Human race 'will be extinct within 100 years', claims leading scientist

Um, the person I think most able to predict the future - Ray Kurzweil - is crazier than a bucket full of snakes who are all high on LSD.

And he thinks by 2050, humanity will merge with non-biological intelligence and crazy shit will happen. Possibly involving snakes.

His near future predictions are a little less crazy - better nanotech, better infotech, better biotech - but even still, I'm fully expecting a good half of them to be wrong.

I will say this: If we don't change A SINGLE THING, we'll be extinct within a hundred years. And as we all know, humans never ever change.

Now I'm gonna go shit in the woods, kill a tiger with my bear hands, skin it with a rock, then starve for a bit.

I've been extremely depressed lately. Perhaps instinctively, I suspect he's right. And I don't like it at all, because until recently, I've had great faith in us homo sapiens. But the good ones can't seem to get control . . . .

Does not bother me in the slightest.

Damn! I was so looking forward to my 148th birthday.

Hopefully a REALLLLYYYY affective source of birth control will come out before then....

William Haskins said:

As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction.

And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years.

He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and 'unbridled consumption.’

Fenner told The Australian newspaper that 'homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years.'

'A lot of other animals will, too,' he added.

'It's an irreversible situation. I think it's too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ears-population-explosion.html##ixzz0rLyNFy9c​

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Darn, you have to love the optimistic ones.

My predictions for the future, for those who will take copious notes:

C.bronco's blockbuster hit from her graphic novel, Capon Frank, will encourage PETA to make more outrageous claims, and therefore make a sequel necessary.

AW will go down in history as the greatest literary salon of the 21st century. Writer friends from AW will be listed in Norton Anthologies for hundreds of years.

100 years from now, students in universities worldwide will ponder the meanings of KTC's many threads. They will respond in complete awe, believing that none of his posts were random.

Stacey's zombies will eat the BP oil spill.

Quickwit's posts will replace the tenets of Buddha as the means to world peace and chili-dogs, and/or cheese-steaks.

William Haskins will be recognized as the ultimate political authority, despite the many claims that "Hazkins wuz mean to me" and the lolcat pictorials.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will win the Sprint Cup.

That is all.

And didn't fifty years ago, they believe that the only way the Cold War would end would be Nuclear Holocaust?

I'll believe that crap when I see it.

He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and 'unbridled consumption.'

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Whoo. We're gonna shop 'til we drop.

PoppysInARow said:

And didn't fifty years ago, they believe that the only way the Cold War would end would be Nuclear Holocaust?

I'll believe that crap when I see it.

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Yeah, I think it's kinda bs also. A hundred years is only like two or two and a half generation. Nothing less than a nuclear war will do that. And even nukes wouldn't gurantee the death of all humanity. A major disaster or a world war could kill off a large portion of the population, but not all.

We humans are like cockroaches. As long as the surface of the Earth survives, so will we.

I think the Mayans stoppped the calendar in 2012 because the guy who was carving it either died or lost his funding.

Homo sapiens, meh. Maybe Frank and Zoombie are both right -- evolution and extinction are intimately entwined, so perhaps those distant folks will be moto(r) sapiens. I'll be really pissed if there aren't flying cars by then, though.

After I finish the t-shirts tho... bear with me for a few...

C.bronco said:

My predictions for the future, for those who will take copious notes:

C.bronco's blockbuster hit from her graphic novel, Capon Frank, will encourage PETA to make more outrageous claims, and therefore make a sequel necessary.

AW will go down in history as the greatest literary salon of the 21st century. Writer friends from AW will be listed in Norton Anthologies for hundreds of years.

100 years from now, students in universities worldwide will ponder the meanings of KTC's many threads. They will respond in complete awe, believing that none of his posts were random.

Stacey's zombies will eat the BP oil spill.

Quickwit's posts will replace the tenets of Buddha as the means to world peace and chili-dogs, and/or cheese-steaks.

