How do you think we'll all die?

I read this article:

www.newscientist.com... .jsp?id=ns99994713

and thought of the Stephen King book, "The Stand". But there's so many ways the world can end aside from a viral outbreak. Nuclear War? That one was big in the 80s! I kind of miss our "massive Soviet nuclear assault" fears, compared to what we have now. Climate change caused by things like HAARP? Earth being hit by an asteroid? Sun going Nova? Zombie takeover?

Here's some interesting (and I mean interesting!) sites about the end of the world:


www.xs4all.nl...
www.pbs.org...

I want to know what the pulse is regarding how people think the world will end... will it be in a flash? will it linger and fade? in a box, with a fox, on a train, on a plane? what's in eschatological vogue?

Personally, I'm going for the virus point of view. War of the Worlds, you know?

-koji K.

I'm going to say chain reaction disaster. Something along the lines of geological/volcanic activity gone berzerk somehow. Or asteroid, or probably nuclear winter, that seems to fit the Bible version. But then again maybe lawyers will take over the world, no thats worse than the apocalypse.

they say when they were developing the atomic bomb there was a 7% chance that the nuclear reaction it caused wouldn't stop... and they tested it anyway. i don't know if that's true or not, but it makes you think.. what potential world-ending experiments may be going on in labs today?

-koji K.

The world is already ending around us were in the apocalypse "Phase" right now it's a lingering one with war,presidents it's now. And about the 7% thats crazy! i don't care it's it's 1 precet before they test this stuff they need to warn the public about the chances

[edit on 14-7-2004 by Makaveli777back]

I agree with Koji_k. I think a viral pandemic is most likely to occur in the foreseeable future.

I feel that vaccines alone provide enough selection pressure for virus to mutate super-deadly strains. For example, imagine HIV acquiring the ability to attatch to the mucus. A simple sneeze could infect hundreds of people.

i dont know how it will happen but i do know when.......soon very soon

I think it will happen very slowly. So slowly we don't even notice it. Eventually we were dig us a hole we can not get out. The world will get more and more divided.
At this point if a miracle dosn't happen there will be a huge war. Eventually the rest of us will die of. But when we die a new and more advanced group will rise.

Sort of like the dinosaurs

My guess is a chain reaction starting with a large asteroid impact. The impact will cause unstability in the geology and make world wide seismic activity(big earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis) to go along with the impact of the rock. Everyone will be affected and many will die directly from this. Some will survive and have to deal with the harsh new world that left.

Originally posted by Rev_Godslapper
I feel that vaccines alone provide enough selection pressure for virus to mutate super-deadly strains. For example, imagine HIV acquiring the ability to attatch to the mucus. A simple sneeze could infect hundreds of people.

Now that is a scary idea. I feel that it will be a strain of a virus presumed dead, like someone jacking something nasty from the CDC and unleashing it in LAX or O'Hare or something like that. Nuclear war is another possibility, but that's something that I don't see any country intentionally starting with anyone else. As far as really messed up ideas go, it's possible that this reality is the dream of someone, and they might wake up one day, and our reality would stop existing. A stupid idea, but an idea nonetheless.

You know since the human race seems to be getting stupider by the minute, especially America. With this cool to be stupid attitude we might not know what to do in the time of danger. Basically we will panic and not even try to survive. Thats probably why we won't be making super medicines to stop viruses.

People have been "Predicting" the end of time, well since almost since the beginning of time. I wonder why we are all so fascinated with the subject. May be it is the fear of death. What makes everyone so sure that "it will be soon"Predictions come and go but the world keeps going on.

It doesn't really hurt to be prepared for disaster. You know the Norse myth of ragnorok sounds kind of like WWIII ending with widespread nuclear strikes.

I think we will grind ourselves down genetically due to a constant barrage of natural and man-made pathogens.
Till one day the only ones being born are little gray kids with big heads and eyes. And not much more than hive mentalities
Humanity as we know it will cease to exist.
The NWO will love it.

