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It'd be interesting to learn the depth of study related to spectrum of scenarios in which human race will be facing apocalypse. Few things that pop up in my he
by dosh 12y ago
It'd be interesting to learn the depth of study related to spectrum of scenarios in which human race will be facing apocalypse.
Few things that pop up in my head:
- disease
- nuclear (or comparable) war
- depletion of natural resources
- natural disaster
- extra terrestrial influence: asteroid or alien invasion
- artificial intelligence
- anarchy / disruption of social security
hmm...anything else?
- adrianN 12y agoGradual loss of skills and knowledge leading to a collapse of technological society.
- Havvy 12y agoAnarchy won't cause an apocalypse, just a change in the structure of the ruling class as a new ruling structure is created. also on the extra terrestrial influence side, there's direct hits by gamma rays that could wipe out Earth in an instant.
- MoistDinosaur 12y agoAnarchy causing a collapse of the ruling structure could create a war that destroys much of society. Even without anarchy, imagine a country like China or the US plunged into a civil war. The effects on the global economy would be disastrous
- seren 12y agoSolar storm destroying a large part of the grid, leading to some heavy disruption including nuclear meltdown. The inversion of magnetic pole could have some impact on how we are shielded from space radiation.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoHere you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risks :). The keywords are: existential risks.
- Aardwolf 12y agoOut of all of those, artificual intelligence is the only one where at least something continues to exist.
- Houshalter 12y agoI think you mean the other way around. All the ones listed will very likely have at least some human survivors. Eventually humanity will rebuild and get back to where it was more or less. AI is the only thing listed with the capability to literally destroy the planet. While something might still exist afterwards, it will likely be totally meaningless and worthless: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y3/value_is_fragile/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y3/value_is_fragile/
- Zigurd 12y agoIs anarchy more dangerous than corporatism?
- SuperChihuahua 12y agoTo quote a guy called Elon Musk: "Things have happened quickly. It took us millions of years to evolve into what we are, but in the last sixty years, with atomic weaponry, we've created the potential to extinguish ourselves. And if it's not us, it will inevitably be something else. If not a meteorite in the relative short term, then the expansion of the Sun's corona. It will happen." He has also said that there are a number of other threats with the ability to extinct life on Earth. They include an engineered virus unleashed by terrorists, an inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or a yet unknown technology.
- VLM 12y agoEvolutionary competition with some kind of post human species? Doesn't have to robots and test tubes, just separate groups that drift apart far enough that they can't interbreed (definition of species) and one species wipes out the other as often happens, and if the species that got wiped out got to hold the legacy "human race" species, well then... You have a definition problem where evolution is obviously quite natural, just like comets striking the earth is natural (although very rare), so those are natural disasters, although thats probably not what you meant. From history, it usually takes a couple things to wipe out "apocalypse" a civilization although it often only takes one thing to get the ball rolling. My money is on something like "peak phosphorous for fertilizer production for cereal grains causes supply chain shock leading to self destruction"
- Vektorweg 12y agoA critical existence failure.