Poll: How do you think the world will end?

[deshorty]

The final conflict is obvious. China vs Virgin. At some point in the future, China becomes rich enough to buy countries and begins to either buy or invade other countries to expand borders. Virgin, at the same time begins to buy governments to slowly implement change to give them more and more power. Eventually, these two massive entities will begin to want each others money and land, causing a massive war to erupt ending in nuclear weapons being used by both sides, thereby ending the world.

 

[Aris Khandr]

When the Sun engulf's the Earth in it's Red Giant phase, roughly 5 billion years from now. Bit of a boring answer, but probably the most accurate.

This one. Any other outcome is just speculation and not very likely.

 

[Kitteh]

Someone hits the Shutdown button on the "Earth" server. Quick and painless ... at least the world will have less assholes now.

thank god, the earth servers been lagging

 

[Twilight_guy]

When the sun expands and consume the Earth in fire shortly before it dies too. Really its hard to destroy a planet and I doubt if anything else will do it. (unless a wandering black hole eats us).

 

[King Toasty]

I chose "natural disaster", because the earth will be consumed by the Sun in about... *checks watch*... 4.5 billion years.

If you mean how will HUMANITY will end, then probably we'll evolve into something else over time. A long time.

If you mean society, then which one? Western society will move somewhere else, as it always does. Eastern society will probably remain the same. European society might change a bit.

Talking about North American/West European society? Maybe social decay, or it'll evolve.

Seriously. "World" is so ambiguous these days, you could mean anything.


EDIT: You COULD mean life on Earth. In that case, entropy might freeze it, heat from the sun might burn it, or solar radiation will cancer it to death.Or it'll pull a panspermia, and leap to Mars or something.

 

[Beryl77]

The planet itself will be destroyed by the sun as it will get bigger and bigger until it becomes a red giant. We humans could never destroy a whole planet even if we wanted to. So if we survive long enough(unlikely) we'll be boiled to death by the one thing which made our existence even possible, unless we manage to find a way for interstellar travel(just as unlikely).
I don't think that something like a meteorite will kill us humans, since there are ways for us now to prevent that but we won't survive for billions of years. My best guess would be a disease which spreads very fast, too fast for us to develop something to fight it and it's very lethal.
The most awesome way for us to die would be, to be wiped out by aliens though I doubt that we'll ever see aliens.

 

[Sheamus]

I'm glad most people, in this poll, have the same amount of faith in the human race as I do. we might not destroy the planet completely, some life might live past us to the eventual engulfing by the sun. I believe we will be the architects of our own demise, we already have the means, it's just a matter of time until we commit to our fate.

I hope we are able to overcome ourselves but I very much doubt we will ever succeed.

 

[Imperiused]

I agree with Twilight_guy. Our sun is going to expand into a red giant, eating up the first four planets in our solar system. Don't worry too much about it though. Humankind as we know it will be long gone by then. But perhaps our evolutionary descendents will still be around?

 

[King Toasty]

I vote Aliens. According to the 100% accurate predictions of the future sitting on my shelf, approximately 38.500 years from now a giant swarm of sentient locusts is coming to tear the galaxy at large a new one.

Or, you know, we could get the job done ourselves with just a fraction of the WMDs we have at our disposal right now.

DISPROVEN. All the nuclear warheads in the WORLD wouldn't destroy the physical planet. Kill all life? Maybe, if carefully planned. But the planet would survive.

 

[Teh Jammah]

I vote Aliens. According to the 100% accurate predictions of the future sitting on my shelf, approximately 38.500 years from now a giant swarm of sentient locusts is coming to tear the galaxy at large a new one.

Nah, it'll be extermination the mechanical servants of a long dead race that have gone crazy and decided to wipe out all life in the galaxy.

That or the whole universe will fall into the warp and become the cosmic plaything of pan-dimensional horrors.

Or possibly da boyz will decide ta go kick da hummiez houses in, 'cuz dat'd be well wikkid. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

 

[Rusty pumpkin]

50% agree with me in saying that humans are strangely suicidal creatures.

 

[Syphous]

It's inevitable that we blow ourselves up. We're stupid, petty creatures.

 

[Extraintrovert]

When the Sun engulf's the Earth in it's Red Giant phase, roughly 5 billion years from now. Bit of a boring answer, but probably the most accurate.

