Doomsday Theories

[Racattack!Force]

For years, a bunch of people have been talking about a bunch of ways the Earth will end. From giant asteriod to Saturn becoming a star. Are there actually any theroies that make sense, for I see none?

[Anyone00]

Discovering the Higgs Boson value.

[Aclaim]

They said once on Discovery Channel that the Earth may be hit with an asteroid. If the asteroid was big enough I guess it could destroy Earth if it hit Earth.

[Dr.Pepper]

I always thought the world should end by having aliens taking over it, but that is just me.

[tucsoncoyote]

Well there are a number of ways Earth could be obliterated, but I tend to say , "How will humanity end?" and believe me besides the issue of asteroid strike there are some rather unique ways.

Gamma Ray Burst: Now this one sounds like something out of the Incredible Hulk, but a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB), isn't something you would think would get you. But they said on History Channel's The Universe, that if there was a supernova occurring within say 1000 light years of earth, the moment the GRB would hit us, we would know it..(In short one scientist equivicated it to stannding 1 mile from ground zero in a Hiroshima style nuclear blast, but all over the face of the planet (the side that was opposite the GRB would be spared, but the atmosphere would be so changed you would have a lot of acid rain (and a nice huge hole in the Ozone...

Then there's My fave.. A rogue Black hole.. This gravity well is so strong nothing, not even light can escape it..and for good reason..The Gravity would literally rip or rather stretch earth into a small thin noodle to be sucked into a singularity..(Slurp..)

And then there is in 4.4-4.5 billion years the death of the sun..In it's final throes the sun would expand into a super red giant and possibly swallow "The Inner solar system" in the process..

but in terms of humanity disappearing, well there are a lot of ways we can go.. Nuclear War, Asteroid Strike, Virulent plague/viruses, even terrorism...

But I stake my money on the asteroid or comet strike more than anything.

:coyote:

[purplehairedwonder]

Then there's the ever-popular Yellowstone Caldera. The super-volcano is pretty much set to go at any time in the next oh, 10,000 years. Last I heard the expected results from that included another ice age from all the debris that would spill into the air. Somehow I don't think that would go real well with humanity.

[dendawg]

The only known thing about Doomsday is that he will kill Superman.:p

[Aclaim]

The only known thing about Doomsday is that he will kill Superman.:p

LOL.

[Daxdiv]

I always thought we would die from a Nuclear Holocaust, the world being covered in water, or any divine interventions for some reason.

[RayChuang]

I think the two most frightening Doomsday scenarios are an asteroid/comet impact or the eruption of a supervolcano spewing out 120+ cubic miles of volcanic ash.

Both will essentially turn day into night on the ENTIRE planet for several months, essentially wiping out the world's agricultural output from what amounts to the entire planet undergoing an Ice Age. The result will be mass starvation on such a huge scale that losing 85+ percent of the larger mammal population (including humans) is not far-fetched.

[cyde]

the sun swelling up, burning everything in its path. Even The Bible said so.

[Charlie]

Exit Mundi (http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm), a collection of "End of the World" scenarios. I've had this bookmarked for a few years and its finally payed off.

But chances are we'll probably end up doing it under our own accord through misguided rage. Be it direct, or as a delayed effect.

[JAG]

I'm sure our own stupidity will factor into it somehow.

[Cartoon_Kid]

I always thought that the sun will burn out and their will be no oxygen to live.

[The Old Maid]

Ah yes, the ever-popular Things Go Boom scenarios. Rogue asteroids, exploding volcanoes, Acts of God, and the guy-with-his-finger-on-the-trigger-just-slipped-on-a-banana-peel theories.

There are competing ideas about why people dwell on the end of the world. Multiple choice:

--People like the spectacle. It's big, it's different, and therefore Teh Cool. There's probably more to it than that, of course. Ask these same people why they wouldn't find it cool to watch the earth being born, Digory and Polly style, and they'll hastily reply that of course that would be good to see! in the same tone of voice of the spouse who forgot your birthday, and is making some excuse about the present being hidden behind the car, and to get it out the car has to be moved, apparently all the way to the store.

--People think the world could survive whatever wipes out the rest of us. This is the thinking behind the last chapter of The world without us. This book proposes that most of the world would heal if humans stopped picking at it, but also shows where the radioactive sinkholes would poison the land for ages to come, without us to keep the containment fields or whatever, functional. And all we have to do to see this Eden on earth, is to go extinct, as if humans aren't really native to this world and should be weeded like any invasive plant.

