The poll of the apocalypse

[lumberjim]

what does your GUT tell you?

[monster]

that it's lunchtime

[lumberjim]

you have to wait for the poll sometimes

[monster]

my gut's still only concerned about lunch. It has no vision. *sigh*

[lumberjim]

you could eat a pole?

[kerosene]

I voted the way I did because my option isn't really there...

"The world will end in however many millions of years it takes for the sun to swallow it up when it swells up. Humans will be extinct sometime in the next 6000 years."

[Undertoad]

The apocalypse scenario is something the human mind seems to want to believe in and to spread. The end times for humanity, if not the entire planet, is the centerpiece of just about every religion. The mind judges actions by their consequences, and the harshest of all consequences, really resonates. It is these stories that we continue to share with urgency, generation after generation after generation, even though they are flat out fantasy tales.

There's only one that's really worth talking about today. About 25 million years ago, the earth was hit by a 7-mile (10 km) wide asteroid. It landed in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. Shortly thereafter 90% of all life on the earth was wiped out.

Every few years astronomers locate another big-ass rock in space headed our direction. This being the only apocalypse that's actually proven to have happened, there should be much more emphasis on locating these things and working out how to crack them up before they reach us.

Of course 25 million years since end days is a long time, and the odds are with us.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by monster

my gut's still only concerned about lunch. It has no vision. *sigh*

hehe


I am not sure what I think about this apocalypse stuff. I am sure there have been intances in the past where it felt the world was ending. Re;world wars, genocide.

Will we blow ourselves up? Will we cover the sun in a radioactive cloud? Will a meteor hit? Will the earth warm up so much that we get one natural disaster after another? I don't know but I do think life will carry on no matter what. ( like UT said)

[spudcon]

Speaking of fantasy, Our sun orbits our galaxy every 220 million years. It has been postulated that in some parts of that orbit, the sun passes through clouds of dust and gas, causing changes in its apparent brightness from earth. In this scenario, Ice ages begin, and continue in a runaway fashion because the cooler snowy earth reflects more sunlight, causing more freezing etc. Of course, there's always the possibility of clouds of asteroids also, causing more catastrophes.
Since we are still coming out of the last ice age, isn't it fair to assume that the earth might be heating up .6 degree per cenury? Or does it make more sense to retrograde civilization because chicken little thinks he knows the sky is falling?

[Cicero]

I think the world is going to end up just fine. The difference between the world being fine and human life being fine are two different things I think. Humans, it doesn't look so good. There may be some that survive the natural instabilities inherent in living in this Universe. Dunno. But I think the earth will continue on it's natural course or a reasonable facsimile, and so will other bodies in the universe, which spells doom for any living form, in many ways....

I wouldn't call it an apocolypse...that's too biblical for me. I rely on natural law to continue to be what it is, and we are lucky to be a part of it no matter how long that is. Just the sheer improbability of us being here in our current form is overwhelming.....Much less thinking about how we intend to keep surviving the insurmountable odds against it.

I think we will continue to evade our own extinction, but going on universal natural law principles, there's just no telling how much longer we have. I think anything can happen at any time. There are no guarantees, we don't even have earthquakes or weather nailed down yet. We can fight, man vs nature, but nature will always be more powerful, and hopefully we can continue to feebley outwit the largesse of that power. But...well, the Universe is actually pretty unstable for humans as it always has been for any life, and we still know very little about it, and there is a black hole in the next galaxy over, I don't know what is going to happen!! I'm just holding onto this wild ride for as long as I can myself. It's against probability that I can even sit here and discuss this. Talk about against all freaking odds.

It's against probability that you could exist to even ask that question. So I have no answer. Really. There is a bottom line...How did we manage to get here in the first place, much less try to comprehend how long we have? I don't have another species like us or a planet like ours, a model, to base any information on whatsoever. I do know that other life forms in the universe have died due to natural occurences.

The only proof I have is that we are a very rare improbability and the universe is highly unstable in regards to life forms, wtf from here? The history of life forms, albeit single celled or not, has not been good. Bad track record. There is no evidence that we will survive long, because there is no evidence for how we managed to get this evolved in the first place, not in such a chaotic universe.



I think I will ask smooth's magic eight ball.

[wolf]

None of the above.

Or 12/21/12.

But that's a beginning, not merely an end.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Worrying about things you can't do anything about, is like paying interest on money you didn't borrow.

[Elspode]

I think that Apocalypse is likely due to a "perfect storm" of events, starting with human stupidity and greed, compounded by biological pandemics and topped off with a nice, gooey coating of natural disaster - all within a short period of time, making it impossible to effectively counter the combined effects. *When* exactly this might occur is anyone's guess, but certainly the socioeconomic state of the world right now is well positioned for *that* part of the puzzle to be initiated. A good superflu, more volcanic/tectonic activity and some unprecedented cyclonic events come along, and despotic and misguided cultures/governments would seek to take advantage (see Burma for a reference) of the confusion to further their own positions somehow, and things could get pretty fucked.

Of course, exterminating all life on the planet is a pretty tall order. After all, when we talk about Apocalypse, we're really talking about own survival.

Mother Earth does not hold human beings to be any more important than the bacteria or viri that might contribute to the eventual demise of Man on this rock. So, if *we* care about the survival of our species, we probably ought to be figuring out a way to help and cherish each other, instead of making every goddamn waking moment about having all the fucking cookies for ourselves.

[sweetwater]

As far as I know, the sun was suddenly extinguished about 8 1/2 minutes ago, so I limit my worries of the future to that time frame. Been 9 minutes and the sunlight still happening? I'm good! And I'm relying on Bruce Willis and Co. to save Earth from an asteroid, although I love dinosaurs and would not mind turning into a fossil myself to be with them. It will happen whether I wish it or not, I think.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Want to know the future? Here's the timeline.