Will humans ever go extinct?

[Renew Deal]

Do you think "humans" will ever go extinct? That means there are no more homosapiens or our evolutionary successor anywhere in the universe, most likely because of an adverse event.

29 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, humans (and their successors) will go extinct
	26 (90%)
	No, humans (and their successors) will never go extinct
	2 (7%)
	Not sure
	1 (3%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Renew Deal]

1. I think...

that the longer that humans are on earth, the more likely they can spread out in the solar system, and eventually galaxy in order to survive. So at some point, children could be born on Jupiter's moons. Combine that with improved technology, and they can expand further.

[elleng]

2. We're working on it, right now.

[live love laugh]

16. +1

[SheltieLover]

23. +1

[brooklynite]

3. Without a timeframe, impossible to respond to.

[Renew Deal]

5. Would a timeframe be helpful?

2,000 years?
65,000 years?
1 million years?
10 billion years?

How long do you think we can last? Will we be around to see the sun explode?

[relayerbob]

14. True

[Hortensis]

51. "Ever" is the problem. Even our universe is supposed to end.

[UTUSN]

4. Pretty soon. (In universe time)

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Of course

even in the exceptionally unlikely event that humanity somehow masters intergalactic space travel at some point and expands across the known universe, you can't outrun entropy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Earth,_the_Solar_System_and_the_universe

In the short term, the way things are going with climate change and our collective response to it, I rather expect that human extinction is going to happen a lot sooner; we're likely looking at a similar extinction event to the end-Permian (which was driven by climate change due to atmospheric carbon, methane and other greenhouse gases released from the Siberian Traps).

[Celerity]

7. yes, because the universe (which was referenced in the question) eventually ends nt

[Renew Deal]

8. Ha. How do we know that?

We can't say how it started. How do we know it ends?

[Celerity]

11. many different theories on how 'it' ends (I personally do think this universe ending is the end

of 'ALL')

lack of knowledge about dark matter and dark energy make it impossible to accurately predict as of now

Ultimate fate of the universe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe

[Funtatlaguy]

9. We should go extinct. We have ruined this planet 🌎 with greed.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Eventually...but not likely for thousands or even hundred of thousands of years.

[Dan]

17. I think in less than 200 years.

Climate change and over population.

Which will lead to food shortages…

Which will lead to wars…

Which will lead to an extinction event.

[Crunchy Frog]

24. I don't think that would lead to extinction.

Major social collapse and population crash, yes, but at least a few of us would survive, as long as the planet is still capable of supporting life.

Life on Earth has survived much worse than anything we've managed to dish out, and will probably continue to.

[Dan]

26. Maybe, we should define

What is an extinction level event.

And then, at what point a “few” survivors constitute a species survival.

[Crunchy Frog]

30. The species exists as long as there are survivors.

And becomes extinct once there aren't any more. Pretty straightforward.

Extinction doesn't mean "not surviving in the manner to which we have become accustomed".

[Dan]

32. You're right, but I was thinking

Not of a lifestyle to which we are accustomed, but rather with very few survivors can it repopulate a world. In theory, I guess if two people survived of opposite sexes, then yes survival is possible.

[Crunchy Frog]

35. If it was down to two survivors, then extinction would be likely.

But only once the survivors were gone.

If we have a major population crash, I'm not sure that repopulating the world would be the best plan.

We'd be much better off maintaining a sustainable lifestyle with a much smaller population. It might even enable other species to live on the planet with us.

I've never understood the notion that there needs to be as many of us as we can possibly cram into this world. Our species did just fine when there were only a few million of us.

[misanthrope]

47. What you say sounds as if you're taking for granted we would retain all current knowledge

The kind of events that precipitate a population bottleneck would likely reduce surviving humans to no more than a Bronze Age existence, with Neolithic as likely. Specialized knowledge, the basis of our civilization, would vanish.

[Wounded Bear]

12. Voted not sure...

right now we are testing whether or not we are intelligent enough to overcome our intelligence.

We're smart enough to build a lot of fancy shit. Are we smart enough to survive the side effects of using them?

Not sure.

[Ziggysmom]

13. We seem to have already lost our humanity, our benevolence

[TheProle]

15. Fun topic

An interesting article to ponder:

https://gizmodo.com/how-humanity-could-last-forever-1841892619

[TreasonousBastard]

45. Very interesting, and it asks just what do we mean by "lasting"-- if not in our physical form...

perhaps in some digital or spiritual form.

