Collapse of human civilization "difficult to avoid" says team of NASA mathematicians

[Doom_Guy]

Collapse of human civilization "difficult to avoid" says team of NASA mathematicians

I'm not a mathematician and I can tell you that this grim reality is utterly inevitable.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/t...-be-difficult-to-avoid-nasa-funded-study-says

 

[Hard_Rom]

Collapse of human civilization does not necessarily mean human extinction. Human extinction does not mean end of the world.

Humans have been reduced to only several thousand breeding pairs before. No reason it can't happen again.

No reason humans cannot rebound from that population bottleneck like we have before.

Humans are very short term thinkers and extremely near sighted.

And when human civilization does collapse you can be sure it will not be 'our' fault.

 

[Doom_Guy]

You also have to factor in overpopulation, nuclear warfare, pollution and environmental/ecological collapse, overflow of nuclear waste, economic collapse, malthusian catastrophe, disease/pestilence, famine, etc...

Did you ever see the movie Elysium? That's what the world will most likely be like 100+ years from now, only there will not be any utopic space station orbiting Earth.

Imagine a world with a population of 50+ billion, with almost everyone living in extreme poverty and hunger, the planet is polluted to the point where it is almost uninhabitable, with 70% worldwide unemployment, every other person has cancer, violent crime is rampant and the police cannot do anything to stop it, governments have collapsed, oceanic and atmospheric pollution can be seen from space, mountainous piles of maggoty garbage with flies buzzing over it are visible everywhere, entire cities stench of urine/feces/garbage/decay even from outside city boundaries, gigantic biblical suffocating plumes of smog limit visibility most everywhere and can also be seen from space, people have to grow their own food and hunt animals (including cats and dogs) in order to eat, there is hardly any fuel to run transportation, the electrical grid has failed in many areas, dangerous quantities of radioactivity are leaking from poorly maintained nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuel storage facilities, fire services/healthcare/law enforcement are virtually nonexistent, and you must always be on guard with a gun to defend your food/water/family/belongings against roaming bands of looters/bandits who will kill you for your resources at the drop of a hat.

Boy, the distant future sure sounds swell!!!!!!

 

[NeonSubtlety]

Sadly, for all the crazies and their bomb shelters, it won't happen within their lifetime. So many wasted rations and rounds of ammunition.

 

[Hard_Rom]

I'm thinking we can avoid nuclear war. Nothing global anyways. Also a fan of nuclear power. Gotta be better than coal. And natural gas and even oil have better uses than burning to stay warm or move goods about.

 

[Doom_Guy]

Oh, and don't forget the hundreds of millions of more yearly cancers people will get from the toxic soup the environment will become.

 

[Hard_Rom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYFah28ZW5c

Sci-fi has a good track record of predictions. Ever notice the dystopian futures usually depicted.

 

[Doom_Guy]

500-1,000 years from now it could literally come to the point where the atmosphere/ozone layer is at 0%, and the surface is no longer protected from the vacuum of space (much like the moon) and it is impossible for people to survive on the Earth's surface without wearing a pressurized and oxygenated space suit due to the direct exposure to the vacuum of space, the absence of any oxygen, and the 500*F temperature difference between sunlight and shadow.

But by that time human beings and most/all species of life on Earth would be extinct, unless they constructed massive hermetically sealed underground colonies much to the effect of "Zion" from "the matrix" movies.

Yay for humanity!

Good goin'

http://images.all-free-download.com/images/graphiclarge/thumbs_up_star_312288.jpg

 

[Rachel_X]

Or we could end up like Star Trek where the Earth is a paradise in both environmental and economic standards.
One outcome revolves around greed, the other the drive to better ourselves.

Civilisations come and go though.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I'm not a mathematician and I can tell you that this grim reality is utterly inevitable.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/t...-be-difficult-to-avoid-nasa-funded-study-says

Hari Seldon is fiction.

Someone has too much time on their hands...

 

[Hard_Rom]

Or we could end up like Star Trek where the Earth is a paradise in both environmental and economic standards.
One outcome revolves around greed, the other the drive to better ourselves.

Civilisations come and go though.

In Star Trek the Earth had been devastated by nuclear war and required saving by alien visitors. The burden on the planets resources had be reduced by emigration to outer world colonies.

Without the Vulcans we are in a lot of trouble. Many sci-fi stories require alien contact to unite humanity.

We just may have bomb/pollute/infect ourselves back to medieval technology to start a fresh.

It took one country 10 years to get to the moon. I'm betting that united as a planet we could have colonies on Mars, the moon and the asteroid belt within 100 years.

If we can build nuke subs that can stay submerged for a year we can get to Mars.

All it will take is will power. Probably the greatest force on the planet for good and evil. Human will.

 

[pete]

In Star Trek the Earth had been devastated by nuclear war and required saving by alien visitors. The burden on the planets resources had be reduced by emigration to outer world colonies.

Without the Vulcans we are in a lot of trouble. Many sci-fi stories require alien contact to unite humanity.

We just may have bomb/pollute/infect ourselves back to medieval technology to start a fresh.

It took one country 10 years to get to the moon. I'm betting that united as a planet we could have colonies on Mars, the moon and the asteroid belt within 100 years.

If we can build nuke subs that can stay submerged for a year we can get to Mars.

