Will we die out

[StarLab]

Hey, guys, I know it's fun to be pessimistic, but here's the chance to share your true opinion on the matter:
Is the human race liable to die out, either by nature or self-termination, or do you think it's our fate or our destiny to go out among the stars...



Please be serious...this is the string to discuss your true feelings on this serious issue -_-

[Matthew]

This is an interesting question. It all depends on our population spread, if we all stay on Earth for too long we will die out. Either from war, a disease or huge scientific experiment stuff up. As our technology advances we need to spread out of the solar system, for then a inter-planetary war (which may happen if planets begin to rival each other) will not kill us. Once we've passed the solar system boarder we are fairly safe from extinction for a few hundred million years.

[kashi]

Of course we will eventually die, as either the "big crunch" or "infinite expansion" cosmological scenarios will result in an uninhabitable universe.

In the short-medium term (i.e. next 100-1000 years), I'd say there would be numerous ways in which the majority of the human race could die out, but I don't think all of us could become extinct unless a nearby star went supernova. Even the detonation of all stockpiled nuclear weapons would still allow a small percentage of humanity to survive. We've survived ice ages before, and we would do it again.

Assuming we can overcome "Earthly problems", the next big challenge is the end of our sun's lifespan. If we can avoid that by moving elsewhere, then I'd say that it would be pretty unlikely for us to become extinct by anything other than the destruction of the universe (or our part of it).

[Dave Mitsky]

These sites discuss some of the charming events that could result in humanity going the way of the dodo.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mke/exitmundi.htm

http://www.armageddononline.org/life_extreme.php

http://terramortis.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/628515.stm

http://humanknowledge.net/SocialScience/Fu...tastrophes.html

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Dave Mitsky

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by StarLab@Nov 30 2004, 05:39 AM
do you think it's our fate or our destiny to go out among the stars.

I assume the question is 'will we die out before we get interstellar colonization?', since obviously we'll die out before the universe can no longer support chemical activity.

My answer to that is that there will be many perilous choices ahead, some of the surviving choices for which may be counter to the nature of large groups. Our chances of making it long enough to have people get to other stars will me be much greater if we colectively believe that it is uncertain, than if we believe it is our destiny.

[KillRide]

Heh, I posted about this site a few weeks ago. They update daily and added a lotta new stuff since then... cool.

Since I'm here, does anyone know why UT hasnt been updated for a few days?

[Ola D.]

interesting question! But, there are many choices to consider here.
Well, yes i think that humans will die out as many other species did because life proves that there's an end for every beginning.

Are we going to be replaced? I don't think so. I'm actually not willing to get further into this point 'cause it'll turn into a religious debate.
Probably wars, pollution and diseases wouldn't be the factors to lead to our extinction. I would suggest enviromental crises that we'd have no control on.

[wstevenbrown]

Not before the death of the universe. As we spread to wider eco-niches (other planets, other stars), we will evolve (speciate?), but there will be no spacetime locus you could point to and say "The human race died here."
The intriguing thing is that (perhaps for the first time) the evolution will be self-directed. Regards, S

[GOURDHEAD]

I see few, if any, of you have accepted my urging for us to become capable to engineer and maintain to our liking the configuration of the universe. Tsk! Tsk!

[John L]

I hope we do die out. We're not worthy! :P

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by GOURDHEAD@Nov 30 2004, 08:00 PM
I see few, if any, of you have accepted my urging for us to become capable to engineer and maintain to our liking the configuration of the universe.

This forum is such a narrow vehicle for expressing ourselves, that I haven't been able to see you doing it either.

[StarLab]

On Dave's post with all the links, I found the following two paragraphs from the last link very intriguing:

Robot Aggression. Some humans fear that the combination of robotics and artificial intelligence will in effect create a new dominant species that will not tolerate human control or even resource competition. These fears are misplaced. Artificial intelligence will be developed gradually by about 2200, and will not evolve runaway super-intelligence. Even when AI is integrated with artifactual life by the early 2200s, the time and energy constraints on artifactual persons will render them no more capable of global domination than any particular variety of humans (i.e. natural persons). Similarly, humanity's first Von Neumann probes will be incapable of overwhelming Earth's defenses even if they tried. To be truly dangerous, VN probes would have to be of a species with both true intelligence and a significant military advantage over humanity. Such a species would be unlikely to engage in alien aggression.

