Just thought i'ld lift the mood of this gloomy grey skied summer with that old favourite THE END IS NIGH?
By the end i mean our civilisation or mankind, which ever you prefer.
Of course in about 3 billion years the sun is reckoned to go red giant, but the sun's luminosity is increasing very gradually all the time and it's reckoned we have about 1 billion years left before we're toast, anyway maybe we'll have gone off to conquer distant planets by then (fat chance)
The nub of my point isn't natural catastrophe's like meteors or super volcano's, it's more man made apocalypse's that's more my concern.

Mankind has a phenomenal ability to create things he finds difficult to control-nuclear power for example, both destructive and useful, but which will we choose? Once Einstein's formula was conceived, it can't be un-conceived, it's out there waiting to pounce, like the wild beast who seems tamed, and you don't have to be Einstein to work out there's a big potential for a big bang, is it just a question of when?
Biotechnology could lead to the creation of a pandemic, Nanotechnology could lead to grey goo (microscopic organisms created by man, out of control and unstoppable, consuming all in their path) in both cases, either deliberately or by accident. It has also been suggested that physical scientists might accidentally create a device that could destroy the earth and the solar system.
In string theory, there are some unknown variables. If those turn out to have an unfortunate value, the universe may not be stable and alter completely, destroying everything in it, either at random or by an accidental experiment. This is called Quantum Vacuum Collapse by some.
Another is Ice-9 type transition, creating strange matter destroying everything in th planet-take comfort from the view that SOME do not view this as credible.
Particle accelerators able to create new types of particles-safe?

Climate change due to global warming (i'm a little sceptical about this one)
could create a runaway greenhouse effect that may be irriversable.-turning our blue pleasant globe into Venus, if it is true we're hardly slowing things down fast are we.

Can mankind's gift of creativity be matched by his ability to control his immense power. Can we collectively think our way out of the messes we constantly make?

I can't help but think of Jean Gray (aka the Phoenix) in X MEN 3, she has almost unlimited power but is overwhelmed by it and is unable to control it.
I can't help but think mankind will eventually succumb to our ability to create problems of ever increasing complexity, that we will one day be unable to solve.

An excellent post BT and very thought provoking. However, I cant; think about it rightnnow because I cannot take my eyes of your most sexy avatar! :D

Thanks SB, i dunno, i was gonna put Fed as my avatar but could find a great pic of him, i don't think he's as good looking as Fed

i mean i don't think Fed's as good looking as Pat (had a few drinks here, i think it shows)

No worries. I've had a few drinks too, one tinnie too many ! maybe that's why I'm trying to pull your avatar! B) roflmao

Fed is quite tasty in a cool kind of way. Pat is definitley sexier though, and my bessie mate would say he deffo Pat :D

Sorry to distract from your post. If you can type that after a few then you a pretty good! :ok:

Off work this week so i can have a few drinks.
I really fancy the girl who was runner up at the French (can't remember her name at mo) really nice!

Ivanovic..
She has a few admirers on here

Ivanovic :D Seems everyone finacies a Serbain at the moment. I quite like Tipsy, as do a few others. Trisco is after Djokovic!

here i was, opening this thread expecting to read prophetic end of the world stuff and instead i get to read about how trisco wants to have sex with djoko, SB wants to have sex with Pat and everyone in the world wants to have sex with Ana :giggle:

This is why the world is doomed....Instead of fixing problems we only think of reproducing ourselves! roflmao

:lmaao:

:lmaao:
How very true... Apart from Djoko and I of course.. :D

Anyways, I'm off to bed. Goodnight people.
Good days tennis today :ok:
BT, sorry for highjacking your well thought out provocative thread. If I could manage a response at this time of night I would believe me!

Night all :wave:

I do feel concerend that some insane meglamaniac could press the button and blow us all up. We live with that fear day in, day out and people tend to ignore that. There are arguments that it would not be in the interests of those who can to press that button. But who cares abotu interests when we have people who are prepared to kill themselves for their beliefs at the drop of a hat. All it will take is one head of state who see no way out of his or her hole to think, why not, I've had it anyway.

Germ warfare concerns me the most as it is one fo those things where all we have to do is light the touchpaper and let the force of nature do the rest. And if it starts, can we stop it? I find it highly disturbing and sick that we spend all this effort trying to cure viruses and diseases, soem of which continue to kill, but at the same time manufacture the means of spreading them to pandemic proportions. Inasane. :wacko: However, as BT says, there are some things that will run away with themseves and kill us without intention, and they are of huge concern. it might be a virus escaping form a lab by accident, but it is more likely to be a disease that we have created ourselves, albeit not necessarily by intention. Look at Aids - we are not winnign the battle, and we are not even trying. It's spreadign in 3rd world countries and nothing is being done about it, and kids are beign born with it and that thought just makes me sick. :angry: Also look at bird flu - we are not on top of that, and where will it all end? Also in our own hospitals, where aim to cure and prevent disease, we have created our very own MRSA bug.

