'How do you believe human civilization will end?'

[nophun]

Speaking of reliable images.

Game over IMO, Bears win.

 

[DavidB]

The human race will experience a technological de-evolution, probably quicker than it evolved. There will be approximately 100 million humans by the end of this century.

Humans will return to a simpler way of life, similar to medieval times, where we will inhabit this planet until we evolve into another species.

The other scenario is that we completely render the environment uninhabitable and all life is extinguished by next century, except for some microscopic organisms.

Or, we experience a rapid evolution in consciousness and transcend into beings of pure light. :lol:

 

[Vox Sola]

That depends if we start to recognize the root causes of social behavior.

Most people that I talk to seem to think that it will be some sort of self-fulling prophecy, we create our own demise. I think that is right for the most part but only half way. It wont be a religious prophecy in the end but another, even bigger form of blind faith that no matter your class, creed, nationality or political party, everyone must subscribe too. This modernized form of faith is as old as faith itself, memetically evolved and twisted over time to benefit the few. Any guesses yet?

Sadly, it will be civilization itself that pulls its own plug. During the time the civilized world looks for someone else to blame, it churns out the most environmentally destructive, socially inefficient and culturally corruptible behavior there is. Ani DiFranco said it best with her lyric, "The Profit System follows the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is what makes a river crooked, makes it serpentine. Capitalism is the Devil's wet dream."

Its hard to go into everything in a forum post but if you don't understand the mechanisms by which the profit system operates through indifferent selfish gain based on a system of perpetual debt to promote exponential consumption based on finite resources. Then I suggest one become familiar on the subject with haste.

If you are a reader then I suggest The Best that Money Can't Buy by Jacque Fresco - http://www.thevenusproject.com/

If you are a YouTuber then I suggest Social Pathology by Peter Joseph (this is a lecture) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT6VZ41aPRw

 

[Jotto999]

But why shouldn't we piss of minority extremists? Should we rather bow under and say "hey, yeah, violence is the way to get people to listen and respect you."
Fuck that. Draw mohammed day here I come.

I meant invading them, not simply making fun of them, which I am totally in favor of. But the Iraq war goes against the UN Charter, the US Constitution, and also the Kellogg-Briand Pact IIRC. There was no good political justification for it, and that has been even better confirmed after some time, and even though everyone knows this it continues. I suspect this is a symptom of the corporatocracy we live in, though it is difficult to tell the severity and degree.

Anyways, I am very certain that no one should be above scrutiny. Though Draw Muhammad Day shouldn't be an excuse to act like a douchebag toward Muslims (which for some people that is what it seemed to be), it's a great idea because it's like saying "Yeah we're drawing this character to establish that we can and there shouldn't be anything wrong with that, even if you don't like it". Or at least, I figure that would be the ideal mentality behind it.

 

[Ozymandyus]

It will end with a certain mastery of genetic engineering and machine-human interfaces that will no longer allow us to be called human. After 1000 years of that sort of guided evolution and machinization, those of us living now, the unmodified humans will be spoken of as something like we think of monkeys... maybe a bit cute, but not nearly as capable.

That's my guess.

 

[Jotto999]

It will end with a certain mastery of genetic engineering and machine-human interfaces that will no longer allow us to be called human. After 1000 years of that sort of guided evolution and machinization, those of us living now, the unmodified humans will be spoken of as something like we think of monkeys... maybe a bit cute, but not nearly as capable.

That's my guess.

I really hope that it goes that well, and I hope that I live to see it. But Ozy, bear in mind that with that kind of modification available, people from today could likely have things to bump them up to par, like artificial neuron implants, or some similar speculative future technology. I really doubt that we'd be completely shut out and left behind.

 

[Ozymandyus]

It will end with a certain mastery of genetic engineering and machine-human interfaces that will no longer allow us to be called human. After 1000 years of that sort of guided evolution and machinization, those of us living now, the unmodified humans will be spoken of as something like we think of monkeys... maybe a bit cute, but not nearly as capable.

That's my guess.

