xepherys

So, neither of these events individually sparked much curiosity in me, but both together at least make me ponder the situation.

First, not long ago, Stephen Hawking gave a speech where he commented that mankind has about 100 years to figure out how to travel and basically live in space, or it'll likely be the end of our race.

Next, I heard and then read some information about Sylvia Brown (a psychic) saying that she "doesn't see any new souls being reborn on Earth", meaning apparently that the human race will be dying out in the next 95 years or so. I DO believe in psychic abilities, to one degree or another, though I'm not sure I believe in Sylvia Brown. But the two statements, reflected upon together, from such vastly different people makes me wonder...

Do we really only have 100 years left?

Willravel

I don't really beleive in psychic abilities, but I DO believe in Professor Hawking. I suspect that he is warning us based on the current politcal, economic, and environmental situations. Nuclear war is still very much possible. Most scientists worth their salt say that global climate change (formerly called global warming) is changing our atmosphere in ways that may be irreperable in our lifetimes. The seperation of the few wealthy and the many poor is continuing at an accelerated rate. Food, clean water, and electricity are proving to be unable to keep up with the human population of the earth. Steven Hawking is simply stating the obvious: things look pretty grim, and if nothing is done to fix it, we'll all be screwed. I tend to agree, though I find it a bit alarmist. I think we're much more likely to fix the problems previously mentioned than to colonize space. Space is a prety sary place. I doubt we have the finances, inferstructure, or even technology to truely colonize the Moon, Mars, or some nearby planetoid.

Rodney

Hey, the old Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Some believe that the Mayan astrologers foretold that the world would end in that year, and so found no reason to extend their calculations any further. That's about as good a prediction as Sylvia Brown's.

Frankly, I'm about 50 years old and I've been reading psychic predictions for most of that time. The end of the world, World War III, the collapse of California into the ocean, and various other icky things have been predicted by various media-connected psychics for 1970, 1980, 1990, and so on -- along with the coming of our Space Brothers from Alpha Centauri who would lead us to an earthly paradise. None of that has come true, though I'm kinda regretful about the Space Brothers.

As for Hawking: he's going on the supposition that as we continue to develop new technologies, the potential for one or more going seriously awry -- or being used to deadly intent in a war -- grows ever higher. In the next 50 or 100 years, man's technology may well give some of us the power of the gods -- but not necessarily the wisdom. This is what Hawking's talking about, and he's got a point.

Suppose somebody uses nanotechnology to make a deadly "plague" that spreads on the air and destroys human life -- or, say, only human life that has certain markers in its genome (certain racial or ethnic groups, for example.)

Suppose somebody tries to create a mini-black hole in the lab, it escapes, sinks to the earth's core, and gradually absorbs more and more of the mass until the entire planet collapses. Scientists at CERN, I believe, are set to try to make quantum black holes in the lab 2008 or so. They assure us that these holes will evaporate almost as soon as they're created. They assure us it will all be harmless. They're probably right. Probably...

Even what we've done already -- global warming -- has at least the potential for a worst-case scenario that would bring a very severe decrease in the carrying capacity of the earth for human beings, much less human civilization. If the ocean was to rise even 20 feet, watch a war or two break out. And that'd be only the beginning.

This, and much more, is what Hawking's talking about, and he's right as far as he goes. The only way to absolutely protect human life and civilization in one of these bad scenarios (and there seem to be more of them every year) is to plant it in several isolated places throughout space, away from earth, so that no possible holocaust would get them all.

There are several bits of hope, as far as I can see. One is that we'll get lucky, not create a disaster that's too big for us to handle, and group together in the crisis to solve the problem. The second is that we'll have a series of crises that won't disrupt the entire world, but will leave the survivors sadder and wiser, in a harsher environment that they know they must succor anew -- or die.

