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Do you think Humanity will ever go Extinct?

All forms of Life will cease to exist with The Heat Death of the Universe in approximately 100 Trillion years, but do you think humanity will go extinct before then? If so, how and when?

My Opinion:

I personally believe we won't, that we will survive for as long as there are stars to orbit and hydrogen to fuse. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but at this point in our human evolution I don't see any event save a calculated extermination that could wipe us out. Statistically speaking it is unlikely a mass extinction event will occur before humans colonize another planet, and according to many scientists such as stephen hawking once space colonization has occurred the probability of a species going extinct decreases exponentially. I do believe we will have colonized a good portion of the galaxy before the Sun goes Red Giant and the Earth is destroyed, and hey, maybe by that time we will have advanced to a Level III civilization with enough energy available to move Earth to a new star system! What do you think?

9 Answers

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  • Bob B
    Lv 7
    8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    I would say you are probably right, although there may be one caveat:

    Every generation is very slightly different to the previous one, and we keep changing ever so slightly. And we are already experimenting with technological and genetic alteration for medical purposes now. I'd say that eventually, we will change ourselves, via technological means or otherwise, into something that we probably wouldn't consider "human" today. But even if the human species as we know it goes extinct, our descendants will probably live on.

    As for the heat death of the universe- it's worth mentioning that several physicists take the possibility of other universes very seriously, and we may well be able to travel to them one day. This could permit the universe to last virtually indefinitely. There is also some speculation that, depending on exactly what model of the universe is correct, certain forms of information-processing could potentially last forever. So it isn't guaranteed that life is ultimately doomed, even if the heat death model is correct (while it doesn't look like it's wrong, who knows what the future will bring).

  • 8 years ago

    I know, this is not a forum open for discussion but I'd like to respond to the answer that mention dinosaurs. We have the impression that they became extinct but only the big ones were, and after millions of years of well adaptation, much longer than the humans, so far. And the small dinosaurs are still with us, only that we now call them, birds.

    I think that humanity will survive for as long as life is possible on earth. But I don't think we will ever colonize other planets. We are at the peak of a technical revolution that started with the industrial one. But I see no reason for this to continue and make interstellar travel possible. Why would we want that?

    If you have some notion of Carl Jung's concept of archetype, you'll probably understand that what we call the Eden in the Bible is perhaps what we - humans - have as deepest aspiration: a world where everybody is nice and friendly, even the animals. I think that the future of humanity is in gene modification to get rid of the dangers of diseases and the control of our nutritional needs. Once that is achieved, a simple life is perhaps what we aspire most for. Enjoy the moment.

    What do you think, my friend?

  • Paul
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    If we can learn to work together and get off this rock I think our future is looking good. I even think we'll outlive the stelliferous era of the universe, so even after the last star has gone extinct we will learn to harness the gravitational energy of a black hole and live for a very long time after the last star has gone out - generating our own heat and light from gravitational energy.

    Ultimately though we will go extinct.

    If we don't learn to work together I very much doubt we'll succeed in getting off this planet as it's just too expensive so, filled with nationalistic pride and mistrust of any culture other than our own we will deservedly go the way of the dinosaurs.

  • 5 years ago

    Looking again the whole thing seems to have a commencing and an end, right now we're in the course of the most important extinction occasion in countless numbers of years. People are a very fragile species, we ought to eat and drink several times every day to outlive, it wouldn't take that a lot to wipe us out. Let me depend the methods... Comet have an effect on, super volcano eruption, ice age, three in a row must do it.

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  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Maybe. But it will need more than just solar fusion. Without a practicable way to recycle and/or create a breathable Oxygen containing atmosphere such as we now have, doomed. We don't evolve fast enough to be able to bypass that.

    Air.

    Water.

    Food.

    Gravity.

    Low radiation.

    Need all of those and more.

  • scott
    Lv 4
    8 years ago

    All species eventually do go extinct and we are no exception, just the most dangerous of them all, so extinction is even more close. The sun could explode, a meteor could hit, Nibiru could come, the universe could end, CERN could create a black hole that eats the earth from inside out...the possibilities are endless.

  • 8 years ago

    Humanity is almost extinct in this world, only human are left.

  • ?
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    Yes.

    The key word in your question is "ever." That's a long, long time.

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Maybe

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