How long do you think mankind will last?

[HomeBrewerDude]

uh..... 42?

 

[JLGatsby]

People who voted "100 years" are only being pessimistic for the sake of fashionable pessimism.

I think one thousand years is a more reasonable guess.

Nuclear wars may be fought, hundreds of millions may die, but the world will not be over. We simply rebuild and reform. 100% of the population is not going to be wiped out for a very very long time.

Come to think of it, 10,000 years may even be a more reasonable answer.

 

[Muadib]

Zager and Evans answered that question decades ago:

In the year 2525
If man is still alive.
If woman can survive, they may find.


In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies.
Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today.


In the year 4545
Ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes.
You won't find a thing to chew.
Nobody's gonna look at you.


In the year 5555
Your arms hanging limp at your sides.
Your legs got nothing to do.
Some machine doing that for you.


In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife.
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too.
From the bullshit of a long glass tube. Whoa-oh


In the year 7510
If God's a-comin, he oughta make it by then.
Maybe he'll look around himself and say.
Guess it's time for the judgment day.


In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head.
He'll either say.I'm pleased where man has been.
Or tear it down and start again. Whoa-oh


In the year 9595
I'm kinda wonderin if man is gonna be alive.
He's taken everything this old Earth can give.
And he ain't put back nothing.Whoa-oh



Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears.
For what he never knew,
now man's reign is through.


But through eternal night.
The twinkling of starlight.
So very far away.
Maybe it's only yesterday.


In the year 2525
If man is still alive.
If woman can survive, they may find.


In the year 3535 {fade}

 

[Tremulant]

it'll last until it ends.

 

[JLGatsby]

Originally posted by: Muadib
Zager and Evans answered that question decades ago:

If there is one song that I wish never existed, it is that one. That is the most backwards song ever written. It sounds like a show tune from the 1950s.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Depends on a few definitions. I think humans will be alive in some form or another for at least 10,000 years or more.. baring a possible but very unlikly *total* nuclear war.

However, I think our civilization as we will know it may end much sooner.. we are running out of raw materials, we are tinkering with our own DNA, and our societal norms have changed more in the last 100 years than in the 2,000 years before that.

So while humans will be around for a long time, I don't think we will necessarily have a lot in common with them.

 

[JLGatsby]

Originally posted by: LordSegan
Depends on a few definitions. I think humans will be alive in some form or another for at least 10,000 years or more.. baring a possible but very unlikly *total* nuclear war.

However, I think our civilization as we will know it may end much sooner.. we are running out of raw materials, we are tinkering with our own DNA, and our societal norms have changed more in the last 100 years than in the 2,000 years before that.

So while humans will be around for a long time, I don't think we will necessarily have a lot in common with them.

"Tinkering" with our DNA will be the only way to save mankind.

Get rid of the genes of stupidity, violence, and conflict. I do believe such genes exist.

Imagine if everyone were as peaceful as a Buddist monk?

DNA engineering will save humanity one day. No more excessively flawed human beings.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby

Originally posted by: Muadib
Zager and Evans answered that question decades ago:

If there is one song that I wish never existed, it is that one. That is the most backwards song ever written. It sounds like a show tune from the 1950s.

Further proof that you are a know-nothing tool.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
People who voted "100 years" are only being pessimistic for the sake of fashionable pessimism.

I'm not being pessimistic. We've used up more natural resources in the past century than we have in the 10 thousand years before that. What's to say we won't suck the Earth dry of resources in the next 100 years? There are also natural disasters that we have no defense against. Can we really nuke and destroy moon size meteors?

 

[Lonyo]

When did our current civilisation begin?
What is our current civilisation?

 

[SMOGZINN]

It all comes down to the space program. If we can get off this rock we might make it 10,000 years or more. If we get out of this solar system we will make it for millions of years. If we do neither we are doomed by any number of things, our own folly first and foremost.

 

[darkxshade]

I know that we have no way of really telling how long we'll live, this poll was created for the pupose of measuring how much faith we have in our children to not fvck things up. And at most 100 years seems about right considering.

I personally voted for the 10,000 though.

Originally posted by: Remy XO

your current average human sits infront of a computer 9-6 5 days a week. What standards are you talkin about? Technology doesn't make people happy.

Well while we still have war, disease and all that crap, it's by no means anywhere near as bad as what any generation before us had gone thru. And I have to disagree, technology makes people happy(not all of it nor everyone but the majority does).

 

[darkxshade]

Originally posted by: SMOGZINN
It all comes down to the space program. If we can get off this rock we might make it 10,000 years or more. If we get out of this solar system we will make it for millions of years. If we do neither we are doomed by any number of things, our own folly first and foremost.

I just can't possibly see how we'll ever manage to get away from Earth.

 

[JLGatsby]

Originally posted by: Baked

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
People who voted "100 years" are only being pessimistic for the sake of fashionable pessimism.

