Humans to go extinct in 100 years, scientist predicts

[Ken Cheng]

Very unlikely that ALL humans will go extinct.

We need to ramp up our space exploration efforts, however. The longevity of the species is highly dependent upon not being overly dependent on the mother planet.

Failing that, however, human DNA samples should be sent into deep space, so just in case humanity on Earth is wiped out, the human legacy will survive and perhaps, extraterrestrial beings with advanced technology might be able to reverse engineer human beings (why they would do it even if they could isn't well-defined, but if you have a chance, you've got to take it).

unless Earth got engulfed by Sun, aliens attacking Earth. Can happen?

Five billion years from now, if Earth still exists, the sun will engulf it. This is inevitable.

The attack by ETs, not so much.

[PJ]

We need to ramp up our space exploration efforts, however. The longevity of the species is highly dependent upon not being overly dependent on the mother planet.

Failing that, however, human DNA samples should be sent into deep space, so just in case humanity on Earth is wiped out, the human legacy will survive and perhaps, extraterrestrial beings with advanced technology might be able to reverse engineer human beings (why they would do it even if they could isn't well-defined, but if you have a chance, you've got to take it).

Sounds like a sci-fi novel plot.

[Guo Xiang]

We need to ramp up our space exploration efforts, however. The longevity of the species is highly dependent upon not being overly dependent on the mother planet.

Failing that, however, human DNA samples should be sent into deep space, so just in case humanity on Earth is wiped out, the human legacy will survive and perhaps, extraterrestrial beings with advanced technology might be able to reverse engineer human beings (why they would do it even if they could isn't well-defined, but if you have a chance, you've got to take it).



Five billion years from now, if Earth still exists, the sun will engulf it. This is inevitable.

The attack by ETs, not so much.

Sounds like a sci-fi novel plot.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

[Bai Qi44]

Human race won't last for eternity because the Earth won't last for eternity and neither would the Sun or any galaxy for that matter. Anyway, following evolution theory, trillion years from now (if the Earth has not died yet), there won't be homo sapiens anymore. We would have evolved into homo something else and that race will not look like us.

Odds of the human species surviving and evolving into the many other species trillions of years from now are unlikely. Like you indicated, all matter decays. I think I read somewhere that matter decays 10 to the power of 32 years or something like that. In trillions of years from now, the only type of stars still existing in our universe would be red dwarfs. The last thing in our universe to withstand all the decay would be blackholes. I think blackholes (depending on its size) can last 10 to the power of 100 years. Anyway, our universe's future seems more likely to be nothing more than darkness.

Dinosaurs lived on Earth for about 185 millions years, so what did dinosaurs build??? Nothing. Dinosaurs relied on nature 100% and killing each other for food. We only have a history of about 100,000 years, what have we build???


Natural disasters, wars, famines, genocides, and so on are part of life, but the human race as a whole will move on.



By then, science and technology able to solve the problems. As for our look, most of the population will be mixed race, bigger, taller, and definitely live longer.

You're only thinking of the near future and not the distant future. Dinosaurs didn't build like humans do, but that's not necessary a good thing. We build a-bombs and other weapons of mass destruction. With advancing technology, I'm sure one day that we'll build a bomb big enough to wipe out all human life on this planet. The asteroid that was believed to killed off the dinosaurs was something like the equivalent of a hundred thousand atom bombs. It only takes one mad man (i.e. Hitler) to do some mass destruction. However, it only takes one asteroid to wipe out all life on this planet. Dinosaurs were able to evolved into dinosaurs because an asteroid/comet wiped out 99% of all life on this planet prior to them. Although we can search for these killer asteroids/comets, we can only look at 10% of our skies with our current resources. That leaves 90% that's not constantly being looked at.

Anyway, extinction for all species (even if it's alien) is inevitable. We can only prolong our species, but we can never make it last forever. We might have to jump universes if we want to really really prolonged our species, but now that's asking for the unlikely.

[Guo Xiang]

Nothing is eternal, maybe except for plastics.

[remember_Cedric]

Very unlikely that ALL humans will go extinct.

unless Earth got engulfed by Sun, aliens attacking Earth. Can happen?

Human's intelligence is what that will lead to human itself to extinct. Anything is possible - A good instance is, the "never-happened-before-flood" has happened in Singapore. It need not be the two you've mentioned, but anything human built will be the monster that devours us... one way or the other. Just like the supposedly invincible iPhone, even if there's no REAL iPhone killer, iPhone is now killing itself.

[Ken Cheng]

All right...hold on a second.

While I don't share Trien's sanguineness about the inevitability of human perpetuity, I also equally reject the inevitability of human extinction (at least when it comes to alarmist talk of such an event being "imminent" in any way). As long a physical universe exists to accommodate it, humanity might endure in some form or another. Whether or not that will actually happen is anybody's guess, and it's also, to some extent, a matter of our attitudes and how much effort we want to put into our survival.

Whenever this subject comes up, however, either here at SPCNET or anywhere else, I'm appalled by the defeatism and fatalism that people adopt towards the matter of long-term survivability. No, survival isn't guaranteed...especially if we're not proactive about it. Nevertheless, I don't have very much esteem for the "Ha ha. Yeah, we're SOOOO screwed!" defeatist attitudes that I see all too often regarding this subject.

I really don't know how long humanity can/will survive. Nobody can answer that question. One thing I do know: I don't plan to just sit back, fold my arms, and just passively watch my own species disappear from to universe. Even if it's only in some very small and insignificant way, I plan to do my part to keep humanity going.

For goodness' sakes: we're human. Struggling to survive is encoded in our DNA and celebrated in our culture. It's the foundational premise of our civilizations. It doesn't guarantee anything as far as the future is concerned, but just "giving up" is really unbecoming of us.