The end of the world -

[melty]

From ISIS to preppers, from singularity fanatics to zombie apocalypse fans, it seems like many people love discussing the end of the world, at least as we know it. Some seem... disturbingly enthusiastic about it.
What do you all think? What will the end of the world be like? How likely is it really to happen in our lifetime?
What do you think about these various apocalypse-hopeful groups? Why would anyone want to witness the end of the world? You wouldn't likely come out of it an action movie hero, you'd be far more likely to die of an infection alone in a ditch or something.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

In our lifetime, probably not. Sure, with the advent of terrorism, climate and the solar system, anything's possible. And I don't doubt that the world will get worse before it even thinks about getting better. But I can't see that happening. Remember when Harold Camping made those bogus predictions in 2011? Or December 21, 2012? Where people thought the world was going to end on those occasions and it didn't?

That's more or less how I see it. I'm not saying it won't end (all things have to). Just that I can't see it happening in this lifetime. If it does, it does. I'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Melkor]

I think the end of the world is going to be fiery and painful--like, the sun will eventually die out and engulf the inner planets in our solar system. I don't want to be around when that happens.

 

[SkinExhibit]

Liz Jensen has written some interesting fiction about apocalyptic scenarios, including one in which global warming will be sped up exponentially by a methane pocket exposed by fracking/mining and super-heating the atmosphere. She tends to entwine horrific world ends with the deterioration of the human psyche and it makes for really compelling reads.

I think as far as "world ending" scenarios in our lifetime, it's going to be more "the end of the world as we know it." The world itself can only really end in the case of catastrophic environmental damage (ie massive nuclear bombing and the resulting fallout) or a collision with an extinction-event level asteroid.

 

[Goofy Logic]

The main definition of "End of the world" by post-apocalyptic media is "Sudden end of modern civilization". It is appealing because it provides an escape from the stresses of civilized life; to perhaps "get in touch" with the primitive side of us, in a world where suddenly anything is possible.

While I do not understand the mindset of Preppers (Particularly the ones who expect "the big one"), I can appreciate their actions, as they are basically gearing up to be self-sufficient in the event of trouble.

 

[Hyperion]

I read there's a 95% chance of humanity becoming extinct in the next few thousand years. So that's a thing.

 

[wet_butt]

My bet's on climate change if anything, because all the evidence I've seen points to us having ruined the climate too much to be able to hold back the big bitch slap that's coming (with global warming, you hit a certain "point of no return" where warming becomes a positive feedback loop, and we are either rapidly approaching that point, or have already passed it depending on whose paper you're reading).

I don't think it'll be fast, mass extiction events rarely are. We'll see a lot of key species going extinct and a lot of ecosystems going tits up, especially marine systems due to ocean acidification (I've got some great papers on that if anyone's interested in reading). We're going to have to get a lot more conscious of how we use our resources, especially when it comes to overfishing, because our current consumption rates aren't sustainable. It's going to get really hard to keep feeding people at the rates we do now, and as the climate continues to change, we're going to have to rework where we're cultivating specific crops, likely with big population relocation to suit rising food and transportation costs of said food. I'm personally imagining a big flight out of California as it becomes too arid for productive agriculture.

As food gets harder and more expensive to grow, costs will rise and people will inevitably go hungry. Maybe we'll see political unrest over things like food scarcity or fresh water reserves (which are also being consumed at a very unsustainable rate). Richer nations will obviously be able to float over these sorts of issues for slightly longer, but I think it'll start getting to everyone in the end.

Not sure if we'll actually see human extinction out of this in particular, but I wouldn't rule it out. Don't bother apocalypse prepping, we're going to go out with a whimper, not a blockbuster-worthy bang.

I'm not an atmospheric scientist, but my studies have overlapped into the field quite a bit, and this was my takeaway from all of that. Make of that what you will.

 

[AnOminous]

The main definition of "End of the world" by post-apocalyptic media is "Sudden end of modern civilization". It is appealing because it provides an escape from the stresses of civilized life; to perhaps "get in touch" with the primitive side of us, in a world where suddenly anything is possible.