The last bit of hope is this: technology can be used to make us all wiser and more intelligent as powerful, through direct interfaces with machines, computers and eventually each other. Technology does have the potential to create a better human -- from the ground up, or from add-ons (my personal preference) who is much more capable of safely wielding the new powers he/she will gain.

ironman

In 95 years i think i may still be here, bitching about my knees and how good old 2020's were the best years of human history, i'll be watching (in Fry's words) tv that has more definition than real live and my grand grand sons will be a mixture of every race on earth enjoying vacations in the moon and mars.
If there is something that i believe for a fact, is that as long as there are humans on earth, there will be a will to survive and to make things better, callme a fool, but I truly belive in human spirit and Pangea.

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Toaster126

As the world goes on, the bad apples have more and more of an oppourtunity to fuck up everything for everyone else... something really terrible WILL happen. I only hope we can get through it.

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nohitters

i had a farely in depth conversation with my physics professor, and he told me that scientists currently believe that the earths magnetic field is weakening, and will soon shut down completely and flip so that the magnetic north pole will once again be in the north and vice versa for the south. being as the earths magnetic field protects the earth by reflecting dangerous cosmic rays from entering the earths atmosphere, the earths environment will be destroyed during the time in which the magnetic field is disabled. just another interesting possibility of the future to come

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Willravel

Well the thing is that no one has any idea when the magnetic field will become too weak to support life. It could be 100 years, it could be a billion. While stuff like that really needs to be researched like mad (and it really is facinating stuff!!), for us non-scientists it's just another drop in the bucket. I'm filing it next to earth-killer asteroids, quantum phenomena resulting in massive inconsistencies in the laws of physics, and people cloning.

Infinite_Loser

Earth's magnetic field is weakening, that's true. Ehhh... I'm not a scientist, but I remember that Earth's magnetic field reverses every couple of thousand years (I don't really remember the number). So that, in iteself, is nothing to be alarmed by. Life still goes on. Though, it would be rather interesting to see what effects it would have on our ecosystem.

Anyway, if human's are to die off it'll more than likely be because we kill ourselves off, rather than some external force killing us off.

Willravel

I whole-heartedly agree!!! Most everything new in the world has been created by us. Since life has been on Earth for billions of years (or since God said, "Let there be dudes"), stuff has come and go, but nothing has ended it. Thngs have come close, but something always survived. If small mammals can survive the K-T extinction 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous, then man can probably survive a lot that nature could throw at us. The stuff that we have makes an asteroid the size of Texas seem like small potatoes. Take nuclear weapons, for example. Let's reproduce the type of reaction that occours in the sun! Or maybe biological weapons. Hmm...this strain of small pox that makes you Spoiler: crap out your own intestines isn't quite scary enough...maybe we should mix it with that one virus that Spoiler: eats away at your balls from the inside with fire!!

Redlemon

A little longer than that.
Also,
Hey, the Wiki shouldn't be a primary resource tool, but I'll trust it enough for something like this.

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Ustwo

While I can't find a transcript of Hawkings talk, the quotes I could find made it clear he was talking in far more general terms than 'we will be extinct in 100 years if we don't go into space.'

Really nothing will 'destroy' the human race outside of a cosmic type disaster, be it something predicted like an asteroid strike or something hypothetical like getting to close to a mini-blackhole. The earth may be a far less friendly place to live, even billions may die, but mankind has survived iceages, we can handle the next 100 years.

I think he is thinking this is more of a breaking point in history, where if we don't start finding solutions, things will be to chaotic in the future to do so.

Personally I think the gist of what he is saying is correct, I think his time frame is rather arbitrary though, and picked more for impact than substance. Hawkings knows how to self promote and work the press. If he said 500 years, thats too long for most people to worry about. If he said 50 years thats too short, people remember 50 years and the problems we had during that time which seemed horrible but worked out, so he says 100. Short enough to put a bit of panic in there and get the press attention, short enough to think about your childrens life time, long enough to give some wiggle room.

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xepherys

Ustwo, I think you hit my views jsut about dead on.

Infinite_Loser

Now that I think about it, I remember seeing some documentary-type show on TV concerning the end of the world when I was in the 7th grade or so. It basically said that some maniac from the middle east would get his hand on a nuclear weapon, drop it into a volcano where it would travel to the earth's core and then detonating it to cause a series of geologic chain reactions which would cause the earth to explode.