William Haskins will be recognized as the ultimate political authority, despite the many claims that "Hazkins wuz mean to me" and the lolcat pictorials.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will win the Sprint Cup.

That is all.

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Brilliant post. And both chili-dogs & cheese-steaks can be one with everything.

I do what I can, yanno, it's the obligation I feel towards humanity.

Hey, remember the US is supposed to fall apart this year and dissolve the Union.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

Forgot about that. We'll have to pass it by Mythbusters (my son loves that show).

C.bronco said:

I think the Mayans stoppped the calendar in 2012 because the guy who was carving it either died or lost his funding.

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Maybe he got a hand cramp, or figured we'd get the point and not need carvings to remind us.

Zoombie said:

Um, the person I think most able to predict the future - Ray Kurzweil - is crazier than a bucket full of snakes who are all high on LSD.

And he thinks by 2050, humanity will merge with non-biological intelligence and crazy shit will happen. Possibly involving snakes.

His near future predictions are a little less crazy - better nanotech, better infotech, better biotech - but even still, I'm fully expecting a good half of them to be wrong.

I will say this: If we don't change A SINGLE THING, we'll be extinct within a hundred years. And as we all know, humans never ever change.

Now I'm gonna go shit in the woods, kill a tiger with my bear hands, skin it with a rock, then starve for a bit.

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Wait, you've got bear hands?

Damn, the human manipulation is further along than I had feared!

kaitiepaige17 said:

Hopefully a REALLLLYYYY affective source of birth control will come out before then....

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We do. It's a combo of overpopulation and the collapse of the food supply. It's definitely "affective."

Who was that guy - he died recently - 50+ years ago the population was growing and the big prediction was that millions, even hundreds of millions would starve to death, but he engineered a better way to grow wheat, and then the population grew to what it is today...probably billions of people alive now owe their lives to that guy.

PoppysInARow said:

And didn't fifty years ago, they believe that the only way the Cold War would end would be Nuclear Holocaust?

I'll believe that crap when I see it.

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The US, Soviet and Chinese governments were neither stupid nor crazy, but now more and more nations are getting The Bomb with leaders who are more and more questionable about their intelligence and sanity.

This is how Stephen Hawking has suggested Humanity might end. He was promoting space colonization as a way to not have all our eggs in one basket. While I like the idea myself, it IS rather expensive, and would be a big project to make self-sustaining.

willietheshakes said:

Wait, you've got bear hands?

Damn, the human manipulation is further along than I had feared!

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According to the Bill of Rights, I have bear arms and I have a Constitutional right to them.

It's no more bizarre an interpretation tham what I've heard from some of the Supremes.

benbradley said:

According to the Bill of Rights, I have bear arms and I have a Constitutional right to them.

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That was very forward-thinking of the founders!

benbradley said:

This is how Stephen Hawking has suggested Humanity might end. He was promoting space colonization as a way to not have all our eggs in one basket. While I like the idea myself, it IS rather expensive, and would be a big project to make self-sustaining.

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Forget space colonization, alternate realities are the way to go. We just hop over to an earth where humans never existed, plunder it of all its resources, then move onto the next earth where no intelligent life ever formed. The best part is that there's an infinite number of them. We can chop down trees forever and never have to worry.

benbradley said:

According to the Bill of Rights, I have bear arms and I have a Constitutional right to them.

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How could it possibly be misconstrued?

Shadow Dragon said:

We humans are like cockroaches. As long as the surface of the Earth survives, so will we.

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This.

Population explosion and diminishing natural resources will affect us, but total extinction of the human race within one hundred years? Absurdity. It would take a global nuclear holocaust, or a giant meteorite hitting the planet, etc., to cause the extinction of our species so quickly.

I find it much more likely that the population will continue to soar, and the quality of living for each individual person will decline, until we reach critical mass and recidivate to a cluster of warring tribes, fighting over water and bandwidth. Not that we are very far removed from such state.