Oxford University Researchers List 12 Global Risks To Human Civilization

An anonymous reader writes The 12 greatest threats to civilization have been established by Oxford University scientists, with nuclear war and extreme climate change topping the list. Published by the Global Challenges Foundation, the report explores the 12 most likely ways civilization could end. "[This research] is about how a better understanding of the magnitude of the challenges can help the world to address the risks it faces, and can help to create a path towards more sustainable development," the study's authors said. "It is a scientific assessment about the possibility of oblivion, certainly, but even more it is a call for action based on the assumption that humanity is able to rise to challenges and turn them into opportunities."

Comments

Lists

[sycodon]

I think Lists are the real problem.

How many times have they found Lists in bad guy's pockets?

1. Steal some cash
2. Beat up old lady
3. Shoot up a crowd.
4. Go home and chill with some Jamaican...and not the kind with dreadlocks.

Re:Lists

[Anonymous Coward]

Jamaican is mediocre. Really really mediocre. I don't think you could give it away anywhere it's even somewhat legal.

Re:Lists

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with lists:

1. Sometimes you don't put everything on them that should be there.
2. Sometimes you put things on them that don't belong.
3. Kittens
4. You can forget where you put the list, so then you have to make another one.
5. Other people don't agree with what's on your list.
6. Lists can produce a false sense of control and organization that may not actually be present.
7. 42

Peak oil?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're now forty years after the first oil shock, and, for lack of a valid alternative, oil still runs 98% of transportation.

How come peak oil isn't listed?

Re:Peak oil?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come peak oil isn't listed?

Simple answer, there is an unlimited amount of oil.

Re:Peak oil?

[Rei]

"We're now forty years after the first oil shock ... How come peak oil isn't listed?"

Your post contains its own answer.

People have been screaming "peak oil" since the late 1800s. Meanwhile, oil resource estimates just keep rising.

It's a naive perception of how the world works that envisions that mineral resources are like some cup with some fixed, limited quantity of a resource, and once you take it all it's gone. The reality is that for every resource, there's unthinkably, mind-bogglingly vast quantities available in total. The ease of extraction generally follows an exponential curve: the easiest stuff is incredibly rare, the next easiest an order of magnitude more common, the next easiest yet another another order of magnitude, and so forth. The amount you can produce depends on your technology and your current price point. Any hike in your price point or increase in your technology consequently puts exponentially more resource onto the market. Likewise, any hike in price leads to significant increase tech research to develop new types of resources, as the potential payoff becomes massive. The exponential scaling factor of difficulty of extraction versus availability strongly discourages supply peaks.

Now, the sort of resource availability curves aren't completely smooth - some order of magnitude transitions can be easier to achieve than others. Likewise, resource markets are always going to be inherently vulnerable to long-term price swings because you have such a long lead time between the start of new projects and the reaching of full production, and even longer time periods before the start of work on new technology and it becoming commercially viable. But regardless of the swings, the long-term picture is never one of scarcity. Making the scarcity bet is not a good idea.

Now, minerals can and do peak - but rarely from supply peaks. Rather, demand peaks are far more common. The stone age didn't end because people ran out of stones.

Re:Peak oil?

[Rei]

Note, of course, that the emphasis is on mineral resources - not biological. Biological resources don't follow a "the harder it is to extract, the exponentially more is available" curve. Rather, they're just the opposite - the more you extract, the less the total for you to extract in the future; the less you extract, the faster new resources become available.

Re:Peak oil?

[blue trane]

The only real scarcity is our knowledge.

Re:Peak oil?

[itzly]

We're probably already past conventional peak oil. People haven't noticed because of the glut of shale oil, but shale oil only provides a very short term solution.

Re:Peak oil?

[Rei]

(for those who are curious, here's the long-term pricing on the minerals in the Simon-Erhlich wager, inflation-adjusted).

Re:Peak oil?

[BlackPignouf]

+1
WTF Oxford University?
Our society is so dependent on oil that I cannot believe either they didn't include it.

Re:Peak oil?

[renergy]

Making the scarcity bet is not a good idea? Quoting from wiki: "...However, economists later showed that Ehrlich would have won in the majority of 10-year periods over the last century,[2][3] and if the wager was extended by 30 years to 2011, he would have won on four out of the five metals..."

