Human extinction research

found this article interesting so thought I'd share.

www.bbc.co.uk...

further reading if you wanted to see more on this;


cser.org...


www.fhi.ox.ac.uk...

Some valid points I thought. its a bit terminator in parts, but the idea that 99% of all species that have ever lived on earth are now extinct to me is thought provoking to say the least.

And the fact that Stephen Hawking himself is a co founder of CSER says to me theres some weight behind this. Something worth thinking about anyway I thought.

What do you guys think?

Cheers

Interesting stuff!

99% of all species that have ever lived on earth are now extinct to me is thought provoking to say the least.

If we continue to evolve in some way, we won't be the same species we are today. So, in that sense although Homo Sapiens may go extinct, it could be said that the "Human Race" (in the form of successor species) may continue on-ward.

Extrapolating from the idea of "Idiocracy", maybe that will be some species such as "Home Stupidis"

reply to post by EnhancedInterrogator


True. I was just thinking about all the species we'll never even know existed here

reply to post by Reaper62


Great thread OP and some valid concerns touched upon.

Given the thoughtlessness with which we have given away our privacy, it isn't hard to imagine the general populous giving away our humanity.

However, with extensive genetic samples and ample historical records we could always come back from nearly any catastrophic mistake of the highest order.

The biggest threat is the destruction of the planet so we have to become a class 2 civilization.

Unless the solar system is under threat so then we would have to become a class 3 civilization.

Unless the Galaxy gets torn asunder in which case we are hosed.

Can we just skip class 1? We don't have much time...

Originally posted by greencmp
reply to post by Reaper62

 

Great thread OP and some valid concerns touched upon.

Given the thoughtlessness with which we have given away our privacy, it isn't hard to imagine the general populous giving away our humanity.

However, with extensive genetic samples and ample historical records we could always come back from nearly any catastrophic mistake of the highest order.

The biggest threat is the destruction of the planet so we have to become a class 2 civilization.

Unless the solar system is under threat so then we would have to become a class 3 civilization.

Unless the Galaxy gets torn asunder in which case we are hosed.

Can we just skip class 1? We don't have much time...

edit on 5-9-2013 by greencmp because: (no reason given)

I think exciting things are going to happen. I think we are going to see free energy and I think there are going to be some things happen in science regarding interdimensions. We are going to find there is much more out there than just our universe. We may not have to go out in space, we may just kinda step sideways if you know what I mean.

If we make it long enough as a species I think it could be very interesting.

The Bot

I have talked here about how developments have side effects. Medicine residue for example end up in drinking water and allegedly cause infertility in males. Here:

www.sciencedaily.com...

It's vague though. And I can't find any recent articles on it.

We can easily measure short-term effects of developments but long-term effects are difficult to measure.
I think we make our world more difficult and difficult. We try to develop a predictable static system.

If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously...

I think this predictable static system instead of a less predictable dynamic system makes it more dangerous for us as a species. Scientists say wild fires are worse because there are fewer smaller natural fires, scientists say that floods are worse because of lack of smaller flooding. (The concept antifragility comes to mind.)

The fear of genetic engineering I share. If it is done on a grand scale that is. From what I understood genes are more complex as we think and are connected to other genes. Eliminating certain genes in the population I would argue is stupid because those genes that are eliminated might be involved in beneficial ways. Genetic diversity is good.

Adding genes I'm less worried about as removing genes. Though sure it could also go wrong.

I also think we are getting too dependent on technology, and thus a technological failure could be very dramatic.

I think the biggest dangers to humanity are:

-dependency (for examples medicines or technology)
-controlling (and the side effects that lead to it)

There's nothing wrong with medicines or technology, but once we start to become dependent on it, yes.
They should be supplements not dependencies to our lives. Because when something happens that makes it obsolete we are in deep feces.

And control, by controlling things too much it becomes predictable yes, but once it becomes overwhelming you have difficulty acting on it when it goes wrong. A controlled economy doesn't work well since it isn't flexible.

I think it's really important that we have diversity, that makes us as a species much more flexible when something bad would happen.

I wish I could explain it more clearly but I'm not even sure about it all and in a short time period it is difficult. And I don't want to really.

Also if something would go horrible wrong I think the uncontacted tribes would survive unless we manage to destroy those or destroy their ecosystems.

Thanks for the replies guys.

One of my main underlying concerns personally is the exponential increase of information we humans now generate. Its not a bad thing that we constantly try to out do ourselves in every field of human endeavour, thats just natural progression, evolution if you will, but the amount of information we produce seems to be unnecessary to be honest. When you think that a hundred hours of footage is uploaded to you tube every minute, and people tweet on twitter something like 400 million times a day, not to mention other social media sites, blogs, texts, phone calls and more traditional forms of media, it is unprecedented how much we rely on this stuff now. I think its a massive overload of information we just cant keep up with anymore. So, we build smarter, faster, more intelligent computers to look after all this information. These computers store the data for us, scan it and analyse it for us, make decisions on our behalf... how long will it be before we cant keep up with the rate of technology acceleration?


People commonly joke about how the older generations cant use current technology, but in the future i think less and less of us will be able to keep up with all this new tech and constant bombardment of all our senses and we'll either destroy ourselves with tech we dont understand or maybe well have the terminator scenario and the ai that we've created will be able to continue improving itself without our help...

Just some of my thoughts on all of this. I just think we live in very turbulent times and I dont just mean due to current political events. We're riding the crest of this wave right now and I cant even imagine what ill see even in my own lifetime. its gonna be a bumpy old ride from here on out id wager!