End of The World

   So I'm going to talk about something that has been talked as an imminent and real threat since the dawn of human civilization, the end of the world. Funny how it hasn't happened yet. Anytime someone tells me the world is going to end in year x because of y, I always just dismiss it, it's not really realistic that we can give such a timeframe except under certain circumstances, none of which are usually involved. What I want to talk about though are some threats to our well-being that seem to understated quite a bit.

    Let's start with an easy one, an asteroid or something big enough to cause a mass extinction event crashes into the earth. This one is a serious threat but not in the way people seem to portray it. It's not exactly one we wouldn't have a decent amount of time to see coming. The real danger would be whether or not we could do anything about it. With the cuts that were made to NASA's budget we can assume many people don't take this threat seriously. I see this as a problem because once it becomes a clear and present danger might not have the time or resources to succeed in deflecting such a massive object.

    The Earth, as with all the scenarios I'm going to mention, will be fine. I mean, it can take the hit from an asteroid it has done so in the past and would be able to do so again. We, however, would likely not survive it. Eventually life might return to the Earth, maybe even life such as ours again, able to read, write and communicate, build communities, and fight wars. Maybe even one day start their own space programs, so they too can see their doom coming while not being able to do anything about it because they didn't take it seriously before it was too late.

    This scenario wouldn't be the end of the world, however, it would merely be the end of the human race. Which shows one of the many ways our view on the subject is skewed.

    So let's cover another world ender shall we? How about that ole' hot button topic, Global Warming, or more accurately Climate Change. The thing I find interesting about this one, is it's primarily human driven, or at least human accelerated. At this point the science stack so high that anyone who believe, that either, it isn't happening, or that humans aren't causing it, are simply climate change deniers. They aren't people arguing an equal but different point, similar to intelligent design and creationists, not understanding that they aren't equally supported or even equally likely. If you don't believe climate change is happening or don't believe humans have had a negative impact on the environment on a global scale in the last few centuries, then you are a denier of reality.

    People are allowed to deny reality, they just should not be capable of forcing the consequences of said denial on to others. You can do whatever you want to yourself, but you don't have a right force others to suffer because of your adherence to the fiction of your mind.

    The damages of climate change can already be felt, many in the scientific community have suggested we may already be in the next mass extinction event. Climatologists say we've already passed the point of no return, that climate change and it's damages are set, and the most we can possibly do is lessen the damage, but only if we change our level of resource consumption, which seems to be a hard sell for some reason. It reminds me of someone smiling as the house burns down, and just keeps repeating that everything is fine. Rather selfish if you ask me.

    Again, this would do little damage to the Earth, it would recover over time and likely be back to a point where it could support large quantities of life again. Similar thing have happened in Earth's history. The human race might die out completely or evolve into something that isn't even recognizable by what we see now as human.

    Okay here's another, while less likely the first two, still well within the realms of possibility. Problem is most people treat it as science fiction, without bothering to check any of the data. So here we go, Alien invasion.

    So let's look seriously at what I'm suggesting, now we know the Earth was struck with tons of space debris during its time in the solar system. We know some cells can actually survive in the vacuum of space and some could possibly survive inside the nooks and crannies within the rocks. The theory is that this may have been how the life on Earth may have started. If that's true where did that life come from? A nearby planet that could support such would be the likely. The interesting thing is we keep finding that life can endure more and more than we thought it could previously. So it's actually rather possible that life exists somewhere else, even within our galaxy and also possibly rather nearby. So the limitation would be less on the likelihood of their existence, and more on their ability to reach us in any reasonable amount of time.

    So we should probably leave our any form of faster than light drive. While it's true, that for us it is only theoretical doesn't mean that it isn't a reality elsewhere, I'm trying to present an argument that has support and relying on something that far outside our grasp.

    So let's first understand that the shorter lifespans of humans are universal to other species that might develop into being capable of space travel. It's not even entirely true for some species of Earth, turtles can survive for well over a century, and we have researchers looking into ways to extend human life far beyond its current roughly century-long span.

    It's actually possible that there could be a spacefaring species who could live for possibly a thousand or tens of thousands of years. Another option could be a ship capable of supporting life for hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, and the descendants of those who first left the ship are those that make it to us. So it's actually rather reasonable to assume that an alien race that developed on another world might be capable of reaching us.

    The next important thing we know about our galaxy, and space in general, is that space is rather empty, and when small objects even some the size of planets, can be completely invisible to us if they aren't close enough to a nearby star for light to reach them. So it'd be unlikely that we'd be aware of them coming to us unless they were near or in our solar system. That's actually a rather scary thought, that there could be something so close but we'd have no idea it's there. Another part that scares me is that even if we did know they were there we'd probably be unable to do anything about them.

    So I can now safely suggest that an Alien race can reach us, and that we wouldn't be aware of it until it was likely too late to do anything. The next suggestion I could easily make would be that no matter how much we hope otherwise if they're anything like us they might be more than willing to let us all be wiped out with no effort on their part or even cause it and not feel remorse. Because if we are willing to take money away from those who might give us methods to survive an asteroid crash, our history of war with ourselves, and climate change deniers, it's an easy suggestion that an alien race could come here, take over, and either maliciously or through neglect cause our extinction with nary a thought to preserving us.

    Still it would be likely that the planet Earth would survive, and so again the human race would be what was lost. Our self-centered view of the universe is likely to be our downfall. Many people believe life on Earth is all there is in the universe, which, if not dangerous, is very foolish with the limited amount of information we have. The human race looks like if it ends, it's likely to end because of it's hubris, it's belief that the universe we're actually important in the scope of the universe.

    The reality is that we aren't important, the Earth will go on without us and so will the universe. We're no more important than the dinosaurs were. The only thing about us that is even remotely special is that if we as a race, come to an end, it is possible that it will be by our own hand, and that we'll take millions of other species down with us. The Earth and the Universe will continue on either way.