A loooooooooong time. Unless some sort of cosmic level cataclysm hits us, like 'the comet' or other vast ovekill situation, we'll manage to keep going for a very, very long time.
Poll: How long will humans survive?
- Thread starter blindthrall
- Start date
Well, according to one version of the <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument>Doomsday Argument we have a "95% chance of extinction within 9120 years."
Of course IMO the human race has more than enough collective luck to defy odds like those.
Long live humanity... and all its cosmic descendants.
Of course IMO the human race has more than enough collective luck to defy odds like those.
Long live humanity... and all its cosmic descendants.
But you said yourself, we might well be able to build bunkers that would be self sustainable for 5,000 years. Even if it takes 500 years for the dust cloud to clear, that still leaves 4,500 years of bunker supported time for the survives to build a sustainable farm and solar generator on the surface.blindthrall said:
More likely than not we'll use genetics to get our species past any mess we make. Besides, we may need to mesh our DNA with that of cockroaches in order to attain the resistance to space radiation needed to get to other planets and colonize them.
Then you have to count when splicing becomes available; cat eyes, blue skin etc become all the rage.
Its not such a bad thing, we are already willing to do weird stuff to our bodies for the sake of losing fat and gaining muscles.
All in all people who think we will die out soon are vastly underestimating the resourcefulness of our species.
Then you have to count when splicing becomes available; cat eyes, blue skin etc become all the rage.
Its not such a bad thing, we are already willing to do weird stuff to our bodies for the sake of losing fat and gaining muscles.
All in all people who think we will die out soon are vastly underestimating the resourcefulness of our species.
In the book that I'm writing, that happens, and we survive. Eventually Earth is destroyed by the protagonistCoverYourHead said:
I personally expect the Earth's ecosystem to give out, and in such causing humanity's extinction.
We currently use unsustainable farming practices, and this will cause more and more areas which are not arable while continuing to balloon our population. We will, unless something dramatic changes, cause the classic "too many individuals for the environment" curve on ecosystem graphs, which has a lovely hidden ending.
Balloon too high too fast, with no other mitigating factor but available food, and you will get such a hard crash that it simply doesn't recover. It slows, surely, but it tapers into nothingness.
I expect this to happen to mankind in the far future, I am incapable of giving a timeline, so I shan't vote. But essentially, our technology will continue increasing the food yields in unpredictable manners, until we suddenly hit the 'oops' spot. Once we get there, the starvation will be absolutely terrible, causing humans to eat basically anything organic (cockroaches, grass, bark, you name it). Once we begin this 'no holds barred' policy on food, we'll quickly wipe out huge amounts of keystone species and crash every ecosystem we can get our hands on. At this point, with everything else simultaneously starving to death, we're fully and truly screwed.
Now, some ridiculous technological advance (in genetic engineering for example) could completely falsify this. Off the top of my head, if we could somehow make bacteria that produce the protein strains in beef out of free floating molecules as a waste product, well, we'd be laughing it up forever. I don't know how likely this is to happen, though.
If you want past evidence of humans causing irreversible ecosystem damage, look at the middle east. Wasn't Afghanistan, Iraq, and the like considered 'the cradle of civilization'? Doesn't classic literature refer to the region as lush and beautiful? Look at it now.
Doesn't look very welcoming to me. This is what happens with unsustainable farming practices, and this is what basically the entire world is currently doing. A large cosmic event (meteorites, radiation cloud, etc.) would really only exacerbate this problem, in my eyes. Unless it's ridiculously large and just blows us another moon.
We currently use unsustainable farming practices, and this will cause more and more areas which are not arable while continuing to balloon our population. We will, unless something dramatic changes, cause the classic "too many individuals for the environment" curve on ecosystem graphs, which has a lovely hidden ending.
Balloon too high too fast, with no other mitigating factor but available food, and you will get such a hard crash that it simply doesn't recover. It slows, surely, but it tapers into nothingness.
I expect this to happen to mankind in the far future, I am incapable of giving a timeline, so I shan't vote. But essentially, our technology will continue increasing the food yields in unpredictable manners, until we suddenly hit the 'oops' spot. Once we get there, the starvation will be absolutely terrible, causing humans to eat basically anything organic (cockroaches, grass, bark, you name it). Once we begin this 'no holds barred' policy on food, we'll quickly wipe out huge amounts of keystone species and crash every ecosystem we can get our hands on. At this point, with everything else simultaneously starving to death, we're fully and truly screwed.
