how will it end?

[JoesshittyOs]

Well... hard to say. Somethings gonna happen, it's just what's gonna happen first.

A supervirus seems possible, but then again, I'm not really sure a supervirus like the flu would be able to evolve fast enough to actually pose a serious threat to the human race, unless it was tailored in a lab for the sole purpose of killing us off. Which is fun to think about. But I think we've sorta got that anti-virus thing down.

A comet? I doubt we'll even be around long enough to see something collide with the Earth. The odds of one hitting us seem pretty astronomical(lol, space pun), plus, we got all those other useless planets to help shield us.

My best guess is a supervolcano. Constant earthquakes from drastic shifts in the plates that unleash poisonous gas into the air. It's one of the things that's most likely to happen, and ironically it's one of the only end-world disaster that man will never be able to fight. We could Bruce Willis the shit out of the Asteroid, and the World Health Organization is actually like 10 different kinds of bad ass (to the point of where a zombie outbreak would realistically be stopped within the hour), and as long as us Americans don't tard out and launch any missles, humans have got a while to live.

 

[Olas]

I kinda like Dr. Manhattans philosophy

because things change form, particles move back and forth, but nothing ever truly "ends".

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Statistically, we're already overdue for a massive meteoroid collision, so that's probably how we're going to go out. Unless we can establish a proper early warning system and build enough emergency shelters to preserve the planet as we know it, not much chance for survival.

Care to prove that claim? So far as I understand, the odds of a large meteoroid colliding with the Earth are quite minute. For starters, the universe is pretty damn large, making the likelihood of something hitting us fairly tiny. For seconds, our atmosphere means it's very, very rare that anything large enough to create even a football field sized hole ever strikes the surface of our planet. No doubt it will happen eventually (and it has happened before) but I fail to see how we are "overdue" for one such event.

But if you have some sort of proof, I would love to see it.

 

[verdant monkai]

When China uses up all our resources and we all die from lack of water/food/air/xboxlive/chicken.

Or a nuclear holocaust might do it

 

[Hoplon]

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

 

[Superior Mind]

Collision with the Andromeda Galaxy will eventually end it all.

While that is an inevitable, our sun will actually increase temperature range through expansion caused by helium and hydrogen consumption in about 1 billion years. It's great that us and Andromeda are going to duke it out, but it sucks that we'll be too damned melted by then to notice.

Well I would hope as Stephen Hawking does that eventually we'll get off our arses and remember that space exploration is fucking cool and not just an "unnecessary expenditure". When did strapping yourself to a missile and stabbing the sky with fire and math need to be necessary? That being said aside from Earth we don't have many other options in our own solar system. Mars will be toasted too in the big Sol Kablooie and what hospitable worlds does that leave us? Maybe one of the moons of one of the larger planets.

Thing is Andromeda is predicted to collide in around 4.5 billion years, the sun is expected to reach it's Red Giant phase in about 5.5 billion years as far as I know, (there would be conflicting views no doubt, I don't think it's particularly exact science.) Of course it will be getting bigger and life on Earth may become increasingly uncomfortable if we don't adapt but conceivably we could actually still be twiddling our thumbs on Earth when Andromeda comes to wreck up the place.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

I will run out of bacon, then I will press button to recieve bacon, but the button won't make bacon, it will instead bring about global thermonuclear war.

 

[Yopaz]

]Death by Snu Snu is the most logical end I can think of. All humans begin with it, they'll all die by it.

Wouldn't Snu Snu just get rid of the men? I've been reading about scientists now using DNA from lesbian partners as quasi-sperm to impregnate the other's egg. Seeing as sperm is just a carrying device for DNA, the process of replacing it with another carrier for the stuff is relatively easy (on the scale of human ability). It's not here yet, but given another, say, ten years, this form of reproduction could well leave men without a job, lol.

GLORY TO THE FAIRER SEX!

*cough*

Women will still need us for the jars.

Oh you think so, huh?

*flexes*

I think not!

Oh shit.

Can I please continue to live my pointless life in your glorious future?

Pleeeease?

I will consider it. It depends how well you can grovel, really.

50 years ago we calculated phosphor shortage in 200 years (that's 200 years from 1950) now we estimate it to happen in 50-100 years. Nitrogen shortage is also expected to hit us in about 100 years.

Loss of these will mean we wont have proteins, energy carriers, enzymes or DNA. Really, the end is going to be pretty boring with most like getting deficiencies.

Evolution, my friend. Evolution. There's a creature (I just forgot it's name) that lives completely without the sun. We used to think, in one way or another, every living organism used the sun's effects or benefited from them via a chain. But this little guy is so deep in the ocean that not only does no sunlight or energy get to him, almost nothing at all does. It lives off underwater volcanoes or something. My point is: life finds a way.