There was one fascinating and highly detailed documentary I saw about the History of the Earth that posited the molten "engine" of the Earth will eventually cool, halting the "recycling" of the crust and rendering the surface uninhabitable. I haven't examined any of the research about this so I don't know how much evidence there is, but it seems rather plausible and - the purpose of this note - it is predicted to occur "only" between two and three billion years from now, so that might be something else to watch out for if humans manage to survive for that long.

To the original poster: We like to think "we" as a collective will meet our end in a spectacular conflagration like a war or an interstellar impact or being dinner to some extragalactic swarm because we are incredibly arrogant, and it is inconceivable (you keep using that word) for us to die any less spectacularly than (we perceive) we lived. It's why stories about people dying heroically in a triumphantly failed last stand against insurmountable odds are so widespread and popular.

In actual fact however, by far the most probable outcome is that we meet our end the same way that nearly every other species on this planet has. The environment changes, no longer able to support us; outcompeted by a better adapted species; simply not reproducing enough to exceed deaths; something we have yet to consider. A lot can happen in a million years, which is a tiny fraction of the potential future of humans. The only thing that is guaranteed, though, is that it won't be expected by the final generations.

Also:

all the recent worldwide events that seem to be signs of the endtimes I felt a new one was deserved.

Bullshit. Things like this have been happening all throughout human history. Anyone who claims there is some sort of unusual rise in these events is either woefully ignorant and needs to educate themselves about history, incredibly stupid, or just delusional.

 

[Fingers O'Toole]

I have a strong felling that humans will be hoist by their own petard (i.e. global warming or some indirect suicide), but since there's no option for my opinion in the poll, here's my concept in colour and bold for Earth's demise:

Nothing sudden or terrifying will happen. Life will slowly disappear from Earth, the rest of the universe will not notice or care, and the world will eventually fade away to a lifeless, inhospitable rock like the rest of the planets, only to be slowly wiped away by the collapse/explosion of the Sun. And it will undoubtedly be both beautiful and unseen by anyone or thing.

 

[Kapol]

all the recent worldwide events that seem to be signs of the endtimes I felt a new one was deserved.

Bullshit. Things like this have been happening all throughout human history. Anyone who claims there is some sort of unusual rise in these events is either woefully ignorant and needs to educate themselves about history, incredibly stupid, or just delusional.

I had meant that more as a joke/excuse for making this thread more then anything serious. Though the number of fairly large natural disasters that have happened this year (the tidal earthquakes that caused the nuclear problem in Japan, the earthquake in New Zealand that caused so much problems), and it's seem like there's been a lot of rioting as well. But these things, while bad, aren't really that unusual and really shouldn't be looked at as signs of the end of the world.

 

[likalaruku]

We don't need to think about that; Discovery Channel has already done it for us, twice.

 

[Extraintrovert]

I had meant that more as a joke/excuse for making this thread more then anything serious. Though the number of fairly large natural disasters that have happened this year (the tidal earthquakes that caused the nuclear problem in Japan, the earthquake in New Zealand that caused so much problems), and it's seem like there's been a lot of rioting as well. But these things, while bad, aren't really that unusual and really shouldn't be looked at as signs of the end of the world.

While you probably should have make it more obvious that it was a joke/justification, I do apologise for insulting you for it, as it was unnecessary and unjustified. The idea behind what you typed is still horribly flawed, but thank you for noting the intention of it.

 

[TheNaut131]

I have a strong felling that humans will be hoist by their own petard (i.e. global warming or some indirect suicide), but since there's no option for my opinion in the poll, here's my concept in colour and bold for Earth's demise:

Nothing sudden or terrifying will happen. Life will slowly disappear from Earth, the rest of the universe will not notice or care, and the world will eventually fade away to a lifeless, inhospitable rock like the rest of the planets, only to be slowly wiped away by the collapse/explosion of the Sun. And it will undoubtedly be both beautiful and unseen by anyone or thing.

Yeah, pretty much this...aaaaaaaaaaaaaand this:

Spoiler

OT: Truthfully, I simply think it will be some big cosmic event. Honestly, contrary to the minor belief on this site, Humanity isn't THAT stupid and we've managed to survive worse shit over the years. We'll work our shit out, and just keep doing what we're doing.

Personally, I vote for Gamma Ray Burst.

 

[yuval152]

Every dumbass who belives in 2012 conspiracy will die and the smart people keep living.

OT:ZOMBIES!,every gamer's dream....