What is worrying about disease, viruses, bacteria, germs or whatever you wish to call them is that just like all living species have done, they adapt and survive. Many are becoming resistant to known cures and of course many will die out but it only takes one. And in some ways, our attempts to cure them through modern medicine has made them adapt and become stronger.

Don't worry about it SB after all there's nothing most of us can do about most of this stuff.
It's a strange but salient fact that any of us could get killed by a car or an accident in the home-when your times up it's up! :unsure:
Oh god that's not come out as reassuring as i would have liked.

Lets put it another way, if we worry about death, then life has no meaning or worth because it's lived in the shadow of death-and if life has no worth then why worry about death since it's merely the end of a life not worth living-a merciful release in fact, in other words the more you worry about death the less of a problem it really is, and obviously if you don't worry about death it's not really a problem either.

May i suggest that you party like it's 1999!

I've been partying like it is 1999 since about 1989 BT :D

I know what you mean, life lived in the shadow of death is no fun, but we have to avoid becoming careless and complacent and do our best to give ourselves the best chance of life. Lots of freak accidents occur and we can't help them or worry about them. l some things are less freak though and we could take measures to prevent them or reduce their risk. We don't seem to and that is what annoys me. We all take preventative and sensible measures to reduce risk in other areas of life, like say home security and insurance so we should be a bit more careful in other areas.

interestingly depressing thread here BT :blink:

are we all doomed? yes - from the day we're born we're dying, and I agree with what you say BT - if it's your time, it's your time. As a civilisation are we doomed? that one, i don't know. it's possible that at some point - whether due to man-induced climate change, or just a freak of nature - our natural environment will change to the point that we can no longer survive here. it's also possible that some disease will wipe everyone out (bird flu or sars anyone :P ) or like SB said, someday the bomb will finally go off (probably 'cos george bush choked on a pretzel and hit the button by accident :P )

I think any one of those scenarios are possible, but i'm not sure that they'll happen in our lifetime. Can we do anything to change this? well, freaks of nature are kind of difficult to change. Can we do anything about global warming - yes i think we can, but i'm not sure it would be enough to save us. Diseases - well, chances are that if a disease comes to wipe us out it'll be man-made. Scientists do all sorts of interesting experiments in the name of medical or scientific advancement - hence what led us to nuclear weapons in the first place. maybe some sort of limits could be put on that, but then would that be to our detriment? As for the bomb, well, not giving Bush any more difficult foods would be helpful :P no, seriously, like BT said, if someone is going to do it, then they're going to do it and very little that we can do about it.

i know this post has been long enough but i just have to say - SB what you said about AIDS is spot on. :ok: there's so much about the lack of will to deal with that, and other diseases such as malaria, that just infuriates me. I could rant for a long time about social problems, and religious issues and the problems of pharmaceutical companies, but i won't right now....... :unsure:

And I will add that it is not our own death that we should worry but the death of mankind or the death of the planet that is at stake, though I believe the planet will always survive, the bomb can erase Millions if not billions of years of evolution (or what we thought was "evolution".

I do not think it is time to party unfortunately but let's pray for the "good" sense to prevail.

Tipsy is just :wub: :wub:

Yes, I'd have him any day QJ! :D Maybe you need to come on our rota, he seems very popluar with the ladies for some reason. Have you seen his shoulders when his sihrt is of? Hot stuff or what? :wub:

IT WOULDN'T SEEM RIGHT IF I DIDN'T MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO THIS THREAD

UNFORTUNATELY THE ANSWER IS YES

OH AND THERE ARE TAXES TO PAY TOO

DEATH you are priceless roflmao

DEAR DEATH,
as we're on the subject can i ask what it's actually like to be dead?
is there any sex? are there lots of clouds?
and don't take it personally but i hope it's long time before we meet :(

thats some interesting questions I would never think to ask Death!

Is the human race doomed? Sure. Nothing last forever. This one's timing is in our hands - we can nuke or germ warfare ourselves out, as SB puts it, or do something else unknown. I don't see us doing it but it may happen.

Is the world doomed? Sure. Nothing last forever. But I don't see it being destroyed for a while.

Is the world doomed because of humanity being doomed? Nope. The world's gone through 5 major extinctions - one killing off 90% of the world's life and yet it still produced us (okay, that's not always a step 'forward' but you get what I mean). Radiation is good for new life development so nuking the planet will only help develop new lifeforms faster - I don't suggest doing this until AFTER I die ;)

In the end, we can only hope to muddle our way through and hope we don't leave it much worse than we got it - but in 3-6 billion years it won't make a difference.

Oh - and here's 10 ways to destroy the earth, just in case you want to make it sooner than the above timeline.
http://www.livescience.com/technology/dest...earth_mp-1.html