Re:Peak oil?

[BlackPignouf]

+5 Insightful?
No :
-5 for bullshit, willful ignorance and not reading the article you link to :

However, economists later showed that Ehrlich would have won in the majority of 10-year periods over the last century,[2][3] and if the wager was extended by 30 years to 2011, he would have won on four out of the five metals.[3]

You might want to take a look at this article about the energy trap : http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...
You're talking about extraction price, you should talk about the energy return on investment : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Once it costs more energy to retrieve oil than to leave it in the ground, we'll have a big problem, and that hasn't been mentioned one bit by TFA.

Re:Peak oil?

[Rei]

See the post immediately above yours. It only works if you don't factor in inflation.

The "economists" claim is not directly cited, only indirectly referenced (no source given in the indirect reference), and the economists in question are implied by the indirect source to be "environmentalists" who have "tended to deny the significance of the Ehrlich-Simon bet".

Re:Peak oil?

[blue trane]

What if you use solar power to extract, and then use the oil for more immediate short-term energy needs?

Re:Peak oil?

[Rei]

EROEI is only relevant when looked at as an entire system perspective.

The Luftwaffe in the latter part of WWII was largely fuelled with aviation fuel made from coal. The primitive coal to liquids technology they used was very inefficient tech consuming way more energy of coal than it produced jet fuel (highly negative EROEI). Yet it kept the Germans in the air until the plants were bombed.

How can that possibly be? How could a negative EROEI work? Simple: because the net energy picture was still positive. Energy from coal in, less energy from jet fuel out. And the economic picture worked because you can't stick coal in a jet's fuel tank and fly it.

Oil doesn't have to be some super high EROEI fuel to work. It doesn't even have to be a positive EROEI fuel to work. So long as you can put it in your gas tank, and so long as the world can produce energy to make it, it can get alone just fine.

Even as it stands, oil is already a fuel whose value is many times higher than its raw energy value. Compare the per-BTU costs of coal or natural gas to that of oil - even in our current low oil price regime. Oil's value isn't it's energy value. It's the ability to drive an engine with it that makes it valuable. Changing other forms of energy into oil is a perfectly realistic economic proposition.

That said, in reality, oil is far, far from a negative EROEI, and won't be going negative for a long, long time, if ever - not that that matters.

Re:Peak oil?

[funwithBSD]

It is, but probably not for the reasons most people think.

The biggest issue is food security. There are probably 2 or 3 Billion people that cannot be fed unless we have oil for food production. More if you assume transportation is down, as there are concentrations of food where there are not concentrations of people.

 

Re:Peak oil?

[BlackPignouf]

The primitive coal to liquids technology they used was very inefficient tech consuming way more energy of coal than it produced jet fuel (highly negative EROEI).

You're right. But then you're back to problem 1 on the list : extreme climate change.
We have too much oil/coal/gas (see climate change) but not enough oil/gas (see oil peak).

Re:Peak oil?

[Rei]

I don't deny that at all. Peak oil would actually be great for the climate. Unfortunately, no magical supply peak is going to save the climate from us.

Re:Peak oil?

[CmdrTamale]

The only real scarcity is our understanding.

FTFY.

Re:Peak oil?

[breeze95]

We're now forty years after the first oil shock, and, for lack of a valid alternative, oil still runs 98% of transportation.

How come peak oil isn't listed?

The possible reason that oil was not mentioned is that (1) peak oil is a myth, and (2) the world will switch to an alternative to oil long before peak oil. The world's oil reserve is adequate to meet demand and every year the reserve increases in the form of shale oil. We are not going to see peak oil for the next 50+ years, if ever. Also with current technology, we can replace oil with bio-fuels (sure it will cost about $7 per gallon but Europe pays over $5 per gallon. So, $7 is doable) or natural gas. Converting a gasoline engine to run on bio-fuels or natural gas is easy to do. So, oil will not end civilization. At least not directly. However, if two nuclear superpowers get into a dust up over oil. That's another issue.

Re:Peak oil?

[UnknownSoldier]

Indeed.

The problem of the 20th century was production,
The problem of the 21st century is distribution.