[Renew Deal]

53. Lots of ideas in that article.

I think the digital existence concept is risky. One of the biggest risks is corruption via malicious threats like hacking/viruses. I also think there are serious moral issues with digital existence. Losing the risk of dying could make the digital world extremely dangerous. Also, those morally opposed to digital existence could attack the system. That said, if I had the chance to upload my consciousness with the chance to “live forever,” I’d take it. I wonder if there are any punishments in the digital world that could lead to termination of your existence.

A Netflix show called Altered Carbon explores these topics.

[True Dough]

18. I ate waaay too many brownies today

I'm pretty much ready for extinction.

[relayerbob]

19. Extinct vs extreme depopulation

Losing 7.5 billion people is certainly feasible, and fairly soon. Howevr, the tech will likely keep some survivors around

[StevieM]

61. Methane hydrate and hydrogen sulfide will be released in large amounts

when we reach 6 degrees celsius (10.8 degrees fahrenheit) of warming. That could finish us off.

[Crunchy Frog]

20. Maybe not until the universe itself ends.

I don't think beings like ourselves will be around that long, but whatever our successors are.

I just hope our successors don't end up killing everything else in the universe.

[Renew Deal]

55. Or the other way around

One of the articles someone posted mentioned how to colonize the universe. I don’t see why another intelligent species couldn’t do the same thing. I’m not convinced that broadcasting ourselves all over the universe is a great idea.

[Dial H For Hero]

21. I doubt very much that we're going to make it to the Dark Era.

That's ten to the hundredth power years from now. A "1" followed by a hundred zeroes.

[roamer65]

22. If climate change doesn't get us, AI will.

[Crunchy Frog]

25. In that case, AI will be our successors,

So that would not qualify as extinction.

[roamer65]

38. Our extinction, yes.

Theirs? No.

[Crunchy Frog]

40. I'm just going by the wording of the OP, which

only counts it as extinction if we leave no evolutionary successors.

AI that survives us would qualify as our successor.

If you're going strictly by the survival of Homo sapiens, then that's a different question than what the poll asks.

[Renew Deal]

56. I don't count terminators as our successors.

Getting wiped out by the machines would certainly be the end of the line for humans. But I don’t think the machines benefit from doing that. Humans would make useful slaves.

[roamer65]

57. True.

I have the species cap on.

[RockRaven]

27. Absolutely. People who have fantasies of humans colonizing other worlds/bodies in a

perpetual, sustainable manner are either innumerate or lying to themselves, IMO.

[Ex Lurker]

28. It's our only chance

Even if we learn to live in complete harmony with nature, the Sun will eventually burn up the Earth.

[RockRaven]

42. It can be the only chance and no chance at all at the same time.

Kind of doesn't matter though because none of us will ever know...

[Silent3]

34. What does innumeracy have to do with it?

We don't know what the limits are of future technology, and without knowing that, it's impossible to put any numbers you might have in mind into any definitive scale.

Given a cheap source of abundant energy, many things become possible that aren't with our current energy resources.

Would I want to depend on our ability to escape this planet in a significant way? Absolutely not. But, on the other hand, if we can manage not to fuck things up so badly we collapse civilization, it seems foolish to imagine we know the limits of, say, another 500 years of advancing technology.

[RockRaven]

41. Innumeracy has a fuck-ton to do with it since Earth is going to be inside the surface of the Sun

in the long term (an extraordinarily large number of years from now but inevitable nonetheless), and that means human or human decendent survival means going off-planet.

Numeracy/innumeracy matters in that regard because of volumes being cubes of radii, flux and gravity being squares of radii, and the extinction dangers posed by evolutionary bottlenecks, just to name a few reasons...

[Silent3]

58. None of what you are talking about missed my consideration

The big time scale only favors humans managing to get off the planet before the Sun swallows up the Earth, so how that adds to your argument that colonizing space in a sustainable way being a fantasy is quite unclear.

Of course, I'm not saying humans definitely will colonize space. Just that colonizing space in the long term is not a numerical fantasy.

[StevieM]

29. I think a lot will be decided in the next 200 years.

If we can survive the worst of climate change then it is possible that our successors will evolve to an extraordinary degree and develop incredible powers and capabilities.