--People figure it's inevitable because of humanity's nature. See Canticle for Leibowitz and other classics. (See also the appallingly low rates of charitable giving in populations that take Jesus' words out of context about "the poor will be with you always." and turn it into, "if the problem's too big to solve, then I don't have to do anything.")

--People figure it's inevitable regardless of which species acquires sentience: that sentience itself is the trouble. See Planet of the Apes film series.

--People figure the earth is wrecked and needs to be torn down, like a condemned house. There are two sub-sets of this persuasion: the eyewitness in the thick of things, and the eyewitness safely at a distance. The former tends to tell stories that no one escapes, particularly children (What Niall saw; Deep impact (the movie). The latter tends to offer an escape but makes it conditional: if you behave in a certain way, you can depart from the suffering and watch from a safe distance (classic Christian rapture fiction, classic Star Trek). Occasionally you get a mixture (cf. Life as we knew it, The Road, Left Behind series), where characters can't escape the dying planet, but they survive by clannishness and hoarding and rationalize it as "times are different." Not surprisingly, in some of these works, religious people tend to be portrayed poorly. Victor Frankl is very rare in these stories.

--People find it easier to visualize the end of the world than the end of themselves. In other words, the individual's fear of death. Also, the individual's fear of dying, fear of growing old, fear of growing really sick, fear of outliving your money, your family, your church, your strength and health, or your wits. If the world goes Boom, you don't have to worry about what you, personally, will need for the next 50+ scary, expensive years of your life.

Surprisingly, this last theory is popular among economists. They argue that Westerners save so little money because the discipline required to save money derives from your ability to visualize the future and then visualize yourself in it. If the future doesn't seem quite real, people will spend 100 percent of their income on the real world they see today. Supposedly.

[Lavenderpaw]

God will come to earth with his angel army and take all those who are good 'up' and all those who are bad 'down.' :yawn:

[peacebyanymeans]

I always thought that the sun will burn out and their will be no oxygen to live.

Well, before the sun would ever "run out", it would first have to expand which would engulf us.

So that probably won't be it.

[Novapocalypse]

Probably something that has to do with all of the war the world has these days...(Nuclear explosion,atomic explosion)

Or mabye,something unexpected,ya know,something we all say,"Well that will never happen!" like Mad Scientist destroying/or conquering the world.Or heck,mabye the idiots of the world will someday meet an incredibly advanced alien race,be friends,get ticked with them over something stupid,and go war-happy and try to beat them,and fail miserably.

[Anarky]

wasn't there a megadoomer asteroid that could wipe out our species around 2012 or so?

[Harvey Two Face]

The Earth's magnetic field eventually fades away thus allowing deady space particles to enter the atmosphere until the field flips and reverts.

[Lavenderpaw]

The Earth's magnetic field eventually fades away thus allowing deady space particles to enter the atmosphere until the field flips and reverts.

Good one.

[tucsoncoyote]

Related Link(s): http://www.kutv.com/content/news/topnews/story.aspx?content_id=da6e9ac0-3439-4868-9b31-db37a1788062

Well Don't tell this to Wells, Nevada... they Just got Obliterated (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aqVj6BvyzoRQ&refer=us)...with a Magnitude 6.0 Earthquake, this morning.

Good Morning Wells, Nevada: This is your wake up call From Mom Nature...

So there 's your Conspiracy for you...
1 town down.. millions to go.

:coyote:

[Rook]

The Earth's magnetic field eventually fades away thus allowing deady space particles to enter the atmosphere until the field flips and reverts.

Heh, adding to that, gravitational pull of the Earth fades cascading the event of which our atmosphere dissipates. Gravity and oxygen gone, we slowing float away while sufficating.

That or 100% of humanity learns to asexually reproduce while creating only 1 race.

[KPTitan]

Then there's the ever-popular Yellowstone Caldera. The super-volcano is pretty much set to go at any time in the next oh, 10,000 years. Last I heard the expected results from that included another ice age from all the debris that would spill into the air. Somehow I don't think that would go real well with humanity.

Lol, I live on the other side of the state from where that's gonna happen.....IF it happens in my life time...."if" is such a powerful word.

I have my personal thing about how the "end of the world" is gonna happen, but if I said it here I might accidently cause a religious war on this thread.:sweat:

[purplehairedwonder]

Lol, I live on the other side of the state from where that's gonna happen.....IF it happens in my life time...."if" is such a powerful word.I live 90 miles away when I'm not at school ;) I've definitely heard more about it than I would like; makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it, heh.