Re:Peak oil?

[penguinoid]

We're now forty years after the first oil shock, and, for lack of a valid alternative, oil still runs 98% of transportation.

How come peak oil isn't listed?

Because while peak oil is a significant annoyance, it isn't a civilization-collapsing problem. We can make liquid or gaseous fuel from coal, or from biomass, or from solar/nuclear/wind via electricity. We aren't doing those because oil is cheaper, not because they're unavailable.

Re:Peak oil?

[BlackPignouf]

EROEI is only relevant when looked at as an entire system perspective.

And that's exactly what we do : We consider the system Earth + Mankind.

Re:Peak oil?

[david_thornley]

There's a finite amount of oil in the planet, so there will be peak oil sometime. However, it'll be slow. As the price goes up, more extraction methods become profitable. What will happen is that the price will continue to go up, which is hardly a surprise, and people will find ways to do without it or with less or manufacture it artificially. The effects are going to be slow enough for civilization to adapt.

Ruthless capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the single meta-challenge we have to face. With its focus on short-term profit it's going to kill us all.

Re:Ruthless capitalism

[funwithBSD]

And straw men.

Straw men will be the foot soldier of the Apocalypse

I'm surprised by number 1 on the list.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Systemd

I wasn't expecting it, but now that I've thought about it more, it does make perfect sense. Systemd is perhaps the most harmful thing to have ever happened to the Linux community. It has caused more strife, discontent, anger, animosity and uncertainty than even Microsoft or SCO ever managed to cause.

It was forced, through slimy political means, upon all Debian users. This has ruined the reliability and stability of Debian, which in turn has torn apart the Debian community.

And since Linux is the most important thing to all of humanity, anything that harms Linux in such a manner is clearly harmful to the entire world and human race. So, yeah, it does make sense why systemd would be the number one threat.

Re:I'm surprised by number 1 on the list.

[serviscope_minor]

Was that from the list provided by Bennett Hassleton?

(Sorry Bennett. If you're reading this, I have actually really likes some of your posts, but you've become something of a meme around these parts)

You've got to hand it to them

[gdr]

From the article:

Finally, the researchers warn of “unknown unknowns” and call for “extensive research” into “unknown risks and their probabilities”.

Scientists researching field A call for more research into field A. Also, as there will always be "unknown unknowns" that funding should continue indefinitely.

Re:You've got to hand it to them

[Anonymous Coward]

Paid astroturfer posts GOP talking points, hoping the private sector will create more money so his funding continues forever.

Re:You've got to hand it to them

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet retards: 'We already know enough; we can probably stop now. If anybody reckons we need to do more science, they're just grubbing for money.'

Not too hard

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Putin
2. Putin
3. Putin
4. Putin
5. Putin
6. Putin
7. Putin
8. Putin
9. Putin
10. Putin
11. Putin

and I bet you thought I would put Putin in 12.

12. Putin

YOu were right!

Re:Not too hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep drinking the Western kool-aid.

Re:Not too hard

[blue trane]

Ask Pussy Riot about Putin.

Re:Not too hard

[Rei]

Keep getting your news from Russian media.

Re:Not too hard

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather ask them about pussy.

Luddites

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, Elon Musk will whisk us all to Mars on his magic space cock just in the nick of time.

After all, we base our society on luck rather than rational planning of resources.

Let's just wait until the last possible femtosecond before doing anything. In the meantime, we should let our glorious rent-seeking job creators plunder and pillage and leverage technology for their benefit. We'll just be happy with their crumbs.

What solution?

[Anon-Admin]

"The message here is that if politicians don’t come up with solutions to the other problems in the list, they are a risk in and of themselves."

Really?

So lets see. Government only has 4 solutions to every problem.

1) Pass a law making it illegal.
2) Tax it
3) Declare war on it
4) Throw money at it and hope it goes away

Which solution do you think they should use on these issues?

Re:What solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to our glorious private industry leaders who:
1) Lobby the government to shut down the "competition" they claim to worship?
2) Lobby the government to minimize the "risk" the claim to embrace?
3) Seek rent?
4) Leverage every technology possible to reduce their costs while keeping prices the same?