Personally, if I'm still alive when the end of the human race comes, I'd prefer to be incinerated in a nuclear blast of some sort.

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Zeraph

I think that was Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.

THGL

I think some brilliant scientist will invent/discover the cascading nuclear reaction. The first real-world test will undoubtedly annihilate everything with its cascading fission reaction.

Billions upon billions of years from that point in time, another brilliant scientist will theorize a "big bang" that started the universe.

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SSJTWIZTA

wow, this thread was a mind-fuck.

im going to be thinking about this crap all day.

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analog

I am 25 and as such will not be here in 100 years. I can pretty much guarantee it.

And since I'm not having any children, I'm not leaving anything behind to cause me to really care what happens after I go.

Now, this is not to say that I don't support measures to help ensure the future of the human race, like space stations and peace around the word and all that shite. I will do my part to try and help, and will support others in doing the same- but if that's our inevitable fate, I really don't care. I'll be dead by then.

Besides, i'm convinced we're going to have a large-scale nuclear incident within the next 10 or 15 years, max. And i'm not talking reactor meltdown, either.

longbough

Let's just say it's all true ... that the human civilization has only 100 years left ...

I'm still going to go to work while I can 'cause I love my job ...
I'm still going to date women, sometimes fall in love and, occasionally, get my heart broken ...
I'm still going to try to keep in shape ... sometimes enjoying a steak or fries ...
I'm still going to watch porn and jerk-off ...
I'm still going to buy clothes, cars, cell-phones, be nice to my neighbor, hug my neice and nephew and tell my parents that I love them ...

genuinegirly

hmmmmm

i'm with Longbough there.

but i always had this dream as a kid of running a space-station botanical research garden. Someone like Koko O'Brien in Star Trek TNG. I am currently in a genetics & plant biology undergraduate program. seems like a step along that path.

hmmmmm. maybe i'll get to go to space one day.

in the meantime, i'm going to water my sunflowers, have a good time learning stuff, and make fancy coffee drinks at work. sounds like a good life to me.

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Ch'i

Seeing as how things are currently going, I find Mr. Hawking's remark very reasonable. It seems that most warnings like this fall upon deaf ears, mainly because people don't like to change their daily lives; habitual living can be quite comfortable.

Take H.G. Wells for exaple. He predicted tanks being employed to end trench warfare, planes being used in war to control the sky, and the bombing of london, two to twenty-five years early with adaquate warnings to his readers. Their response, of course, was laughter. He was so furious that he later said his epitaph should read "God damn you people; I told you so."

The best thing we can do is to see a problem for what it is (no bullshit), find ways to fix it, attempt to fix it, and then learn from our mistakes. Then we can grow. Simply ignoring a problem tends to be a bad idea.

Infinite_Loser

All right... I got a bit curious so I googled Sylvia Browne and I found her "Predictions" for the next 100 years.

http://www.sylvia.org/home/2000plus.cfm

I believe that #35 is what you were referring to.

Anywho, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this lady is a nut-job and has no idea what she's talking about.

As someone else said (I think it was the poster before me) Steven Hawking believes that humanities greatest threat is-- You guessed it-- Humanity. If we can keep from blowing each other to kingdom come or keep from killing our planet (Global warming) and spread throughout the universe, colonizing other planets in the process, then we have a good chance of survival.

Of course, there's the small problem of actually finding a planet to colonize and having the technology to do so (Which, at this point in time, is pretty far off)...

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Deltona Couple

Logic Dictates that this will never be able to occur with current technology, because no material capable of housing a nuclear weapon would be cabable of withstanding the intense heat of a volcano. All wiring and circuits would melt LONG before the weapon could reach an "earth altering" depth.

Ch'i

I was looking for something on the last two posts and came across this. I had to take a second from thinking about the idea and laugh my ass off.

hunnychile

.............HaH! Not me, In fact, I'm still chuckling over this thread. 100 years? Oh pleeeeeze!!!!