[sleepydumbdude]

Some scientist will be like "I wonder what happens when I do this".
BLIP
everything over

[Racattack!Force]

The Earth's magnetic field eventually fades away thus allowing deady space particles to enter the atmosphere until the field flips and reverts.
My theory is very similar. It is known that every tens of thousands of years, the Earth's magnetic pole flips. This allows deadly comsic radition to seep in and quickly do away with at least 90% of all living things (including plants). That is how life for humans may end if the events in the book of Revelations don't happen first. And then the sun, hundreds of thousands of years later, will engulf the Earth. Causing the end of Earth (and any living thing that miraclely survived on Earth up until that time).

[Novapocalypse]

Thing is, how do we know we're not already dead. But if so we've probably done something wrong, because the world is becoming a lot like hell.

[Aizen]

-The Sun gets too close to the Earth.
-Global Warming.
-World War III.

[Cartoon_Kid]

Well, before the sun would ever "run out", it would first have to expand which would engulf us.

So that probably won't be it.

yeah I thought about that and then i started reading the dec,21 2012 theory and thought that that is the most logical one.

[JAG]

i started reading the dec,21 2012 theory and thought that that is the most logical one.


I've heard the world is supposed to end then, but what exactly is supposed to happen? I've never been entirely clear on that.

[Harvey Two Face]

Apparently it's the end of the Mayan callender where I think the Earth has completed an entire orbit around the galaxy, as far as I know.

[murmur]

Ah yes, the ever-popular Things Go Boom scenarios. Rogue asteroids, exploding volcanoes, Acts of God, and the guy-with-his-finger-on-the-trigger-just-slipped-on-a-banana-peel theories.

There are competing ideas about why people dwell on the end of the world...As always, an enlightening post Old Maid. Those who haven't read it should but I'll save space here. What about the idea that we're facing rather imminent catastrophes, none of which necessarily rise to the level of all life being wiped off the planet, but are nonetheless scary beyond what we like to acknowledge at a rational level? Others in this thread have mentioned nuclear holocaust and global warming is setting in to grim reality...

Or how about the fact that we are just kinda miserable as it is now? We are subject to dictatorship, terrorism, poverty, war, and an utter ransacking of our environment in practically every corner of the globe. Hopefully this can change to some extent and I see swells of optimism across the world (unprecedended election events in the US, the increasingly strong voice of moderate Muslims, greater communication made possible by the Internet). Maybe keeping doomsday scenarios in mind on a more abstract level (e.g., in our literature and entertainment) can help mobilize the world's population to work together to avoid the severe evils we face now.

[The Old Maid]

Maybe one of the reasons people are attracted to Things Go Boom is the idea that it will be instantaneous/painless. The opposite is a preference for attrition versions of The End, on the grounds that some people want to live as long as possible even when they're miserable, and "where there's life, there's hope" of stopping the problem.

Just because of this thread, I rented "Deep Impact" (with Robert Duvall) and "Armageddon" (with Bruce Willis) for the lark of watching them side by side. They came out the same year and I'd missed both of them. Turns out I prefer DI. What about the rest of you?

The mention of the 2020-ish rock, that one's called "Aphosis."

The mention of the Mayan calendar: I haven't seen the thing personally, but televangelists Jack & Rexella Van Impe (pro-rapture, pro-animals-will-be-in-heaven) really like its 2012 date. Based on that calendar, JVI predicts the rapture in 2012 followed by 7 years of tribulation, with doomsday in 2019. JVI interprets it as that the calendar doesn't "end" so much as predict a cataclysm, and that that calendar has already had several of them, one of which he says was Noah's Flood. That sets him apart from most of the other rapturists, a lot of whom were betting on 2007 for the departure day.

For murmur's ideas, I think it goes back to the feeling of being overwhelmed and wondering whether our bit makes a difference. Look at recycling. Time was when we had to pay the garbage haulers to take newspapers. Now there are bins on every corner for papers to be turned it as (very modest) fundraisers. Used to be that cars had leaded gasoline; now they don't. We know more about nutrition nowadays. And then something else "too big" comes along and knocks our baby steps out from under us.

Perhaps there's a feeling of both the solvable and unsolvable happening at once, and people wonder what it would be like to have a single, immovable answer. Then they'd know what to feel and whether they make a difference or not. The TV character Alex Keaton once said he liked to memorize the answers, pass the test, and be done with it, but that life is one of those things we keep getting tested on.