Nanoplague. Self-replicating nanotechnology could in theory become a cancer to the Earth's biosphere, replacing all ribonucleic life with nanotech life. The primary limit on the expansion of such nanotech life would, as for all life, be the availability of usable energy and material. Since any organic material would presumably be usable, the primary limit on how nanocancer could consume organic life would be the availability of usable energy. Fossil fuels are not sufficiently omnipresent, and fusion is not sufficiently portable, so nanocancer would, like ribonucleic microorganisms, have to feed on sunlight or organic tissues. Ribonucleic photosynthesis captures a maximum of about 10% of incident solar energy, while nanocancer should be able to capture at least 50%. The only way to stop nanocancer would be to cut off its access to energy and material or interfere with its mechanisms for using them.

[Janice]

Every species, every thing, will die out eventually but it's not likely to happen to us soon so I've never really worried about it!... UNTIL NOW!!! :blink:

[ChromeStar]

reply to the original question

By no means is this question stupid or something to be laughted at!

there is a good possibliltiy for man to die out if we don't take care of our world

with all the pollution and green house gases being spewed out all day annd night, the dustruction of natural habitat and the over use of resources. these are just some of the possiblities.

theres also the possiblity of a Huge War not even a world war, but a normal 2 or 3 country dispute, so long as there are weapons like nuclear bombs, wars could effect all of the world.

also there natural threats not some much from earth itself, but rather from space solar flares or asteriods could take a world to the cleaners. :unsure:

there is a scale that measures the technological progress of a civilisation type I, II, III & IV. The higher the type the more advanced the civilisation and we are't even a type I yet, but the more advanced we get the higher the chance of survival!
B)

[Ola D.]

Another interesting fact to be regarded here is that does civilisation and the fast growth of technology escalate our death rate, and thus extinction, or is contributing positively by maintaining our race?

[astromark]

:unsure: By the look of the responces here we could servive for millions of years yet. It would be nice if we could get the kill and disroy mentality out of our thinking. But I hasten to add. That most of our tecknoledgy has evolved becouse of our want to blow the bejusus out of something or some one. or defend our selves from each other.
:blink: The rather disterbing idea that computers have been doubling in there copacity to think every two years. Is worth another look. If they are given the abilaty to reproduce them selves, disigne there own improvments. 'Hughston we have a problem'.
Could we enginear the universe to ensure our servival, Yes. One day we will, but only if we can avoid self inialation, Major objects impacting on earth.
I do beleive we will servive and venture into the near galaxy to seek out a culture of habatation to servive. Lets hope we dont become our own enemy, or the aleins of our own destruction. live long and prosper.

[John L]

We aren't using up any resources. We put them to one use, but they don't leave the Earth. We'll just have to start recycling after a while. Thermal depolymerization will take our trash and waste and turn it back into raw metals, minerals, and oil. I forsee trash dump mining to be a growth business in about 50 years.

[wstevenbrown]

I could do without destruction, but I'm afraid that death is too good a friend to desert. Sounds a bit harsh? Let nobody die, and let each couple have two children. In only a few thousand years, we would subsume the entire mass of the visible universe. I suspect the standard of living would suffer. S

[Bobunf]

I don’t think computers have been doubling in their thinking capacity every two years. I first used a computer about 42 years ago. The one sitting on my desk has about one million times the storage capacity, and its execution time is about one million times faster (more or less). 2^21 is about two million, so it’s close.

But thinking? The computer I used 42 years ago did not think at all. It only did exactly what you told it to do, no matter how stupid. Not only did you have to tell it exactly what, but exactly how, and you had to make precise arrangements for it to get whatever data you wanted it to have.

A lot of people have put a lot of instructions in the computer I have on my desk now, so it’s easier to tell it what and how to do things. But it still doesn’t do anything at all that someone hasn’t told it what and how to do in unbelievably excoriating and precise detail.

The thing still doesn’t think at all. I would say progress in this department has been a lot slower than in storage and speed. When you start from zero, doubling doesn’t do much good.

[folkhemmet]

There are a lot of ideas on the drawing board for extending what human beings can do in outer space. These ideas will remain on drawing boards and in the minds of their creators and fans of space (i.e. those participating in this forum) until decisions are made at the highest levels of power to implement them. Unfortunately, those in the highest levels of power are more interested in maintaining the welfare state for the rich and building more weapons systems including more weapons of mass destruction. This is quite disturbing because
unless we develop a permanent presence off earth the human race will become extinct just as species confined to a single island are likely to go extinct much sooner than species distributed on many islands. Perhaps this is a strong justification for removing those at the highest level of power to create a true democracy-- and a spacefaring democracy at that.

The Star Trek civilization realized that unless the current (21st century) global socioeconomic system changes from one of relentless competition and unsustainable consumption to one of cooperation and conservation, then humanity's prospects would be grim. The connection seems instructive: an advanced spacefaring civilization is likely to have more of our strengths and less of our weaknesses.