Even the dinos lasted longer than that! Any geologists and anthropologists out there to quantify these comments?

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Ch'i

Dinosaurs weren't greedy, and in possesion of nuclear weapons. At least none of the ones I knew.

hotzot

I thought the Mayan calender said we only have 6 more years. 2050 sounds pretty good to me! Whew! dodged another bullet!

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goddess_otu

While I do believe in some psychic abilities, I take everything Sylvia Brown says with a grain of salt. That woman is a loon.

I think at this point the human race is thriving. To suggest that it would deteriorate in as little as 100 years is just dumb. Unless there is some sort of natural disaster, etc. that cuts the existance of humans short, there is no reason to believe that our days are numbered.

Lasereth

I think that our world will not have changed much at all in 100 years. We sure as hell won't even get close to having created a space ship capable of travelling our solar system in 100 years, much less outside of our solar system. Automobiles that drive on the ground will still be used, most likely still being propelled by some sort of combustion engine. The theory that we will EVER have flying cars is pretty much bullshit if you ask me. Think about all of the bad drivers now, and think about what would happen if we were all a mile in the air with them. Not gonna happen.

I think 300 years is a pretty good estimate for travel within our solar system. We're nowhere near any type of technology that allows travelling speeds fast enough for a human to make it to the outer planets in any reasonable amount of time, and most definitely not outside of it.

Nanomachines won't catch on for years and years and years and years. People say we'll be using them in our everyday lives by 2010 but that's bullshit. More like 2050 earliest use.

Technology has improved by a truly remarkable amount in the past 100 years, but 100 years ago, we walked around in our houses with lights on, drove cars to work, and fought wars with automatic machine guns. You went to college to get a nice job. There weren't as many conveniences as there is now, but in a dumbed down simplistic view, not much has drastically changed our society (like electricity). 100 years from now we'll definitely be more computerized and technology will be of higher quality and much easier to use, but nothing earth-changing or human-ending will occur, be it global warming or comets.

None of this is backed up with facts but it's simply by view of the world and technologies' rate of advancement.

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Ch'i

And here I thought nuclear war was scary... I couldn't even imagine. The death toll would be in the millions.

Zeraph

Well it depends if you mean manned space ship, Lasereth. We've already sent an unmanned space ship out of our solar system and two more (i think) are about to follow.

Plus look at how much we've accomplished in the last 100. We didn't even have passenger airplanes in 1900, yet with this century we've already sent people into space, and we're almost done with a space station. Imagine what we might be able to do in another 100 years.

We've had the technology to set up a permanent habitable zone on Mars for the last decade or more. It's simply our desire that has been lacking. My point is that desires can change fast, and we could easily have an explosion of new space technology tomorrow. Think, if we pickced up a radio transmission from an alien civilization how much that would change our motivation for space travel.

Lasereth

I can only hope that we pick up communication from another system in my lifetime. That would be unbelievably cool. I love space and astronomy but it's really depressing to know that people 500 years from now will get to see all of the "cool stuff" and we get shafted. Ha ha.

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Mister Coaster

Technology has increased (and is increasing) at an exponential rate. You can't simply look back 100 years and say "look at how far we've come." You have to look at the history of the Earth and the fact that "the age of humans" is a geologic blink of an eye. We have come from banging sticks & stones together to space travel (well, the ability to go into space anyway) WAYYYYY faster than it took for the dinosaurs to meet their demise, and that wasn't at their own hands.

NOW look at the last 100 years in comparison to the history of man, and it boggles the mind to thing how much farther we will be in 100 years. (I'm sure you can all remember the days of the 100 Meg hard-drive? And that was just a few years ago) Hawking's prediction holds a lot of clout with me because the thought of the "accidental appocolypse" seems the most likely senario. Current technology may be limited, but once something new is invented that CAN withstand the heat of the sun, who knows?

The artificial black hole thing really scares me. Who knows, maybe every black hole in space is what remains of every "intelligent" race of beings who attempted to create an artificial black hole???

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hrandani

Something tells me you just ruined half a dozen pulp scifi novels for me.