Unless someone discovers the "fountain of youth" - a possibility I admit to, in these days of scientific wonders - I think its futile to speculate about what form the apocalypse will take. I personally don't think there'll be one (in the sense of an overwhelming end-of-humanity scenario), although certain large-scale disaster scenarios are possible. My own sense of likelyhood leads me to think a terrible epidemic is the most likely world-wide disaster... terrorist strikes, even nuclear, are possible, but the effects (however terrible) will be localized and won't qualify as an "apocalypse".

Note that every age of history has had its apocalypse fears. As someone earlier in this thread pointed out, nuclear holocaust was the most recent. In earlier ages it was barbarian invasions (Rome), Islamic or Mongolian invasions (medieval Europe), the end of the world (everywhere, just prior to 1000 AD), and various cultists are always imagining a disaster (comets, etc.) just around the corner. And I'll toss in US religious fundamentalists and their anticipated "rapture" just for fun.

Who knows what form it will take? (if it occurs at all). As others have noted, the end of the world has been predicted for eons and we are still here (nominally at least).
Personally, I don't believe in the Fundamentalist Biblical version of the Apocolyse, Armaggedon, the Rapture etc. However, heck, they certainly could be right and I could be wrong.
I do believe in spiritual/physical/geographical changes that lead to new ways of thinking.

Any number of events could bring this about.
I, personally, have never seen that the 3 major religions have any conflict in their ideas about the "End of the World". Say for example, the "second coming of Christ, for Christians, could be the arrival of the Messiah for the Jewish people etc.
I can't help but think that God is a little more inclusive and a little more creative then we are. So, who knows?
As my dear mom used to say "it will come as a sheep in the night...why worry?" Although, I have to admit that I don't even know if her itnerpretation was correct.
As humans, I think our minds are far too limited and too influenced by political/geographical/scientific events to "know" when something is going to happen.
I dread the outcome of some plague, virus, earthquake, or CHEM/NUKE/BIO weapons, but some would still survive and they would have to face a whole new world. It would be interesting to see how that new world would pan out. Not sure if I want, at this age, to face those travails, but we'll see.
joey

A prediction that scares me is one of nuclear winter. Imagine a world rocked by nuclear bombs, and the aftermath is th world we have to call home. This includes contaminated water, we can't drink it....its full of radioactive fallout. We can't produce proper crops for consumptioni, again due to contamination.

What are you to do?? It's a death card for everyone on earth. Bush should be doing everything humanely possible to eradicate nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs do nothing to benefit earth and humans.

I really hope the creators regretted making them.

Nukes are what postpone the apocalypse. Thanks to nukes nobody can invade us except maybe the Great Kazoo (hes a little green man from outer space). I think the reason that everybody wonders about the apocalpyse is because everybody thinks its inevitable. Infinity is incomprehedible so everybody believes that the world will simply end. But we know it will happen in the next five billion years. After that the sun turns into a red giant and dies. So unless we abandon Earth by then were screwed.

I decided not to post this in the science forum because it can pertain to politics, wars, secret weapons, asteroids, anything. I've heard many theories here and there about how humanity will end. There's the 2012 Mayan theory which I find hard to believe, the asteroid crashing on Earth, the nuclear war possibility, AIDS, Armaggedon/Apocolypse, and so forth.

So how do you think humanity will end? Personally, I think we're doomed to face a nuclear war. What does everyone else think?

EDIT: Also, another interesting question I came up with relating to this topic. Would you rather take torture or death?

[edit on 3-9-2004 by Blackout]

Hmm..

I think the only thing that COULD wipe out humanity would be huge asteroid or comet. i.e something that literally destroys everything on the surface of the earth. Disease, war, famine, etc could kill lots of people, but not everyone. (at least not with today's weapons).

I suppose it would also be possible that in a few tens of thousands of years a more advanced "humanity" will evolve, and possibly commit genocide on it predecessors, the regular humans. Human or not would then be a bit of a blurred line.

just my thoughts.




[edit on 28/8/04 by muppet]

humanity is a disease that I believe will never be wiped out by anything out there less than a really large asteroid.

thanks,
drfunk