It's also pretty unlikely short of a nuclear war.

What's more likely is we just run out of fossil fuels and then nuclear fissionables and then just sink into a ghastly dystopian nightmare as resources just become more and more scarce and then mass starvation, endless wars over resources, which themselves consume what few resources are left, and a Malthusian catastrophe.

Then things get worse. And maybe better again because eventually the population hits where it's about at the level of resources again, assuming there isn't a massive nuclear exchange during the previous part. Which there probably would be.

 

[QI 541]

Remember when Harold Camping made those bogus predictions in 2011? Or December 21, 2012? Where people thought the world was going to end on those occasions and it didn't?

Those predictions are based on religion and superstition. You shouldn't compare those to predictions based on any kind of actual analysis.

We already have the means to end the world several times over in the form of nukes, so I can see it happening by the end of the century if our politics gets bad enough.

As food gets harder and more expensive to grow, costs will rise and people will inevitably go hungry. Maybe we'll see political unrest over things like food scarcity or fresh water reserves (which are also being consumed at a very unsustainable rate). Richer nations will obviously be able to float over these sorts of issues for slightly longer, but I think it'll start getting to everyone in the end.

The world will get shittier, but it probably won't cause human extinction. In the worst case scenario, we'll simply have a mass depopulation until our numbers are low enough to sustain ourselves.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Clearly we're going to have a Left Behind-style rapture.

If you start hearing about a Romanian diplomat who's just become leader of the U.N. and can recite all its member countries in a speech... beware.

But seriously, I have a feeling that something is going to fuck us all over soon. The environment, overpopulation, any of the many, many things that are wrong with the world... one of these things will be the end of us. I'm not too sure which, but I have a feeling we'll know soon.

And once we're very certain we can't fix what we've screwed up - say, we can't fix the damage we've done to the environment, or every major nation is overcrowded... I expect that we'll have a period of widespread apathy and nihilism. If nothing can be done about the situation we're in, what is life worth? At the very worst it'd be kinda like A Clockwork Orange mixed with Soylent Green, but I don't think it'll ever get to that point. Though you can never be too cynical.

 

[The Knife's Husbando]

The end of our world? Most definitely. The end of the world? Not by any means we can cause.

A little perspective.

The earth is 4.543 billion years old. We became a fully sentient species about 200,000 years ago ( Homo Sapiens Sapiens), and I'd only really count our global dominance starting when we started transitioning from a hunter/gatherer species to substance farming- about 2000-3000 years ago- and it really kicking into gear with the industrialization of electricity, about two hundred years ago. We've been the "dominant species" for 0.0000044% of the time this planet has existed.

The largest extinction in world history, IIRC The Permian-Triassic (about 252 million years ago) ended up wiping out 96% of all aquatic species, and 70% of all terrestrial species on this planet. It took the biosphere 10 million years to recover. A blink of the eye in the grand scheme of things.

If we do fuck up as a species and start a nuclear war- The half-life of Plutonium 239 is 24,110 years. Another blink of an eye. To quote Bill Hicks: We're a virus with shoes. Mother Nature will swallow our bones like we were never here.

 

[meatslab]

It won't happen in our lifetime. When it does we won't even be the same species anymore and I'm sure earth will be like Blade Runner anyway.

 

[Zim]

Everyone likes to believe that the end times is happening right now because they want to feel like they are part of something bigger then is actually going on. They like to say look at how bad everything is right now and that's fine because they can say this if they want. The big problem with this is that it's not really any worse then any other part of world history. In fact compared to a lot of times, right now is actually pretty good. There's no plagues trying to wipe everyone out, there's no world war going on, and there are charities trying to give food and medicine to 3rd world crap holes.

Of course the people who like to look at the negative side will say "look at all the fighting in the middle east, there are people starving in africa, the rich are controlling the world, and check out all these terrorists. Surely it's the end of days!". To that I say all of this has been going on to far greater degrees for thousands of years. Everything going on right now is just an extension of how the world is and this isn't some preliminary extinction event.

