Will mankind destroy itself?

[mistermack]

If a virus evolves that is 100% lethal, it's going to be extinct in a very short time.
It's genes will not be passed on. What is left, is a world full of LESS lethal viruses, which are passing on their genes.

So, its genes won't be passed on, so it will have become a genetic failure. In the meantime... no humans.

Yeh, but the point is that all the viruses that exist now are descended from ancestors which were less than 100% lethal.
Otherwise they would not exist.

So you would have to have viruses that are less than 100% lethal, whose ancestors are all less than 100% lethal, and have been for billions of years, to suddenly produce an offspring that IS 100% lethal.

It's not likely. I don't know of any record, of any species, that has been totally wiped out by a virus. None.
So the chances of it happening to humans is remote. But I agree, maybe not impossible.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The dinosaurs thought it couldn't happen to them. And it didn't, some still survive. We serve them with dumplings.

[Red Celt]

The dinosaurs thought it couldn't happen to them. And it didn't, some still survive. We serve them with dumplings.

Sometimes with sage and onion stuffed up their cloaca.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The dinosaurs thought it couldn't happen to them. And it didn't, some still survive. We serve them with dumplings.

Sometimes with sage and onion stuffed up their cloaca.

And there is great thanksgiving that it isn't us. For now.

[Blind groper]

Red Celt

As i said before, that is an exceedingly improbable event.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Red Celt

As i said before, that is an exceedingly improbable event.

Why do you keep saying that, it's happened before, so at best it's unlikely. But we have thousands of large rocks between us and Jupiter, and a poo-poo load of comets out in the Ort Cloud. One of those could be on it's way to Burbank as we speak.

[SteveB]

Red Celt

As i said before, that is an exceedingly improbable event.

Why do you keep saying that, it's happened before, so at best it's unlikely. But we have thousands of large rocks between us and Jupiter, and a poo-poo load of comets out in the Ort Cloud. One of those could be on it's way to Burbank as we speak.

Jay Leno's chin isn't that big!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Red Celt

As i said before, that is an exceedingly improbable event.

Why do you keep saying that, it's happened before, so at best it's unlikely. But we have thousands of large rocks between us and Jupiter, and a poo-poo load of comets out in the Ort Cloud. One of those could be on it's way to Burbank as we speak.

Jay Leno's chin isn't that big!

It's a great target though. Pacific Ocean second, then Mt. McKinley.

[Blind groper]

Why do you keep saying that,

Sorry

I was not being very clear. I referred to the idea of a natural plague killing every last human.
An asteroid will, of course, hit the Earth sooner or later, but more likely later - much, much later. Like millions of years from now.

[Robert_S]

Why do you keep saying that,

Sorry

I was not being very clear. I referred to the idea of a natural plague killing every last human.
An asteroid will, of course, hit the Earth sooner or later, but more likely later - much, much later. Like millions of years from now.

A natural plague wiping us out is not highly probable, but it could happen quite easily. While there are no 100% fatal diseases that are highly virulent, there are lots of 100% fatal diseases and lots of highly virulent diseases. It could be a disease that takes a lot of time to kill us, leaving the carriers to spread it while they slowly die off, possibly not even showing symptoms for years.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why do you keep saying that,

Sorry

I was not being very clear. I referred to the idea of a natural plague killing every last human.
An asteroid will, of course, hit the Earth sooner or later, but more likely later - much, much later. Like millions of years from now.

"but more likely later - much, much later" This is based on what?

[Red Celt]

Why do you keep saying that,

Sorry

I was not being very clear. I referred to the idea of a natural plague killing every last human.
An asteroid will, of course, hit the Earth sooner or later, but more likely later - much, much later. Like millions of years from now.

"but more likely later - much, much later" This is based on what?

Extreme optimism?

All it would take is one asteroid or (in the case of a virus) one genetic change - to truly wipe out humanity. I'm not quite sure why this is being denied here (by some) and can only guess that it is a lifeboat of hope, born of extreme optimism. I mean, sure, such events are rare/unlikely, but that doesn't mean that they can't happen. The asteroid event has already happened and the virus event may well have also happened, for all we know. An isolated population in any corner of the world... how can anyone say that one of them wasn't wiped out by a 100% effective virus? Surviving viruses have (by definition) evolved from non-total ancestors; but that isn't the same thing as a virus that cannot, itself, become 100% effective.

By chance, I was watching an episode of BBC's Horizon last night - featuring asteroids. There are 900 near-Earth asteroids which are larger than 1km wide. The 1km margin is used, because that would most likely lead to a termination event. There are lots of near-Earth asteroids which are smaller than 1km. 999meters will still do an awful lot of damage.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Extreme optimism?

Whistling in the dark, I think.

[Blind groper]

The reason I say an asteroid wiping out humanity any time in the near future is unlikely is simply the infrequency of such impacts. As I said, the last one was 65 million years ago, and the previous one is possibly a cause of the Permian extinction, more than 200 million years ago. The infrequency speaks for itself.

As to a natural plague, again, we have history to consider. The worst plague ever, in terms of percentage of the population killed, was the Black Death in medieval times. At its very worst, in the areas most harmed, it never killed more than one third of the population.

Today we have a massive amount of medical knowledge, which we can use to prevent cross infection. The chances of a natural plague wiping us out, due to our medical prowess, are now less than ever.

An act of malice with biological weapons, by a major power, though, might be different.

[JimC]

The reason I say an asteroid wiping out humanity any time in the near future is unlikely is simply the infrequency of such impacts. As I said, the last one was 65 million years ago, and the previous one is possibly a cause of the Permian extinction, more than 200 million years ago. The infrequency speaks for itself.

As to a natural plague, again, we have history to consider. The worst plague ever, in terms of percentage of the population killed, was the Black Death in medieval times. At its very worst, in the areas most harmed, it never killed more than one third of the population.

Today we have a massive amount of medical knowledge, which we can use to prevent cross infection. The chances of a natural plague wiping us out, due to our medical prowess, are now less than ever.

An act of malice with biological weapons, by a major power, though, might be different.

I agree that species extinction via a new infectious disease is highly improbable, though a nasty virus could still kill millions of us in a pandemic...