As to Things Go Boom, I haven't heard anyone mention water. Where are we going to get water? There's a crisis that could qualify as natural, supernatural, man-made, or all of them together.

[Racattack!Force]

My non-"Things Go Boom" theory is swift and painless. :p

[mookie75]

I think it will involve Starbucks in some way. Very soon they will be fully deployed around the world, and then it will be time to enter the next phase of the plan.... :evil:

[ROBOTRON]

:sweat: - Coming from a biblical upbringing, I believe the earth will stand to "Time Indefinite".

Now mankind's demise is a different story.

[tucsoncoyote]

Even the Earth isn't immune to Doomsday.. After all in 7.6 billion years this is probably going to happen (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23354076/).

At least Earth will go out in a blaze of glory..

:coyote:

[Anyone00]

Well what if humanity goes out with a whimper and not a bang.

Look at many well developed Western European countries: their birth rates have dropped to level civilizations historically have not recovered from. True if trends continue as they are now Europe will essentially become part of the Middle East/North Africa, but lets say those isolated groups in Europe integrate before that and they become part of that low birth rate statistic.

Japan already has a low birth rate like Western Europe. Canada is one step behind Europe. The USA is one step behind Canada.

What if the rest of the World's countries become relatively internal stable, prosperous, and then adopt similar social attitudes and conditions to Western Europe and the US (I mean the ones that already haven't)?

Birth rates become very low across the World. Technological progress becomes more and more focused on amusement, distraction, and life extension to enjoy these amusements and distractions.

Fewer and Fewer are born in each generation; and all those who raise concerns about this are silenced and shut down being condemned as backward and fanatics. Humanity in general blinds itself with pride to what's going on: 'it's progress', 'it's good for the environment', 'family is a fascist institution'.

Fewer and Fewer are born till all that's left of humanity is some data that was an hubristic and failed attempt at immortality floating in machines and a relative few individuals who's life and youth has been extended as many times as they could and now are shriveled hunks of flesh attached to a battery of machines.

Over time despite the desperate attempts of machines meant to preserve what was left of humanity the shriveled ones die, the machines with the data fail, the cities fail, and the last of the machines fail.

All those radio transmissions we send out most likely just becomes background noise after a light year or two.

And all that's left of humans is a thin layer of polymers in the fossil record.


Well, I myself am a Revelations guy.

[G1Ravage]

It doesn't matter, because none of us will be here to see it.

But judging by the rate at which technology has progressed over the last three decades, by the time a doomsday scenario in this galaxy is set to occur, humans will have figured out space travel Star Trek-style, and will have moved en masse to another life-friendly galaxy.

[James Bester]

I used to believe the whole supervolcano theory after hearing about lava rising near Yellowstone and even watching a movie based on it on Discovery. Then I went to the site and found out that it's not supposed to erupt for another few thousand years.

So personally, I believe the ultimate end of the Earth will be an asteroid. Of course, I also believe this will be during the whole tribulation period mentioned in Revelations, being a Christian and all.

[RayChuang]

We will soon have the technology to deflect comets and asteriods from hitting Earth. But a supervolcano eruption is quite something else, though--120 to 150 cubic miles of volcanic ash spewed into the atmosphere will essentially wipe out agricultural output on Earth for 6-7 months and that could result in the extinction of most higher mammals--including possibly humans.

[Captain Zechs]

GUNDAMs will be invented by Japan, the other nations follow suit, then we create biologically enhanced humans, who become superior to us, kill us and then die in war with mobile suits...

[Kagetsu]

GUNDAMs will be invented by Japan, the other nations follow suit, then we create biologically enhanced humans, who become superior to us, kill us and then die in war with mobile suits...

Actually, if you consider the relatively slow progress of machines compared to leaps made in gene manipulation over a much shorter time frame. It's more likely that we will be transparent underground dwellers eating fungus faster than we can make Gundums and go to space,,, just to float around because we can't break the lightspeed barrier or shield ourselves from radiation.

And forget the Sun dying. If you project what we were 100,000 years ago, then project us out 10 billion years in the future,,, no creature has ever remained the same over that time period. Don't get me started on evolution,,, you won't like it.


It doesn't matter, because none of us will be here to see it.

I'll be sorry I added this one, but I like it. I'm going to die. I've known it since I was not 12 anymore. If I could chose being dropped in the ground until a developer came along and dug everyone up for neew housing,,, or standing to watch whatever huge event happened knowing everone,,, brains, idiots, right and ever so wrongs were also going to die a horrible death. it's a very easy choice. I hate traveling alone