4 ms·

Maybe we come at it from a different side: what/which manmade things can cause end of the world? (I know only 2: climate change and nukes)

• posting2fast 8y ago
  I feel like I'm being obvious, but, totalitarianism? That is, if "world" is to refer to more than the physical planet, or the mere existence of ecosystems in it, but also things like human thought and creativity. As human agency gets restricted and channeled in infantilized or even outright violently abusive ways, human thought evaporates along with it. Too many people can't already stick with issues they identified with the world for 5 minutes, not to mention the required decades. What's in store for the future is not being able to express it anymore, at all, not even clumsily, to not even be able to form a solid internal representation, never having been in contact with any of the tools and concepts required for that other than to mock and other them. This can already be seen in some people, but the "fun" really begins when that is true for everybody. That's the worst case scenario for me. Compared to (!) that, this is how I feel about climate change and nuclear war: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/there-will-come-soft-rains https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/there-will-come-soft-rai...
• bloak 8y ago
  Assuming you mean extinction of mankind or end of civilisation, here are another two: genetically engineered diseases, artificial intelligence (AI). There's also voluntary extinction (vhemt.org), of course, but that's not really a "cause".
  • mikro2nd 8y ago
    I'd add nanotechnology -- a "grey goo" scenario.