Now, some ridiculous technological advance (in genetic engineering for example) could completely falsify this. Off the top of my head, if we could somehow make bacteria that produce the protein strains in beef out of free floating molecules as a waste product, well, we'd be laughing it up forever. I don't know how likely this is to happen, though.
If you want past evidence of humans causing irreversible ecosystem damage, look at the middle east. Wasn't Afghanistan, Iraq, and the like considered 'the cradle of civilization'? Doesn't classic literature refer to the region as lush and beautiful? Look at it now.
Doesn't look very welcoming to me. This is what happens with unsustainable farming practices, and this is what basically the entire world is currently doing. A large cosmic event (meteorites, radiation cloud, etc.) would really only exacerbate this problem, in my eyes. Unless it's ridiculously large and just blows us another moon.
According to classification of reptiles (Class Reptilia), we are not reptiles because we never had reptile ancestors. We do share a common ancestor, that itself was not a reptile. The division occured on the superclass level (Tetrapoda, from which classes Reptilia and Mammalia diverge).blindthrall said:
Snakes are tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) by descent by the way.
Leat us treat current day humanity as Australopithecus Anamensis and the theoretical future human on another planet as Homo Sapien Sapiens. As in, a direct evolutionary decendant far down the line.
Whatever we can classify the Australopithecus Anamensis as, we can classify the Homo Sapiens Sapiens as as well. But, the Homo Sapiens Sapiens could be classified further as a specific decendant subspecies of Australopithecus Anamensis.
If Australopithecus Anamensis would be called by the classification of Human and be the only current day example of 'Human' (effectively meaning a singular species), with several offshoots down the future hypothetical line (one of which led to Homo Sapiens Sapiens of the stars), all these offshoots would also be classifiable as 'Human'. Just as there was once just a single species of mammals This would not change in a billion years of natural evolution, as the ancestry would remain what it is until the end of life.
Perhaps now you begin to see my point.
Correct, my use of terminology was not proper, as I responded somewhat hastily. My apologies.
Neither have I any ideas (beyond wild guesses) of the possible future form of humanity, but I do know they would be classifiable as humans is the current classification system remains in use.
Only by purely Linnean system. Modern system uses molecular phylogenetic analysis as well.
Before Linnaeus, poorly. After Linnaeus, by exhibited characteristic. After the discovery of DNA and suitable methods of analysis, it has been gradually changed more and more towards the idea of common decent instead of purely morphology. A new formal code of nomenclature is still under development, but the actual basis for classification began to change from late 1950s to 1960 onwards if memory serves.
"Taxonomic group-label" refers to whatever definition it would be at the time, be it genus, family, order, or even class. Depends on quite a lot on how much life would diversify in the future. That is the reason I gave an imprecise description: I have little idea what it would be according to current hiearchy.
Somewhat my point. Taxonomically we have little idea, but we know the taxonomic ancestry all the way from the Kingdom animalia to current-day species Homo Sapiens. That Homo Sapiens (or the classificational characteristics of it) would be forever imprinted into the hypothetical Homo Sapiens Starfaricus Extrasolarus Superiores Centauricus.
When determining if we have a new species, yes. But a few million years from now, it would be a difference between the species living during then and not between current-day us and that-day then.
Thus the basic structure would stay there, but simply evolved, is genetic 'junk' or simply an outdated anatomic trait that offers no advantage nor disadvantage.
Hence building upon and retaining a mammalian ancestry and thus definable and recognisable as a mammal.
I put in for 500, but I don't honestly see our species growing more than a few more generations longer. The rift between the have and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, and the sharply rising population and sharply decreasing resources, opportunity, freedom, and real-estate means we will, in the fullness of approximately 200 years, either cease to be, or will cease to be as we are and become a monopolistic and oppressive dystopia.
The family that has 3-5 kids, each of those kids have about the same, and those kids in turn have the same, and with slackening morality (or whatever excuses you may prefer to explain promiscuity resulting in the multitude of bastard children being born) three generations can come to exist in the space of less than 50 years, and grow to relative maturity in less than 60. That would mean that in my lifetime I have the potential to be a great great grandfather or higher, of what could easily come to well above 60-80 children, all spawning from a minimum of 3 children per couple per child.
80 people (minimum) in less than 60-80 years, all of whom will want their own homes, jobs, cars, lives, etc. You think we're crammed to the gills now, or that a job is hard to get now, or the roads are packed now, just wait and see how things look in just 30 years.
