trek fans may think there are technical solutions to that. Perhaps there are.
But at very least, such "solutions" would require either "warp drive", little more than sci-fi hocus-pocus at this point; or inter-generational expeditions.



sear. You really need some medical attention. More mental than physical. You must be one of those who sit around, thinking negative all the time, and in misery because nobody does anything but LAUGH AT YOU.

Other than you. Who here on DP wants to spend any time talking about DOOMSDAY scenario's to AMUSE YOU??

[sear]

"sear. You really need some medical attention. More mental than physical. You must be one of those who sit around, thinking negative all the time, and in misery because nobody does anything but LAUGH AT YOU.

Other than you. Who here on DP wants to spend any time talking about DOOMSDAY scenario's to AMUSE YOU??" at #4

a) The human brain (mind) has been likened to a muscle:
- exercise it and it strengthens.
- leave it idle and it atrophies.

b) Our Pentagon does contingency planning, not to "spend any time talking about DOOMSDAY scenario's to AMUSE YOU??" at #4
Instead to prepare for, and potentially prevent disaster.

That for example is why we're investing $billions based upon the global warming scenario.
I'm flattered that you'd assert it's to amuse me.

It's not.

And if you think it's trivial, are you aware that Tesla Motors has a higher stock value than either Ford, or GM?

That's not because some dope-smoking tree-hugger likes to drive a car without a tail-pipe.

It's because the market broadly has responded, and perceives Tesla's products to be the vanguard of the future, and they've gotten onboard across the market.
It's not merely that Tesla is doing well *. It's that Tesla, the upstart, is outperforming these industry titans in the stock market.

My thanks to you at. But by and large those that try to lift themselves up by putting others down have it backfire on them in both directions.

* As is SpaceX btw.

[aboutime]

I stand corrected 'sear'. In answering your question of HOW WILL HUMANITY END?

I'd prefer....IT BEGINS WITH YOU, and people like you who waste our time here.

[Abbey Marie]

I'd actually prefer to go with a huge group. Beats dying alone.

[sear]

a t #6

I pity you a t.

"I'd actually prefer to go with a huge group. Beats dying alone." A #7

I gather that's quite a common preference.
Part of the reason I don't understand it may be that I've been living as a hermit in a tower in the forest since Y2K.

I have some spectacular friends.
I love them all.
But I'm not sure I'd want any of them with me on my dying day.

Death is a personal experience.
If we were all going to die together, Titanic style, group death might not be so bad.

BUT !!

If I go by substantially less dramatic means, my major reason for not wanting to die alone would be that it would be my friends that would be stuck with finding, and dealing with the putrefying corpse.
I'd rather not put any of them through that, if I could avoid it.

[Balu]

Joke's on you. NOBODY WILL KNOW IT when it happens. If it happens.

It's like dying. YOU won't know it when it happens. Who will you tell???
There are some, those who were in a 'tunnel'. They can and they did.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

WILL END BY---
SOME WIFE SAYING TO HER DEFEATED AND HAGGARD HUSBAND-- "I TOLD YOU SO".....
NOW GET UP AND TAKE THE DAMN GARBAGE OUT.." ;)

I LIKE TO THINK ON A POSITIVE NOTE BUT MY SENSE OF REALITY INVADES.. .... --Tyr

[sear]

"Marcus Tullius Cicero: "A room without books is like a body without a soul."" TZ

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx

[revelarts]

Revelations 21

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,“See, the home[a (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+21&version=NRSV#fen-NRSV-31041a)] of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”...

22 I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25 Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27 But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.



like that
sure thing