Re:What solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first three require government cooperation to be successful, and the last one requires the first three to prevent competition to force lowered prices.

Re:What solution?

[0xdeadbeef]

We could put Libertarian dogmatism and naivety on the list, but they themselves have little influence, so it isn't like fixing them would fix the problem.

I guess you could call it pathological cynicism, and it expresses itself in many ideologies: government is evil, corporations are evil, America is evil, the West is evil, cisgender heterosexual white men are evil, etc.

Re:What solution?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

The sad part is I didn't read that as 4 unique solutions but as just the normal progress of things.

Re:What solution?

[magarity]

So lets see. Government only has 4 solutions to every problem.

Whoa there, you forgot the 5th government solution that causes way more long term problems than the 4 you listed:
5. Provide it "free" via an entitlement program

Re:What solution?

[Jason Levine]

You forgot the addendum to #4:

4a) Lobby the government to ban any technology if it threatens their prominence in the industry.

(See the MPAA/RIAA for a prime example.)

Re:What solution?

[funwithBSD]

I think that is a subset of 4.

Re:What solution?

[Anon-Admin]

Tell me, what is the solution?

Would you add more government and government regulations (Option 1 and 4 plus 2 to pay for it) to solve what you see as the issue with Private industry?

Re:What solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would add an ethics class to high school curriculum and an ethics exam for anybody who is responsible for public interest. This would include business owners, doctors, lawyers, politicians, and any other group who has a conflict of interest. It might not do much, but at least people would know when they are hurting others.

Re:What solution?

[Anon-Admin]

Seeing as the government runs the high schools (Public schools) you would have the government teach future business owners, doctors, lawyers, and politicians ethics.

There is no way that could ever turn into an epic failure. Sounds like a great, well thought out solution. :P

Re:What solution?

[khallow]

The same schools that encourage cruel tribal groupings, base human behavior like bullying, and mass cheating? That will end well.

Left Some Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Like "Falling Skies" and "Alien Abduction".

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Which islam specifically?

Like buddhism and christianity, there are countless subdivisions that sometimes fight amongst each other. E.g. northern ireland.

some subdivisions are pretty chill, others are medieval.

Re:Islam

[gmuslera]

You forgot sharks. They killed so far a bigger percent of mankind, and probably in a more gruesome way, you just point enough cameras at them and wait till we declare war to the seas.

So humans are the biggest problem.

[The Grim Reefer]

If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.

Re:So humans are the biggest problem.

[invid]

Growing up in the 70s and 80s I always thought that by this time I would be driving along in some barren post-apocalyptic wasteland in my cobbled-together hot-rod fighting off mohawked motorcycle gangs and saving busty babes from mutant frog-people. Instead I'm reading slashdot in my cubical as my code compiles. Sigh.

Re:So humans are the biggest problem.

[BarbaraHudson]

If you still want the experience, there are parts of Chicago that fit the bill. It's a good example of what happens when there's a fundamental disconnect between the economy and reality.

Re:So humans are the biggest problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've experienced quite a lot of lack of humanity in parts of Texas too. The parts that aren't Austin, which seems to be the only city capable of keeping it's shit together.

I used to have quite a few friends in TX, but I only have two left because of the rampant problems going on there. I definitely will not accept any more jobs there, they haven't lasted for 6 months before the company folded.

Re:So humans are the biggest problem.

[QuantumPion]

If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.

So what you're saying is, the #1 threat to humanity is intellectuals making lists about the dangers to humanity? :)

Re:So humans are the biggest problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Austin, the place where the Democrat Sheriff thinks that men should be allowed to have guns but that women should not be allowed to have guns?

Re:So humans are the biggest problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn,t include mega-flare/cme eruptions of our Sun, up to 10 million times more powerful events have been observed on other Sol class suns, and may have been the cause in the past, on Earth, of mass extictions thought to be from asteroid impacts. Can't really turn off the Sun like we shut down a commercial nuclear reactor though, can we?

TLDR - here's the list

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Extreme climate change
Nuclear war
Global pandemic
Major asteroid impact
Super volcano
Ecological catastrophe
Global system catastrophe
Synthetic biology
Nanotechnology
Artificial intelligence
Future bad global governance
Unknown consequences /karmawhoring>

Kind of weak list, IMHO. For example, where is "overpopulation?"