I really hope that it goes that well, and I hope that I live to see it. But Ozy, bear in mind that with that kind of modification available, people from today could likely have things to bump them up to par, like artificial neuron implants, or some similar speculative future technology. I really doubt that we'd be completely shut out and left behind.

My guess is we'll be dead. We are too afraid of the implications of this sort of modifications as of yet... so I doubt it will happen for us. In any case, even if it DOES, it is still the end of human civilization as we would have become something else in a way, and in Some way 'people from today' will also no longer be human, at least not as how we think of it. It will undoubtedly radically alter our perspective on what it means to be human, at the very least.

 

[MirageScience]

cat rapist will breed a more tame cat and mice will run wild spreading disease because cats will be afraid of mice at that time. Then after the mice kill off a lot of people with disease they will starve themselves and the rest of the people to death by massively over populating and eating all the crops and and animals. xD lol

 

[Jotto999]

My guess is we'll be dead. We are too afraid of the implications of this sort of modifications as of yet... so I doubt it will happen for us. In any case, even if it DOES, it is still the end of human civilization as we would have become something else in a way, and in Some way 'people from today' will also no longer be human, at least not as how we think of it. It will undoubtedly radically alter our perspective on what it means to be human, at the very least.

Ah, I see, that does make sense.

Well, some biologists (and 'future optimists') think that life extension technologies are on the horizon. The more optimistic ones think that some people alive today will live to see it (people with a few decades yet of healthy life left), though it's controversial and many think that this kind of time frame is not realistic, some think it's plain silly.

Guess we'll have to see. I would prefer to be around when civilization ends, even as a 'monkey'

 

[ExplorerAtHeart]

With a bang.

No i see Humans evolving into a much better sentience..

At least somebody should do it.

 

[UrbanMasque]

I dont think it will be a catastrophic event that brings about the end of life on earth ( for people anyway) . Why do we believe that we're going to go out with a bang - movie like images of some asteroid or product of war that destroys everything ( i wish - that kind of stuff you can see coming, and plan your farewell party appropriately - also an abrupt stop to life on this planet would be a very humane way to go). I don't think we're that lucky. I think it will be a long depressing process that we won't be able to stop. The movie, Children of Men, comes into my mind - because I think that the loss of the ability to reproduce will play a part in it..

 

[Ozymandyus]

I dont think it will be a catastrophic event that brings about the end of life on earth ( for people anyway) . Why do we believe that we're going to go out with a bang - movie like images of some asteroid or product of war that destroys everything ( i wish - that kind of stuff you can see coming, and plan your farewell party appropriately - also an abrupt stop to life on this planet would be a very humane way to go). I don't think we're that lucky. I think it will be a long depressing process that we won't be able to stop. The movie, Children of Men, comes into my mind - because I think that the loss of the ability to reproduce will play a part in it..

The reason it pretty must HAS to be a BIG event to end human civilization is that we're so dang smart that any slow process that threatens us we can easily engineer our way out of. Even if every human were instantly sterilized today, the human race would go on. If we ran out of oil, or crops started failing en mass... a lot of people would die yes but some of us would survive, and we would be stronger than ever for it: we'd have new hydroponic farms or new energy sources. Humans are at their best when times are toughest: the only way to really kill us is to get us all at once, in my opinion.

 

[Jaron]

I think there are two ways:

First,we will bomb us to hell after we depletet all ressources of our nice planet.

or the second:

We invent efficent space travel and are able to spread out in the Solar System or even the galaxy before we have depleted all our ressources.

To say it with the words of Agent Smith in Matrix:

We are a virus which spreads out on this planet

I think first will happen cause I aggree with that ''big event'' point.
To really end our civilization u need to kill every single human on the world.So it has to be something cataclystic.
As Ozymandyus already said,if there are humans left they will start from zero.But they will be there and will continue.
The loss of ability to reproduce is a possible but I think if that would happen,the research in cloning technologie will be focus for many scientis and would deliver a solution to reproduce in a limited way.

 

[Worldquest]

I don't think human civilization will end. But if it were to end, it would be due to a misuse of technology, and people geting their priorities all wrong.