B)

[Matthew]

Yes. But we must remember we have only been a spacefaring race for 50 years. In 20 years we will be back on the Moon to set up a permanent base there. Chances are we will not destroy ourselves by then.

[Bobunf]

"death is too good a friend to desert. Sounds a bit harsh? Let nobody die, and let each couple have two children. In only a few thousand years, we would subsume the entire mass of the visible universe. I suspect the standard of living would suffer."

I suspect there's something wrong with your demographics.

If taxes were to outlive death as a certainly of existence, the effect on population size is likely to be considerable less than one might imagine. Fertility is unlikely to rise; our experience is that increases in expectation of life are accompanied by a fall in fertility. I think I could site every country in the world over the 20th century as examples of a fall in fertility with increases in life expectancy.

Even if we assume that fertility didn’t fall from the current average of about 1.6 existing in industrialized countries today, and if we assume a starting population with half of the females in or younger than the reproductive range, after 20 generations the population would have increased only by a factor of about 3, even assuming nobody at all died.

We could make our calculation only a little more sophisticated, and assume a constant risk of death in any given year of one in ten thousand; equivalent to an expectation of life at birth of about seven thousand years. With these assumptions, the population would only double in 20 generations.

If the average end of the reproductive period expanded to about age 50, then 20 generations would be a thousand years, suggesting a human population of about 15 billion in 3100 AD. A long way from the entire mass of the universe.

As long as the fertility rate is equal to or less than 2, and there is any probability of death in females before the reproductive period is completed, the species population will eventually reach zero. It's a converging series. In the case of the assumptions listed above, that would be in ten thousand years.

Rather weirdly, even if (almost) nobody dies, we could still die out.

Bob

[TwAgIssmuDe]

I don't think the term "die out" is complitely true. You do remember the course of evolution, we may be evolving into some new species that can better cope with what the future brings.
Just like our ancestoors did.
So we are not dying out, but merely evolving.

[Ola D.]

I once read an article saying that the fertility rate showed a decrease in the past decade. I don't remember any statistical numbers, but i remember that the decrease was significant. It said that this effect was as a result of the excessive use of pesticides in agriculture.

So that would be considered as a contribution leading to extinct :unsure:

[ChromeStar]

I'm back been away, so i haven't hada a chance till now to read the latest replies

so here are my thoughts

with regard to smart computers i believe that if people just brush the idea off as in Bobunf's case they could become a hazard - it would be foolish to ignore the the fact that computer and robotic technologies are advancing a rapid rate. By 2008 if i'm correct, japan's majority will posess a robot in one for or anotherand not little toy form, but rather for baby sitting of the elderly and freforming daily house hold chores.

with regard to technology advancing only for destructive and defensive perposes only - it's true, but we decide weather to use it for those perposes or not besides waring is'nt the only reason to advance what about exploring and experiencing the universe

Recycling resources?

this will happen, it will have to, but it is possible that the population may require more resouces then we can spare and will have to be obtained off world. future recycling methods my also include a new technology called skins, they are fine filters that group only a "specified" molecule of substance

fertility and population

populations go up and down in a cycle or vanish, it is a natural way to maintain the right balance so i don't think, unless a catastrophe like the sun swallowing the earth happens, the population will ever die out - fertility is mearly one of the means of nature to keep balance.

EVOLUTION

there have been some studies that have found that people a few generations back where shorter or fatter or had brown hair rather then built like todays humans a clear sign of evolution, as enviroments change "we change".

[ChromeStar]

I'm back been away, so i haven't had a chance till now to read the latest replies

so here are my thoughts

SMART COMPUTERS

with regard to smart computers i believe that if people just brush the idea off as in Bobunf's case they could become a hazard - it would be foolish to ignore the the fact that computer and robotic technologies are advancing a rapid rate. By 2008 if i'm correct, japan's majority will posess a robot in one form or another and not little toy form, but rather for baby sitting of the elderly and freforming daily house hold chores.

ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY

with regard to technology advancing only for destructive and defensive perposes only - it's true, but we decide weather to use it for those perposes or not besides waring is'nt the only reason to advance what about exploring and experiencing the universe

RECYCLING RESOURCES?

this will happen, it will have to, but it is possible that the population may require more resouces then we can spare and will have to be obtained off world. future recycling methods my also include a new technology called skins, they are fine filters that group only a "specified" molecule of substance

FERTILITY AND POPULATION

populations go up and down in a cycle or vanish, it is a natural way to maintain the right balance so i don't think, unless a catastrophe like the sun swallowing the earth happens, the population will ever die out - fertility is mearly one of the means of nature to keep balance.

