will homosapiens ever become extinct ?

Originally posted by dadudemon
I guess you weren't aware that we are in the most aggressive extinction event, right now...

And, depending on how you classify "mass extinction (ELE is better...cause it's shorter)" we could be anywhere from 20+ to 5 prior extinction events: not 4.

Also, the gaps in ELEs seem to be getting farther apart.

Also, is it REALLY that hard to imagine humans using masks and breathing apparatuses?

I mean, come on, lots and lots and lots of humans would survive if the atmosphere chemistry changed so much as to make it unbreathable. Is it really hard to imagine homes, buildings, cars, etc. having to be made air-tight?

Worst case scenario: it changes so fast that very few humans have time to react...and then those crazy loons that have nuclear bunkers 60-100 feet underground with a year supply of food will be our "new" Adams and Eves. On top of that, there are several military facilities much farther undergound that are adapted to run the military from nuclear-safe conditions. Air-tight, mind you. Though, information on these places is minimal, it's hardly a stretch to assume the top 25 nations also don't have similar things.

And, yes, we have all the technology, now (we have had it for decades, actually), to make colonies on the moon. We just don't have the urgency, need, or want to live on the moon.

It's highly likely that we will develop (actual tools, not ideas, like we have now, but actual physical tools) the means to mitigate a large asteroid impact, long before we reach a full fledged class 1 level. In fact, some "tools" already exist, but I'm not sure how effective they would be. That would kind of put us ahead of some abitrary curve. lol

Also, we have successfully printed "cells" with those biological 3D printers. We are working on printing organs....which is just awesome.

We are also growing meat in petri dishes.

Both of those items, coupled with gene therapy, are going to make it almost impossible for the humans to become extinct with any of the previous factors that caused the ELE's.

Here's all the items that caused the ELEs:

1. Atmosphere change: Check. That's probably one of the easiest things to adapt to, as humans.

2. Global Warming: ha. As if warming up the earth and increasing the ability of the Earth to sustain life is something we need to worry about.

3. Global Cooling. ha. Our species matured in an ice-age.

4. Volcanic activity: see numbers 1 and 2.

5. K-T event: lulz. That would probably do the most damage, short term, but see #1 and #3. Hardly something we couldn't adapt to. Sure, there'd probably be hundreds of millions..and maybe over a billion, that lost their lives. However, even the newly proposed 300+ mile asteroid is not enough.

I considered anoxia, but that seems almost completely unapplicable.

Again, yes it is hard to imagine breathing apparatuses supplied for whole of surviving population, it is hard to imagine cultivating plants and sustaining animals to feed significant populations in the world, it is hard to imagine getting hold of drinking water to sustain that population, to grow plants and animals, even in great facilities.

And what about medicines, diseases and all other nasty ass things? I cannot see that being easily accessible or to everyone.

That is if we imagine that places with facilities are absolutely unaffected by any kind of global disaster, and that they are available to function.

The wave of disasters would trigger other crap to happen which will trigger other things . Would more people die if Haiti earthquake, the tsunami, Katrina and flood in China happened in short space of time? The answer is probably yes.

Also, as scientists already indicated, better chance for surviving the extinction event have those systems that are simple (or simpler) than ourselves. They will also be quicker to recover.

If any such disasters occurred those that survived would be in very small numbers, disbursed around the world. The extinction event would have happened.
If we would not manage to repopulate (for whatever reasons) the time when the last human dies, would be an extinction point.

Is it possible? Yes, I believe so. And I also don't see why this cycle which seems to happen periodically (ice age, extinction), would not happen again at some point in human existence.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Again, yes it is hard to imagine breathing apparatuses supplied for whole of surviving population, it is hard to imagine cultivating plants and sustaining animals to feed significant populations in the world, it is hard to imagine getting hold of drinking water to sustain that population, to grow plants and animals, even in great facilities.

It's rather simple: it won't happen for the whole of humanity.

But how does that make humans "extinct"?

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
And what about medicines, diseases and all other nasty ass things? I cannot see that being easily accessible or to everyone.

But how does that make humans "extinct"?

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
That is if we imagine that places with facilities are absolutely unaffected by any kind of global disaster, and that they are available to function.

There's plenty currently functioning and in use.

That also doesn't change the fact that tons upon tons of facilities could be built in a rather short period of time. You do know we have..what...hundreds of thousands of years to "muscle" out of an catastrophic event before we die, right?

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
The wave of disasters would trigger other crap to happen which will trigger other things . Would more people die if Haiti earthquake, the tsunami, Katrina and flood in China happened in short space of time? The answer is probably yes.

Be more specific about these cascading triggers you allude to. But, again, "But how does that make humans "extinct"?"

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Also, as scientists already indicated, better chance for surviving the extinction event have those systems that are simple (or simpler) than ourselves. They will also be quicker to recover.

Sources? Cause it's hard to say that humans would become extinct or be slower to adapt when we are the species that embodies the idea of swift adaptation more than any other species on the planet. We are the first species to do "agriculture", as well. We are the first to adapt whole environments just to suite (I thought of correcting this spelling error, but it's a semi-humorous pun) ourselves. Yet, I'm supposed to believe that some creatures will adapt faster to an ELE faster than we do? That's actually impossible.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
If any such disasters occurred those that survived would be in very small numbers, disbursed around the world.

If by hundreds of millions to even billions, you mean small numbers, I disagree with calling it "small numbers."

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
The extinction event would have happened.
If we would not manage to repopulate (for whatever reasons) the time when the last human dies, would be an extinction point.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up extinction point. Of course humans are extinct when the last human dies. That would definitely be the extinction of humans.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Is it possible? Yes, I believe so. And I also don't see why this cycle which seems to happen periodically (ice age, extinction), would not happen again at some point in human existence.

It HAS happened. A massive ELE is occuring RIGHT NOW. In fact, it is the most agressive ELE that we can see. I said this in my previous post.

If things continue on trend, we will make the Great Dying look like a very boring ELE.

So, in other words, we are in the middle of an ELE...and at that, it is the most agressive one, by far, in all of Earth's biotic history...yet, we are prospering. 😆

We'll either kill each other off or die as the planet become incapable of sustaining life. Or maybe the Butterfinger monster will get us.

Originally posted by Wild Shadow
i say we take mother earth with us if she wants to play hardball........ mutual destruction.

Haha, yes. Explosives in the earth's core that only the last human on earth can trigger.

we didnt start this war but we sure as hell will finish it.... she wants to start the war with forest fires, cold snaps winters killing people in their car and whatnot, i say bring it on, cause it is on the minute she started playing dirty with radiation and cancer bombarding us with cosmic radiation... we can play dirty too we got nukes she nukes us we nuke her.