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[Anonymous Coward]

just put "human stupidity" at the top and be done with it

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Other interesting failures are ending of fossil fuels with all of our economies based on them, and accounting for about 80% of the energy source used for transportation. The energetic crisis won't hit us as hard and fast as some would be, but it will have consequences, and is more likely to affect us than an asteroid impact.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[RabidReindeer]

Kind of weak list, IMHO. For example, where is "overpopulation?"

I think it fell off the list when projections started indicating that world population is likely to stabilize somewhere around 2050.

In the mean time, it's a good time to buy property in Italy, as their population isn't growing enough. Russia and Japan have shrinking populations, although they're less likely to make immigrants feel welcome. The USA would have a shrinking population too if it wasn't for all those immigrants coming in and taking the jobs of the native-born Americans who aren't being born.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[XxtraLarGe]

Future bad global governance

Unlike current bad global governance, which isn't a threat at all...

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[CrimsonAvenger]

For example, where is "overpopulation?"

If current trends continue, overpopulation is a non-issue. Pop will increase to the 10-12 billion range then begin a decline to a (possibly) lower-than-today level during the rest of this century and first part of the next.

Do remember that China, Europe, and the USA (collectively, about a third the world's population) are already in a state of population decline absent immigration. India is now the only major nation with a positive population growth rate when immigration is ignored....

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[itzly]

If current trends continue

When has extrapolating population trend lines ever been a proven technique ?

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change cannot be stopped. It can be slowed, but not stopped. Well, it could be stopped, but it will literally kill the planet if it is stopped, so don't fucking do it.

Nucuular war: very likely. Growing tensions over resources dwindling and failing is a huge concern.
If we don't get space mining very soon, it is going to snap and WW3 will happen without a doubt.

Global Pandemics: quite likely. Abuse of antibiotics has lead to a horribly irreversible situation. It is just a matter of when now.
More and more things are becoming resistant. And this isn't even getting in to virus pandemics. But virii are mostly untouched by abuse.

Asteroids: unknown. We've already had some nasty meteor events in recent centuries. But I think we still have too many eyes facing the sky to not see asteroids. Admittedly most of those eyes need sunlight to spot said asteroids, very few are capable of seeing "in the dark".

Super volcanoes: only America is really at major risk of one of those erupting at the moment. America will be absolutely ruined in the middle, the outer edges will become less and somewhat impossible to live in without external aid.
Igneous flows reaching the surface are a far worse thing since they can go on for thousands of years. One of them basically reset evolution for the most part, killing off almost everything that existed beyond a certain size.

Eco craptastrophes. Global system catastrophes. Possible. We are only just getting to know how our planet works and we are only scratching the surface with climate as it is. Food webs are increasingly becoming endangered, especially a major component, bees.
There are some efforts right now to try fix this, all over the world. But the fact remains, increasingly larger cities are killing off areas for them, and farms are equally leaving less land for things they go to, leaving large areas of land they need to travel. Not to mention some pesticides are causing problems with them too. Blooms of bad algae are also killing off some fish I hear due to acidification of waters. (apparently pretty bad in the south Australia areas)

Synth biology and nanotech: fairly worrying. One wrong mistake and you could create a thing far worse than viruses.
Mutation isn't a result of lax biology, it is an inherent law of physics. Precision starts to fail when you get to these scales.
Manufactured viruses and such, given easy access to target certain cells and such, if they were to mutate the wrong way, they could become a transmittable virus. Mutate another way, they could start attacking things. There are so many uncertainties there.
We have been screwing around with biology for a while and we have been lucky that most efforts have remained safe.
There are talks and research in to engineering some pests to spread a gene that makes them infertile, for example.
There are more talks to even possibly engineer bees to increase their survivability since they are a major component of the food cycle.
Definitely a worrying but interesting area that will definitely change the world when it becomes mainstream.

AI is unlikely to do anything unless we give it free access to everything.
Or we listen to it and build things that kills everyone. (see nanotech and synth biology)
The skynet concepts are a very low possibility, but I guess they could still happen in some sense as more and more things get put on the internet for some stupid reason. (even worse is so many of them are weakly protected! They should be encrypted out the ass.)