 

[ASoulMan]

I for one, believe that the world as we know it is fucked once climate change sets in and the ice caps melt. If we don't do anything about it of course.

 

[Von Clausewitz]

Mankind won't die, life won't end. Mankind can die in the trillions, society can break down but I am pretty sure we are here to stay.
Even if the cold war had gone hot and the world turned into a giant Fallout-LARP, mankind would survive. It wouldn't be pretty, I would be nothing like it is now, but we would manage. We are rather good at surviving.

The only real incident I can fathom, that might be able to cause the complete destruction of mankind is rather scifi: An outside, more advanced alien civilization classifies us as a threat and decides to blow us to smithereens before we start to spread out throughout the galaxy. You know, not because they are evil, but resources are finite and we are rather good at killing things. Pest control, basically. You wouldn't want the ants to develop firearms and take your picnic either.

 

[SkinExhibit]

I hate to keep citing fiction, but Marlen Haushofer goes into an apocalyptic scenario involving food scarcity and limited usable land as well.
What I really want to know is when we can expect optimistic end of the world preppers. I'm mostly thinking about people who see the end of our world as a launch pad for exploring other solar systems or experimenting with prolonged life in deep space. What if the end of the world really just meant the end of our time on our home planet?

 

[Cave]

While it may seem crude, I think Fallout has a pretty good hypothesis. Resources and overpopulation will definitely be key factors in this issue. As resources decrease, but population only rises, then there will be extreme measures taken to conserve. Alongside this, there will be even more insidious conflicts over resources as they get more scarce. Soon, it may end in mutually assured destruction.

It may not happen for another few centuries, but even that might be over-estimating. I'm honestly not sure.

I'm not sure why someone would want to see the world end. I've met edgy fedoras and crazies who wish for zombie apocalypses. For the latter, I think it's more a power fantasy than anything else.

 

[meatslab]

While it may seem crude, I think Fallout has a pretty good hypothesis. Resources and overpopulation will definitely be key factors in this issue. As resources decrease, but population only rises, then there will be extreme measures taken to conserve. Alongside this, there will be even more insidious conflicts over resources as they get more scarce. Soon, it may end in mutually assured destruction.

It may not happen for another few centuries, but even that might be over-estimating. I'm honestly not sure.

I'm not sure why someone would want to see the world end. I've met edgy fedoras and crazies who wish for zombie apocalypses. For the latter, I think it's more a power fantasy than anything else.

I've read that once we hit 10 billion people we will actually start to maintain that population. We actually have more than enough resources to sustain a large population, we just don't distribute it equally. That's our only problem in regards to "overpopulation". It's just greedy assholes fucking the rest of us over.

And yeah I don't understand people who wish for an apocalypse either. Especially when it comes to zombies. People really don't realize how hardy the human body is (when they talk about how resourceful they'd be with using swords and household objects) and they all heavily underestimate their own fear. At least I can admit I'd just go ahead and blow my brains out.

 

[Cave]

I've read that once we hit 10 billion people we will actually start to maintain that population. We actually have more than enough resources to sustain a large population, we just don't distribute it equally. That's our only problem in regards to "overpopulation". It's just greedy assholes fucking the rest of us over.

And yeah I don't understand people who wish for an apocalypse either. Especially when it comes to zombies. People really don't realize how hardy the human body is (when they talk about how resourceful they'd be with using swords and household objects) and they all heavily underestimate their own fear. At least I can admit I'd just go ahead and blow my brains out.

Very good point. It is true that there are supreme amounts of inequality in this world. There are a few who own a lot and do not wish to share. That's a bad setup if I've ever heard one.

 

[AnOminous]

There's no plagues trying to wipe everyone out, there's no world war going on, and there are charities trying to give food and medicine to 3rd world crap holes.

Humanity has only in the very recent past even been capable of wiping out its own habitat.

You can't exactly do that with bows and arrows.