The scariest part of climate change is the hydrogen sulfide and methane hydrate that will be released at 6 degrees celsius (10.8 degrees fahrenheit) of warming. That is what could bring about an extinction event for a lot of species, including humans.

The key to surviving climate change will IMO ultimately be whether we can use nuclear power to achieve a geoengineering program that removes carbon from the atmosphere.

[Meowmee]

31. Yes

But not in my lifetime.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

33. Well, yes, of course.

Although as Renew Deal points out, without a time frame the question makes no sense.

All species eventually go extinct. A million years is a VERY long time for most species. Chances are, even without climate change, homo sapiens will be long gone well within that time frame.

[StevieM]

59. Congratulations on reaching 20,000 posts.

I think homo sapiens will definitely be gone. The question is whether our evolutionary successor is also gone.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

65. Hey! I hadn't even noticed I'd passed that milestone.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[sprinkleeninow]

36. We will see the sun go dark. eom

[Silent3]

37. In the short term (and I'm considering mere thousands of years short term)...

...it seems unlikely humans would go extinct. Oh, we're quite capable of sending ourselves back into the stone age, and killing off 99.99% or more of the population, but cutting down nearly 8 billion people to numbers so small that scattered survivors couldn't keep going at some meager level of existence... that's a lot harder to do than I think many people imagine. Humans have reached the level we've reached so far in part because we're very adaptable to a wide range of environments and climates.

[StevieM]

62. Point taken, but I will repeat what I have written elsewhere in this thread.

The scariest part of climate change is the hydrogen sulfide and methane hydrate that will be released at 6 degrees celsius (10.8 degrees fahrenheit) of warming. That is what could bring about an extinction event for a lot of species, including humans.

You should check out this article. If you don't have time to read the whole thing then skip to the final few paragraphs where is describes what happens at 6 degrees.

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm?fbclid=IwAR3nSMwxlQIMupZRwA8uLBjaTX3DhqT3e6oWm8YM1y2cTcYreaUamnWwXZ4

[keithbvadu2]

39. So who is going to know?

[rampartc]

43. they say every dog has his day

but when we are extinct felines will become the dominant mammalian life form.

the planet will still belong, as it has since jurrasic times, to the hymenopteae.

if we could only learn to cooperate .......

https://cisr.ucr.edu/invasive-species/argentine-ant

Due to unusually low levels of intraspecific aggression the Argentine ant can establish extremely large colonies.

[GulfCoast66]

44. Unless we find a way to leave our solar system and thrive there of course we will.

Eventually the sun will swell and destroy us. Yeah, billions of years from now. Until then? I figure some of will hang on. We are pretty resourceful.

[dweller]

46. I'm probably the last person to have a say

But I believe as long as the Earth survives, there will be life
For us to judge whether ‘we’ are the ultimate example of that existence, is our mistake, and will be our eventual doom
Self importance will end us

ymmv,

✌🏻

[DemocraticPatriot]

48. No, humans will not go extinct--- UNLESS---

we destroy each other, and the planet, to such an extent that the few survivors will not be able to find another human to breed with....

:-/

[betsuni]

49. George Carlin: "The planet is fine. The people are fucked."

[hunter]

50. Tuesday after next, by my reckoning.

Party on, Homo sapiens!



I could have chosen a lucrative field in biology, something like medicine or genetics, instead I decided to study evolution.

99% plus plus of all species are extinct.

A million years from now our civilization is nothing more than a peculiar layer of trash in earth's geologic record and a few bits of odd metal in space.

[melm00se]

52. End of the World.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6t6i26

[Elessar Zappa]

54. Eventually but

not for a long time. Even in worst case scenario global warming, there will likely be small groups that survive.

[StevieM]

60. That is something that I have been wondering about.

The scariest part of climate change is the hydrogen sulfide and methane hydrate that will be released at 6 degrees celsius (10.8 degrees fahrenheit) of warming. That is what could bring about an extinction event for a lot of species, including humans.

[Quixote1818]

63. Probably not for a long time, because some very powerful

People will be able to survive in underground military installations for years then repopulate if there is some crazy shot that goes down.

[marie999]

64. Since the last star will probably die in 100 trillion years the only way humans can live forever

would be to be able to travel to other universes. Although some quantum scientists believe we never truly die, only our bodies. The real us travels to another universe. If that is true, then maybe we have been around forever since this may not be our first universe. If it were true too bad we can't remember all our past lives.