Global Government collapse is, hm, I think it would only really lead to more local warring than anything.
Abuses already happen and can't really go much further without people throwing a fit and demanding things change.
That could probably lead to civil unrest globally.
Ukraine on a global scale wouldn't be a pretty sight.
This is looking more and more likely to happen in the USA of all places. There is quite a bit of unrest there at the moment

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[BarbaraHudson]

You seem to have forgotten Africa, which is supposed to go from 1 billion to 4 billion. Or maybe you're counting on Ebola to "fix" that? Sub-Saharan Africa will be the #1 growth spot over the next century, not India.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of weak list, IMHO. For example, where is "overpopulation?"

Overpopulation is already an "ecological catastrophe" so that's already covered.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[blue trane]

Malthus's predictions of famine didn't materialize.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[itzly]

That's because reality is more complex than extending a trend line with a ruler. And that goes both ways.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[argStyopa]

I don't see Gamma Ray Bursters, ergo, list is poppycock.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[slfnflctd]

Overpopulation is less of a concern now than it was a few decades ago. For starters, research has shown that people on both ends of the spectrum - the affluent and the abysmally poor - tend to have fewer children. This alone makes the situation somewhat self-correcting.

Beyond that, with advances in technology which make more and more previously inhospitable environments habitable with fewer resources (a necessary development if we're going to spread beyond this planet anyway, an ultimate answer to overpopulation), the issue disappears entirely. I expect that cheaper ways to store energy from already-cheap-and-getting-cheaper solar panels will pretty much put an end to the threat-- indoor temperature & humidity control, lighting (for growing food), water extraction from the air, refrigeration and robotics all get much more affordable under a 'better battery' scenario, something I now see as inevitable given the number of fronts on which that problem is being worked.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[itzly]

I would consider that a trivial variation on the killer asteroid theme.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[HuguesT]

It seems hard to believe that Africa will sustain 4x more people than now given the state the continent is already in.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[BarbaraHudson]

I'd tell you to look it up, but then I'd be swamped, like always, with [citation needed] from people who still haven't discovered how google works. Here you go

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[DNS-and-BIND]

I know we all enjoy greatly exaggerating how bad things are in 2015, but really now. Adults discussion time. Government is better now than it ever was in the past. A quick look at the history books will settle that argument in a flash. The very fact that we have global elites that hold no allegiance to the countries they were born in speaks volumes. They have much in common with each other, are alienated from their native populations, and have every incentive to work together to ensure a smooth future with no revolts.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[SeaFox]

Yup. I busted out laughing here at work when I saw "future" before that one.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[SeaFox]

The summary lists climate change and nuclear war as being "at the top of the list" as though it has some relevance. The list doesn't appear to be ordered by likelihood, otherwise why is "Major asteroid impact" listed above "Ecological catastrophe"?

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[penguinoid]

Extreme climate change
Nuclear war
Global pandemic
Major asteroid impact
Super volcano
Ecological catastrophe
Global system catastrophe
Synthetic biology
Nanotechnology
Artificial intelligence
Future bad global governance
Unknown consequences /karmawhoring>

Kind of weak list, IMHO. For example, where is "overpopulation?"

Overpopulation is subdivided into:
Extreme climate change (overpopulation --> too many humans messing with the climate)
Nuclear war (overpopulation --> conflict over scarce resources)
Global pandemic (overpopulation --> breeding grounds for disease)
Ecological catastrophe (overpopulation --> destruction of habitat)
Global system catastrophe (overpopulation --> destruction of habitat/overuse of resources)
Synthetic biology (overpopulation --> need to feed all those people)
Future bad global governance (overpopulation --> need global government to prevent conflict caused by overpopulation)
Unknown consequences (overpopulation --> unknown consequences of overpopulation)

I'll nominate for unknown consequences:
failure to reproduce: technological progress makes it even easier to avoid having children, while providing more interesting things to do than have children. Besides this, current and near future overpopulation cause it to also be considered virtuous not to have children. But as population dwindles, there is more stuff for everyone which further compounds the problem while increasing decadence. Humans saved from extinction by Darwin and/or some "crazy" religious group, but the rest of civilization collapses.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[WiPEOUT]

Irrespective of how good or bad you think it is today, do you not think it could be worse?