All it will take is will power. Probably the greatest force on the planet for good and evil. Human will.

despite sci-fi's inherent love of mars colonies, it seems unlikely that it'll be feasible or desirable.
too far away, and too intrinsically harmful to humans.

but it makes for a good story backdrop.

 

[Aella_]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYFah28ZW5c

Sci-fi has a good track record of predictions. Ever notice the dystopian futures usually depicted.

Dystopian movies and books are becoming increasingly popular among teenage girls, in particular. Must be something related to their uncertanity about their own future or their perception of global events.

And indeed, there are some really good movies out there, like the Resident Evil trilogy, Divergent, World war Z and so on (the taking of the Jerusalem wall had the best visual and sound effects ever).

 

[Hard_Rom]

despite sci-fi's inherent love of mars colonies, it seems unlikely that it'll be feasible or desirable.
too far away, and too intrinsically harmful to humans.

but it makes for a good story backdrop.

Unless we implement massive birth control programs we have to send excess population somewhere. We also can't just sit here waiting for a big rock to come along and wipe us out.

There are whole moons and asteroids made of ice. They can be 'gently' be crashed into Mars for a water supply.

Live underground. Nothing hostile about that. Many urban dwellers would adapt quite easily.

Buddhism talks of escaping the wheel of life.

Civilizations rise and fall, rise and fall. Eventually there will be less and less energy and resources to rebuild. Entropy increases, natural law across the whole universe.

Clean fusion power may stave off collapse for awhile. Asteroid belt will supply whole asteroids made of gold, platinum and other rare resources. But population will continue to rise and rise.

In another couple of hundred years we will all be living off algae derived foods.

By 2150 the population of SW Ontario will rise from 10 million to over 150 million. Even sparsely populated Canada will be feeling population crush. Toronto gobbles up huge amounts of some of the world's most productive farmlands every year.

And all these births will not be white middle class types either. Either stand back and watch 75% of world suffer famine or bring them up to a middle class existence to reduce birth rate. Either or!

I don't have kids, so apart from a bleeding liberal heart I don't give a shit. But if you got or expect grandkids, you better start making better decisions then just setting aside some money for their college educations.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Soylent Green is people!!!!

 

[Aella_]

Also this:

Rise of the machines: Robots will replace half of global workforce
https://www.rt.com/news/332522-robots-replace-global-workforce/

"Migrants are often accused of stealing jobs from locals in countries to which they were forced to flee, but the real threat to employment are the robots that will likely automate 50 percent of the global workforce by 2045.
Shocking new stats were announced during Sunday’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington."

 

[pete]

i like bill burr's idea:
he said something like, this thing won't work unless around 2/3 of the people just go to the ocean, load up their pockets with wrenches and just walk in

 

[Super-Surprise]

Have you watched any good sci-fi movies lately mikey?

 

[nerfhearder]

Or we could end up like Star Trek where the Earth is a paradise in both environmental and economic standards.
One outcome revolves around greed, the other the drive to better ourselves.

Civilisations come and go though.

In the Star Trek universe everything is hunky dory because of the aliens not us. The Federation shares knowledge, that's why in those shows/movies we made these giant leaps forward in technology in a short period of time. Essentially humans just got lucky when we met the Vulcans.

 

[nerfhearder]

As for the OP of course civilization will collapse. That's kind of a no-brainer. It has before and it will again. Could be war, could be an impact event, could be alien invaders, plague, terrorists coming up with something really really bad, etc. I'm hoping it's zombies but I'd be down with evil aliens, too.

 

[Doom_Guy]

We already have free, unlimited, and 100% clean energy technology, as well as outright cures for 90% of the diseases known to man.

Unfortunately we are making too much money off of oil/coal/gas/nuclear and trillions are made annually from treating people for diseases, and not curing them.

Energy and medical corporations have a legal obligation to their shareholders and allowing free energy or disease cures to hit the market would utterly bankrupt them. Also, the multimillionaires and billionaires who sit on the top of these organizations aren't just going to give up their lifestyles.

Two more nails in the coffin for the future of human civilization.

 

[Super-Surprise]

You tell them Doom.

BTW do you know that you were nominated to lead the General Board troops into battle?

 

[phrodeau]

The Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere repel nearly all cosmic radiation, and the Moon and Mars have neither magnetic fields or appreciable atmospheres. Voyagers in space need serious shielding to pass through and beyond the Van Allen belts. Mars is farther from the Sun, but receives over 650 times the radiation from space that Earth's surface does.

 

[Hard_Rom]

We already have free, unlimited, and 100% clean energy technology, as well as outright cures for 90% of the diseases known to man.

Unfortunately we are making too much money off of oil/coal/gas/nuclear and trillions are made annually from treating people for diseases, and not curing them.

Energy and medical corporations have a legal obligation to their shareholders and allowing free energy or disease cures to hit the market would utterly bankrupt them. Also, the multimillionaires and billionaires who sit on the top of these organizations aren't just going to give up their lifestyles.

Two more nails in the coffin for the future of human civilization.

The Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere repel nearly all cosmic radiation, and the Moon and Mars have neither magnetic fields or appreciable atmospheres. Voyagers in space need serious shielding to pass through and beyond the Van Allen belts. Mars is farther from the Sun, but receives over 650 times the radiation from space that Earth's surface does.

Troglodyte socialist communities on Mars!

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I keep telling you people ..... Carousel.

You SciFi ers know what that is. No 'Runners' either. And no Sanctuary.