EVOLUTION

there have been some studies that have found that people a few generations back where shorter or fatter or had brown hair rather then built like todays humans a clear sign of evolution, as enviroments change "we change".

[Bobunf]

"I once read an article saying that the fertility rate showed a decrease in the past decade."

OK


"It said that this effect was as a result of the excessive use of pesticides in agriculture."

What nonsense

[Bobunf]

For the ten most populous countries in the world, consisting of about two-thirds of the population of the world, there have been very significant declines in total fertility for 80% of decade by dec-ade comparisons. All of the declines in fertility are amazingly large:

U.S. Bureau of the Census, International Data Base Table 028. Total Fertility Rates per woman

Year......... China....... India....... US.......Indonesia........Brazil.....Pakistan
1950.........n/a...........n/a.............n/a...........n/a............ 5.93...........n/a
1960.........n/a...........n/a.............n/a...........n/a............ 6.06...........n/a
1970.........n/a...........n/a........... 2.48...........n/a............5.33...........n/a
1980.........n/a........... 4.70......... 1.84..........4.37......... 4.09...........n/a
1990.........2.18..........3.80..........2.08..... .... 3.02..........2.56..........6.23
2000.........1.72......... 3.11..........2.06......... 2.61..........2.13..........4.56

Year........Russia.....Bangledesh...Nigeria......J apan
1950.........n/a........... n/a............n/a...........3.66
1960........ n/a........... n/a............7.20..........2.02
1970.........n/a............n/a...........7.20..........2.09
1980.........n/a............n/a...........7.04..........1.75
1990.........1.96..........n/a...........6.45..........1.52
2000.........1.25..........3.23..........5.66..... .....1.36

All of the developed countries have total fertility rates below replacement except for Israel and Turkey; most are far below replacement. The fertility rates have declined in 80% of the decade to decade comparisons. At current total fertility rates twelve developed countries will face a halving of the workforce within 50 years unless saved by net migration: Japan, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Singapore, Belarus, Hungary, Spain, Lithuania, Italy, Ukraine and Greece. At current fertility rates, the populations of these twelve countries will be extinct in from 20 to 30 generations. After that, no more Balts, no more Japanese, Russians, Hungarians, Spaniards, Italians, Ukrainians or Greeks. Singapore will be deserted, except for newcomers.

My own hypothesis is that the reason for these dramatic declines in fertility is that when women have a great range of choices about fertility and many other aspects of life; they will, on balance, have fewer children than is necessary to continue the species.

Wherever in the world women have those choices, total fertility is below replacement with the one exception of Israel. This is a huge change in the human condition, which will have increas-ingly profound effects as its influence spreads further and more deeply throughout the world.

Nothing whatever to do with pesticides, but the choices being made by the 18% of the population that is female and between the ages of 15 and 40. The behavior of women 40 years of age and over, men, and children has virtually no effect.

Guys get no vote in the matter of the survival of the species.

Bob

[Ola D.]

Originally posted by Bobunf@Dec 10 2004, 06:50 PM
"It said that this effect was as a result of the excessive use of pesticides in agriculture."

What nonsense

Hey Bob,

Here's an article from the BBC News concerning this fact:
Effect of pesticides on Fertility

[Bobunf]

"Men who are exposed to pesticides as a result of their jobs may find it harder to father children, according to researchers."

There are three problems with this BBC report as related to effects on the fertility of the human species:

1. Is the result reported accurately? The BBC's approach to news does not encourage confi-dence. Witness genetically modified food, depleted uranium, and a host of other trendy scares.

2. Even if this result is accurately reported, does it represent an effect which is actuated in real life? If a guy's fertility is reduced to the point where he is only able to father three children per week, instead of the prior seven, how will that impact the fertility of his female partners? Will they, as a consequence, have only two children, rather than three, during the twenty-five years they are reproductively capable? One instead of four?

The BBC is mute on this subject, which is sort of important.

3. Even if the result is reported accurately, and even if the effect is to reduce the fertility not only of the affected male, but, more importantly, the fertility of his female parters, so what? How many males in the world "are exposed to pesticides as a result of their jobs?" What percent is this of our species? What effect, if any, does it have on the only thing that matters: female fertility.

I suspect the answer to the last question is zero.

Also, maybe we should take to heart BBC Health Correspondent's statement, quoted in this 1999 article, that "the survey was too small to allow definite conclusions to be made."

Quite. They were dealing with seven individuals.

Again, what nonsense. Not "fact," at least as reported in this study, but speculation.