I shudder to think how bad things will be in 200 years.
The family that has 3-5 kids, each of those kids have about the same, and those kids in turn have the same, and with slackening morality (or whatever excuses you may prefer to explain promiscuity resulting in the multitude of bastard children being born) three generations can come to exist in the space of less than 50 years, and grow to relative maturity in less than 60. That would mean that in my lifetime I have the potential to be a great great grandfather or higher, of what could easily come to well above 60-80 children, all spawning from a minimum of 3 children per couple per child.
80 people (minimum) in less than 60-80 years, all of whom will want their own homes, jobs, cars, lives, etc. You think we're crammed to the gills now, or that a job is hard to get now, or the roads are packed now, just wait and see how things look in just 30 years.
I shudder to think how bad things will be in 200 years.
The way I see it, the human race has an incredible ability to adapt. War brings not only tragedy, but also innovation. It is not unreasonable that the human race could continue until the end of the universe, I think. We are already capable of entering space, so I don't think it is unreasonable that by the time our sun dies, we would be able to leave our planet. It is highly unlikely that we are the only sentient species, and that this is the only planet habitable by humans, in the galaxy, let alone the universe. Of course, time to develope interplanetary and inter-solar system flight will be much more limited if we continue to pollute our planet the way we do. Of course, many other factors play into our survival. We will only be able to fight wars against ourselves for so long before something truly catastrophic happens. Somethings we can control, and others we can't. If we were to survive until the end of the universe, we would have to stop fighting wars against ourselves (as I previously mentioned). I also stated earlier that it is unlikely that we are the only sentient species in the galaxy. Another factor that will affect our survivability is the actions of alien species. Open warfare with an advanced race could devastate, while strong relations could help us endure. To put it simply, the universe will end at some point, so our race and all others are ultimately screwed. I believe that whether or not our race will continue that long is completely unpredictable. It will be determined by generations long after we are dead. On an unrelated note, I've probably been reading way too many Star Wars books.
The protagonist destroys Earth? S/he's either a badass or a jerk... either way I like 'em already!PoisonUnagi said:In the book that I'm writing, that happens, and we survive. Eventually Earth is destroyed by the protagonistCoverYourHead said:
Solar generator I'll give you. But if the planet is a desert, then no amount of advanced farming techniques will help. And I was being generous with 5000 years, it would probably be more like a thousand. The longer we go without blowing ourselves up, the better chance that technology will be advanced enough to pull us through. If dirty bombs were used, fallout could make the planet radioactive for the half-life of uranium-238, which is 4.4 billion years.Maze1125 said:
Neither of us knows this for sure. Current models are in favor of eternal expansion, but we cannot rule out the Big Crunch just yet.Maze1125 said:
The possibility of which, scientifically speaking, cannot be ignored until proven wrong.
Never assume too much
This is TeH Internets after all, and physics happens to be one of my permanent entries in the 'be anal-retentive about' list.Yes. But, only at relativistic speeds. Which are difficult to achieve with any ship of significant mass.
Which are pretty much limited to robotic probes with DNA-samples and bio-kits.
Or anti-matter power-plants on ships to achieve sufficient energy per unit of mass of fuel to have engines powerful and fuel-economic enough (in terms of mass) to achieve significant relativistic speeds (EDIT:for time-dilation to be of real use, I mean). D-D and D-T fusion torches can only go so far, as can Bussard Ramjets, in terms of kN produced/mass of engine and fuel.
If you have other options in mind, I'd like to hear them. I am a sci-fi fan and my curiosity is always peaked on a discussion like this.
Who can say? Our capacity for ingenuity and imagination are only matched by our stupidity and uncreativity. Yet life marches on, till the death of the universe itself.
Yeah...like any one is going to be able to make and detonate enough dirty bombs to cover the whole planet, it's just a ludicrous suggestion. And remember...long half life = low emission rate. In the event of nuclear apocalypse it's going to be the collapse of society that kills people, not the nukes themselves.blindthrall said:
Not as long as viruses and roaches, that's for sure.
It'd better be at least until May 16. I want to see if BioWare actually keeps their deadling with their Dragon Age:Awakenings expansion. The Reaper can wait!
It'd better be at least until May 16. I want to see if BioWare actually keeps their deadling with their Dragon Age:Awakenings expansion. The Reaper can wait!