How will the world end?

[Lutarist Jake]

How do you think the world will end? State your views here.

[Awesome_Paul]

I think the world won't end. But most of the world will go in extreme chaos.

In about 50-60 years, all the oil will run out. And Russia won't give any out. which means no Oil for the countries.

Basically all the energy materials (oil, coal etc) will run out. And to be honest, they can't run the world on Wind/water/solar power completely.

[Meeptroid]

I chose my answer out of personal beliefs.

[Ellie_Penguin]

My decision was made out of personal belief; however, I think half of the world will perish when the comet strikes in 2036. I believe scientists are not telling us the truth to avoid chaos, but I doubt the comet will just pass with a strike probability of ZERO.

[antiaircraft]

I didn't vote because honestly it could be any of those and more, but I think that probably the human race will have destroyed itself long before the world ends.

 

*cough*ifIcan'ttakeovertheworldImightgetmadanddestroyitmyself*cough*

[Xepha]

Sorry, I didn't vote because I don't like any of the answers that are there...

 

I believe we are currently destroying the world in which we are living and that humans will perish because of humans actions. Nothing is being done to stop humans' stupidity. We just open our TV and watch what is happening. It's really sad.

[Lutarist Jake]

You know, you don't really have to vote. Just state your views. And I agree. It's sad.

[smumpkins]

I agree with Xepha. Humanity sucks. We will be the death of ourselves. And I'm going to laugh when the ozone layer is gone, because I'll be the first person to move underground.

[Lutarist Jake]

Hang on, what's the meaning of humanity?

[antiaircraft]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity

 

Basically humanity refers to the human race in general. It's human nature to alter our environment to suit ourselves, even if it results in long term damage.

[Lutarist Jake]

That's pretty bad. Perhaps the world just might end like that.

[antiaircraft]

Honestly, I think that whichever way the world ends, human stupidity will be involved somehow.

[Samuel]

Unless there's some big catastrophe, I don't see it ever ending, really. We've become so developed - why would we just suddenly die out, unless there's some major virus, a major comet or whatever hitting us, or something we can't help?

 

As stupid as humanity may be, the ones in power aren't stupid enough to let things go so bad as to end the world. It's my view that we won't ever see a war with nuclear weapons used on a mass-scale simply because politics have changed - to use them against citizens of another country would just not happen. Possibly on military bases, yes; but targeting countries as a whole, blitzing them out? I just don't see it happening. Sure, in the 60's, in the Cold War, it was a real possibility (there was a Russian missile trained four miles down the road from where I am during the Cuban Missile Crisis), but these days, it just wouldn't happen. It'd be sorted out another way - diplomatic blockades, trade embargos, and the like. Or, failing that, secret services'll take out those who might be pressing a big red button.

 

As a society, we're stupid, we're lazy and we're uncaring. But when it comes down to it, the people in control won't just make stupid, rash decisions (as much as you'd think things like the Iraq war were rash, there would've been some seriously important meetings over it; and as for 9/11, well, that had over 10 years of planning) and we will be saved from ourselves, by ourselves.

 

And as for a Ice Age or whatever...I'm sure there'll be a way that we'll cope with it. I don't think it'll be a case of, "oh, no, there's an ice age coming...oh well, stuff it, we can't do anything so we won't bother trying" - let's love the scientists. ;)

 

And, sorry for asking, but why would the world end when 'Jesus comes'? What, is he just going to sweep us off to a better place, or something?

 

There's my opinion. :)

[antiaircraft]

I don't agree with you about people in power. If you look at hurricane Katrina, the government was specifically warned by scientists that there was a flood risk in New Orleans sometime back in 2004, and when Katrina hit a year later nothing had been done about it. Now scientists are saying that global warming is a very real threat, and, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think many countries around the world are doing much about it.

[Lutarist Jake]

Sam, according to the Bible, during the second coming of Jesus, all Christians will be taken to heaven and all non-Christians would perish in hell. It is some sort of 'Personal Beliefs' choice.