Captcha: "science class" 0.0

Evolution takes more than 50-100 years. Our essential building block, DNA is composed of these things. Even virus, something defined as nonliving can't function without that. If a phosphor shortage does hit that is the end of everything we know as life. There might come organisms in a few million years after that aren't based on this, but right now nothing can live without DNA/RNA.

These things don't simply disappear overnight; I'm fairly certain we won't wake up one day and find an essential component for life has simply vanished.

Yeah, but you might see that never said we would wake up one day to find out that it's gone. I said that we have calculated depletion to occur between 50 and 100 years from now. I also said that's too short span for evolution to save us. It took millions of years for DNA to be created, do you honestly think 50 years of evolution will be enough for us to get genes composed from something other than DNA? Do you think we'll be able to stop using proteins? Do you think we'll ever be able to stop using ATP, NADH and NADPH? Do you honestly think that in 100 years we wont need to digest glucose?

Look at the pyrolysis. Look at the citric acid cycle. Look at oxidative phosphorolysis. Look at DNA replication. Look at DNA transcription. Look at the protein synthesis. Look the photosynthesis. When you're done with that, tell me that we don't need phosphor.

You know, you haven't actually offered anything at all to support your arguments yet. All we have so far is conjecture and repeated insistence. If you can show me proof of your claims (read: peer-reviewed and accredited studies) and only then, can you have a debate. I'm hardly going to believe some random commentator in a forum that assures me the world is going to end in fifty to a hundred years, lol.

http://phosphorus.global-connections.nl/
http://phosphorusfutures.net/peak-phosphorus
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2882

I will also add that I have had inorganic chemistry in university and our professor Karl Petter Lillerud presented this problem to us and it is supported by our course book: Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry 5th edition written by Geoffrey Rayner-Canham and Tina Overton and published by W. H. Freeman.

Now I have presented several sources, most of them form a quick Google search. If you search more closely all you'll find is confirmation that what I say is correct. Really, try it. Find one unbiased source claiming I am wrong.

You didn't actually offer a single link to a peer-reviewed study. Not a one. Random links don't do anyone much good--I could give you a link right now that 'proves' Big Foot exists.

OK, fair enough. What about this book?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Descriptive-Inorganic-Chemistry-Geoff-Rayner-Canham/dp/1429218142/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1335695349&sr=8-3-fkmr0

This book is a compilation of studies on most known elements. Uses, amount of resources, purification an how they appear in nature. I could do some more work and try to find you more sources, but really, does it matter? I got a university degree in the subject so I don't need your approval to know I am right. Seriously, believe what you want to believe. If you think evolution will give you wings then I will let you believe that. I don't see a reason to care enough to discuss this without someone who's clearly not willing to see reason.

 

[mr leigh]

Wow my discussion still going? I notice no-one has mentiond the wrath of god yet or the devil?

 

[R0cklobster]

Collision with the Andromeda Galaxy will eventually end it all. That's a pretty amazing thought really. I mean you often think of extinction-level events like asteroids or even the sun turning into a red giant and burning out. But a whole galaxy is approaching us at just over 100 kilometres per second and even then given the unimaginably huge distance of space it still means it'll take 4.5 billion years to get here. Imagine, as unlikely as it seems, if humans were to last so long as to see and/or experience it. Even if we gained the technology for interplanetary travel or even inter-stellar travel we'd still most likely be majorly fucked on an indescribable scale.

Space is pretty neat.

I could very well be wrong, but I think I remember reading something that suggested that there is no guarantee that we would actually hit anything, what with both galaxies being rather huge and all that. There's that, and that the Earth would by then be largely uninhabitable due to a lack of cold enough temperatures for liquid water on Earth's surface.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

I got a university degree in the subject so I don't need your approval to know I am right.

Very mature of you.

For future reference, you don't get to stroll into a discussion, make some claims and walk out without being questioned. I don't give one tiny ounce of care what you claim to know or where you claim to have gone to school--you could be Einstein for all I give--everyone is expected to offer support and proof of their claims. Don't give me some attitude and don't try to look smug and condescending when your claims are scrutinized--that's how science works. Get used to it. Get down off your high-horse and have reasonable discussion or don't even try.

 

[StormShaun]

I think these two reasons will happen the most.

1. Zombies - Some douche actually figures a way how to make zombies and makes them and somehow releases them into the world making it a zombie apocalypse. And people would kill each other, pillage, argue and try to survive in the new world except it has flesh eating corpses that will try to feast on our flesh until the world turns out like "The Walking Dead" Series.

2. Nuclear holocaust Fallout Style - A world leader/hacker/Military/someone will turn crazy and send a thousand nukes to every country in the world and sent it to kingdom come. People will survive and try to rebuild but then there will be arguing, raiders, mutants, killing and etc. Until someone becomes a legend to saving people and etc, will make a group that turns into a government and eventually make a country which then will research super human powers or something similar and make a band of rag-tag legends (Lead by the original leader) that will eventually hunt down all evil and bad monsters until the world is clean again. Once that is done they will research a way how to make the world pure again and start rebuilding the world.