I'm not being pessimistic. We've used up more natural resources in the past century than we have in the 10 thousand years before that. What's to say we won't suck the Earth dry of resources in the next 100 years? There are also natural disasters that we have no defense against. Can we really nuke and destroy moon size meteors?

1. 50 years from now we will not need coal, oil, or any other nonrenewable natural resource. We will use sun, wind, water, and perhaps some other nuclear type or advanced form of energy (fushion, etc). Problem solved.

2. There are no meteors that will stike Earth within the next 30 years or perhaps for longer. If there are, I do believe that within 30 years we will have the power to send a space bound super nuclear weapon to intercept a meteor. Also, if the meteor were moon sized, astrologists would have found them by now, and such meteors are practically non existant in our solar system. We have already detected small car sized meteors that will pass by Earth 30 years from now, so if a moon sized one were headed towards Earth, I think we would have atleast have an advanced warning of 100 years.

You are too paranoid.

Yes wars will happen, millions and millions will die. Countries will tumble, but civilization will reform, probably many times over.

Humans have existed for 300,000 years on this planet, 99% of it without any technology at all, and you're worried about the next 100?

 

[DougK62]

Does anyone else wish they could be around for the end of mankind? Sounds like fun.

 

[JLGatsby]

Originally posted by: SMOGZINN
It all comes down to the space program. If we can get off this rock we might make it 10,000 years or more. If we get out of this solar system we will make it for millions of years. If we do neither we are doomed by any number of things, our own folly first and foremost.

Anyone who knows anything about space knows that will not be possible.

Any place in the universe that could support us is much much too far away.

You must not have a good concept of how big space really is.

 

[darkxshade]

Originally posted by: DougK62
Does anyone else wish they could be around for the end of mankind? Sounds like fun.

Well to put it differently, since I was born in 81 I growing up over the years had the privledge to have experienced a rapid boom in how we advanced technologically and it makes me really curious as to what life would be like another 100 years from now.

 

[Proletariat]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby

Originally posted by: SMOGZINN
It all comes down to the space program. If we can get off this rock we might make it 10,000 years or more. If we get out of this solar system we will make it for millions of years. If we do neither we are doomed by any number of things, our own folly first and foremost.

Anyone who knows anything about space knows that will not be possible.

Any place in the universe that could support us is much much too far away.

You must not have a good concept of how big space really is.

wormholes you whore

 

[RaDragon]

A while.

 

[darkxshade]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby

Originally posted by: SMOGZINN
It all comes down to the space program. If we can get off this rock we might make it 10,000 years or more. If we get out of this solar system we will make it for millions of years. If we do neither we are doomed by any number of things, our own folly first and foremost.

Anyone who knows anything about space knows that will not be possible.

Any place in the universe that could support us is much much too far away.

You must not have a good concept of how big space really is.

Well honestly in his defense(even though I agree with you), there's no way to tell what we are capable of thousands and thousands of years from now. In the world we now live in, we believe light is the fastest obtainable speed and by that standard, it would still take millions of years to reach another solar system. Though I would not be surprised if that idea got disproved and we discover something even faster(For a long time, we thought the earth was flat so...) Anyway, it's sort of a stretch but I'm not counting us out yet.

 

[mrchan]

Forever.

I will die before our civilization does, so for all intents and purposes, as far as I am considered, this civilization will last forever.

 

[Accipiter22]

Originally posted by: andylawcc
if people start rioting, reduce tax to 10% and build a Temple or Colosseum.

hahaha i thought that's what this thread was about at first

 

[Accipiter22]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Phoenix86

Originally posted by: andylawcc
if people start rioting, reduce tax to 10% and build a Temple or Colosseum.

Theaters FTW.

You can build the machine that gives you all content citizens also =P

there's a machine that does that??? I'm only up to about cavalry with mine right now

 

[RaDragon]

Originally posted by: Accipiter22

Originally posted by: andylawcc
if people start rioting, reduce tax to 10% and build a Temple or Colosseum.

hahaha i thought that's what this thread was about at first

Don't forget to move in 3 more military units, too.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Originally posted by: Baked

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
People who voted "100 years" are only being pessimistic for the sake of fashionable pessimism.

I'm not being pessimistic. We've used up more natural resources in the past century than we have in the 10 thousand years before that. What's to say we won't suck the Earth dry of resources in the next 100 years? There are also natural disasters that we have no defense against. Can we really nuke and destroy moon size meteors?

We do have to worry about natural resource, but really as it becomes more and more scarce we will just have to switch to recycling and landfill mining to get all those resources we are throwing away today. It will be horrifically expensive and we will not be able to keep up even a small part of our current advancement, but it will not be the end of the world. We always have the sun as a continous energy source, we just might have to slow down how fast we use energy.

As for moon sized meteors, there are few of them out there of that size, and we are getting better and better at finding and tracking them every year. If detected early enough we can do something about it. What we need to worry about is much smaller but faster moving metors hitting. Remember that a metor can tavel at speeds up to 617.5 km/s, and if even a smallish (say a half mile across) hit at that speed it would be an extinction level event.