[smumpkins]

So, Jesus, the man who supposedly came to save us all, will come a second time just to kill us all. >_<

[Samuel]

I'm talking about major world threats on a short-term basis (such as nuclear war, which breaks out and devastates within seconds). GLobal warming is an issue, but countries are doing a hell of a lot, actually - this week, APEC have signed up to some very extensive treaties regarding global warming, and the EU have some already in place. The UN also are discussing it.

 

And Hurricane Katrina...well, it's always going to be a bit like that. It's a localised disaster, though; as much as I appreicate the impact it had, it was very much localised, and no-where near a worldwide disaster (neither environmentally nor humanitarian), and the government of the country it affected should've taken action. But funding doesn't really go to flooding as much as it should (this is another issue); what I'm on about is that there won't be a nuclear war or anything that we can control that'd break down, because these high priority meetings will take place and things'll be stopped (whether or not that means killing a few people here or there). I just don't think that they'll leave things, and decide to give up; in this day and age, that's just not feasible.

 

Lutarist Jake, thanks - I've not read the Bible personally, and what I've studied in class hasn't come to that yet. However, are you sure it's definately 'Christians will perish'? Does it specifically say that? As far as I'm aware, the Bible - and God - will accept and pray for anyone who is good and righteous, helps their neighbour and abides by the ten commandments of Moses (or, abides by the rules of their religion [which in all religions requires you to be good and righteous anyway]); it doesn't seem, to me, to be very likely that they'd say, "hey, you're Buddhist, you can't come up". Have you got a specific Bible verse that I could look up?

[smumpkins]

@Samuel: FINALLY! SOMEONE ELSE WHO THINKS THAT RELIGIONS SPECIFY THEMSELVES SOLELY JUST BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY'RE BETTER!

 

Seriously, the only way a nuclear holocaust could actually happen worldwide would be if all the countries became dictatorships or if we all declare this a state of war, placing the president as the sole commander of our country. v_v;;

[Lutarist Jake]

Christians would not perish, but go to a better world,which is heaven.

[antiaircraft]

At this point nuclear war isn't really that feasible, simply because there aren't very many countries armed with nuclear weapons, but we advance all the time. There will probably come a time where most of the countries in the world have a nuclear arsenal, and then nuclear war is pretty much inevitable, but by that time we might have developed countermeasures that could drastically reduce the effect of nuclear weapons. By then we'll probably be using some newer, even more powerful weapons as well.

 

If you look back over time, there's a pattern: in the stone age, the most we could do was probably wipe out another tribe or two, later we could destroy an entire city, and in the last century we've had two world wars, both of which caused damage on a massive scale. I think it's quite possible that the rate at which we kill each other might eventually exceed our rate of population growth.

 

And that brings up another possibility. What if the human race dies out simply because we can't produce enough food to sustain our rapidly growing population?

[smumpkins]

Or, here's another way to think of things. In countless sci-fi novels, there's a species that only survives thanks to cloning, since they bred so much that they lost the capability to reproduce. What if, by some slim chance, that radiation levels get so high that we can no longer reproduce?

[Lutarist Jake]

They're just fiction. It probably would not happen at all. Besides, how do you know that the certain species is the humans?

[Crusher]

This is an extremely wide and complex debate, but let me sum up my personal opinions as follows.

 

I believe that humans will kill themselves. The world itself will probably not end until the Sun becomes a Red Giant before imploding into a White Dwarf, forming a Black Hole and sucking in our entire Solar System. Humans, however, are a different matter. I think that we are likely to die from Global Warming before we run out of energy supplies. The world will fall into a massive state of panic, possibly causing several varoius attacks on society and creating mass despain. Then the ice covering Antartica will melt causing a massive raising of water levels. This in turn will create massive flooding and an "Atlantis" effect on many small islands and even larger ones over time. Perhaps we may adapt and mutate into water creatures but we will probably all be dead by then.

[Lutarist Jake]

What do you mean mutate? Is it like evolving?

[antiaircraft]

Evolution is adaptation to the environment through a long series of small mutations, but if global warming brings about the end of the human race, I don't think we'll be able to evolve fast enough. On the other hand, we could always live on floating cities, but there are many other effects of global warming.