These ways I think can happen and might.'

Captcha: "forget you", Thats a bit mean.

 

[Meight08]

I think we wont get food shortages considering the rapid advance of cloning technology and asteroid mining and genetic modding could help us survive diseases and mineral shortages.
Gradual changes can be solved with science it will need to be quick and deadly to kill us all.

 

[ThePS1Fan]

Sorry for the crappy recording quality, it's all I could find.

 

[DRes82]

Collision with the Andromeda Galaxy will eventually end it all. That's a pretty amazing thought really. I mean you often think of extinction-level events like asteroids or even the sun turning into a red giant and burning out. But a whole galaxy is approaching us at just over 100 kilometres per second and even then given the unimaginably huge distance of space it still means it'll take 4.5 billion years to get here. Imagine, as unlikely as it seems, if humans were to last so long as to see and/or experience it. Even if we gained the technology for interplanetary travel or even inter-stellar travel we'd still most likely be majorly fucked on an indescribable scale.

Space is pretty neat.

Galactic collisions are an incredibly slow and drawn out process. It wouldn't happen in any one human's lifetime by any means. It would occur over eons of time...and if our sun hadn't burned out before the collision began, it would certainly be gone by the time the collision had any sort of effect on our system.

Here's a quote for you, "...Such an event would have no adverse effect on the system and chances of any sort of disturbance to the Sun or planets themselves may be remote."

OT: There will be no definitive 'end of the world' event unless a comet or asteroid comes our way. I'll say that in the relatively near future, the human population will become unsustainable and begin to collapse on itself. Possibly a pandemic of some sort. Our antibiotics and vaccines are a double edged sword which will eventually swing back our way.

Also, its naive to believe that you will survive this type of event. You'd have to be pretty damned lucky to survive something that wipes out any substantial part of such a resilient species.

 

[Jodah]

I'm still going with massive solar flare or pole shift.

Wow my discussion still going? I notice no-one has mentiond the wrath of god yet or the devil?

They tend to do things in a natural disaster way anyways. Noah's flood, plagues on Egypt, etc. So saying "Wrath of God" could be any manner of thing.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

ALIENS WILL COME TO KILL ALL THE MEN AND LEAVE THE WOMEN ALIVE FOR THE RITUAL PROBING.

 

[[Esoteric Reference]]

If they can replace us in terms of reproduction, they can replace us just about everywhere else. I'm thinking robots that are fully functional and anatomically correct. Then they can just program in whatever personality they want.

Face it boys, we're doomed. I just hope I get cryogenically frozen and wake up in time for all the other men to be gone but everyone else has gotten bored with robo-stud.

I could live in that world.

 

[[Esoteric Reference]]

We will most likely be annihilated by the evolution of a race of hyper advanced hypnotic badgers, who will enslave us, force us to build their decadent homes, then ultimately eliminate us when they build a race of hyper advanced robots, who will eventually destroy them.

History!

 

[sephyboy]

Collision with the Andromeda Galaxy will eventually end it all.

While that is an inevitable, our sun will actually increase temperature range through expansion caused by helium and hydrogen consumption in about 1 billion years. It's great that us and Andromeda are going to duke it out, but it sucks that we'll be too damned melted by then to notice.

Well I would hope as Stephen Hawking does that eventually we'll get off our arses and remember that space exploration is fucking cool and not just an "unnecessary expenditure". When did strapping yourself to a missile and stabbing the sky with fire and math need to be necessary? That being said aside from Earth we don't have many other options in our own solar system. Mars will be toasted too in the big Sol Kablooie and what hospitable worlds does that leave us? Maybe one of the moons of one of the larger planets.

Thing is Andromeda is predicted to collide in around 4.5 billion years, the sun is expected to reach it's Red Giant phase in about 5.5 billion years as far as I know, (there would be conflicting views no doubt, I don't think it's particularly exact science.) Of course it will be getting bigger and life on Earth may become increasingly uncomfortable if we don't adapt but conceivably we could actually still be twiddling our thumbs on Earth when Andromeda comes to wreck up the place.

Actually, some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn may eventually be hospitable. Jupiter's Europa may eventually be probable thanks to its subsurface oceans. Saturn's Titan may eventually be hospitable if we can find some way to add Oxygen and rid the heavy nitrogen and methane-based atmosphere. Another helpful thing is a strong Magnetosphere, which Ganymede has. Who knows? We kind of stopped throwing man in space after they kept exploding. Maybe when we revolutionize shuttle programs, we'll be well on the way to further space exploration that doesn't give us awesome radiation poisoning, and thus can go even further than the moon.