By labelling it as a future situation, you can engage people with opposing views to at least acknowledge that there is a potential future problem that can be actioned.

Re:TLDR - here's the list

[blue trane]

The reality is that human ingenuity created improvements in crop yields wildly beyond Malthus's dismal imagination.

Ocular Trauma

[Guy From V]

I think I might need medical assistance after how intensely I just rolled my eyes and groaned.

Climate change won't destroy civilization.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's this type of Chicken Little alarmism that destroys credibility.

If you want effect action on climate change, drop the over-the-top and demonstrably false claims.

Don't blame "more storms" on climate change - what happens when the US goes for a decade or two without getting hit by a hurricane? If climate change caused Hurricane Katrina, what's caused the lack of hurricanes since?

Re:Climate change won't destroy civilization.

[EmagGeek]

"If climate change caused Hurricane Katrina, what's caused the lack of hurricanes since?"

Why, Climate Change, of course!

Re:Climate change won't destroy civilization.

[riverat1]

Don't blame "more storms" on climate change - what happens when the US goes for a decade or two without getting hit by a hurricane? If climate change caused Hurricane Katrina, what's caused the lack of hurricanes since?

If you're only looking at hurricanes that strike the US mainland and not the overall number of hurricanes regardless of where they are you're doing it wrong. Where hurricanes hit is mostly a matter of chance.

If you look at the North Atlantic hurricane records since the exceptional year of 2005 (Katrina, Rita, Wilma) the years 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012 have been considerably stronger than average.

12: Unknown

[rossdee]

I guess they didn't think hard enough.

Theres threats from outside the Solar system, like nearby supernova or gamma ray burst, and of course aliens.
Even 'friendly" aliens could end our civilisation.

Where is the rapture

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't trust any list that talks about the end of the world and doesn't mention the Rapture.

Re:Where is the rapture

[Anonymous Coward]

It was on Blondie's 1980 AutoAmerican album.

They covered everything

[Revek]

Last one was unknown consequences. Thats a pretty safe thing to say that the end will come from the unknown.

The greatest threat to civilization ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... is civilization. "We have met the enemy, and he is us." -- Pogo

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

The Islam that marches people to the beach and cuts off their heads?

Or burns people alive in a cage in a public square?

Or sells women and children in sexual slavery?

Or flies airliners into office buildings?

Or blows up buses, cafes, churches, synagogs, government buildings, hotels, or anything place else innocent people gather?

Or maybe they Islam that cuts the throat of film makers and then leaves a note attached to their chest with a fucking knife?

Then there's the Islam that breaks into a publisher's office and guns down 12 people because of a cartoon.

There are so many...or, is it really just one Islam that does it all.

The only that's responsible for nearly 300,000 deaths in Syria alone.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[freak0fnature]

Really? Climate change is a Bible thumper thing? AI? Nano Tech? Sounds more like the left, not the right.

They missed one

[Anonymous Coward]

Not approving my grant application.

Re:They missed one

[blue trane]

Who approved the grantor's grant?

Re:They missed one

[messymerry]

It's grants all the way down...

Few of these threats...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are actually capable of ending civilisation. Global Nuclear war, for instance, is bad, but there is no way that it could 'end civilisation' - the dystopic film are strictly Hollywood. And 'Nanotechnology', or 'Artificial Intelligence' - well, now we're just being silly.

Out of all the threats, I can only see two which might end civilisation - an asteroid strike or a 'super volcano'. And they would end civilisation mainly by wiping out crops.

Still, they must have had fun living off their grants while they wrote the paper...

Re:Few of these threats...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did their grants give you a fun opportunity to gratuitously poke fun at grants? See, it was all worth it.

They watch too many movies:

[EmagGeek]

1) The Day After Tomorrow
2) Wargames
3) Outbreak
4) Armageddon / Deep Impact
5) Volcano / Dante's Peak
6) Wall-E
7) Margin Call
8) Resident Evil
9) STTNG (Borg nanobots)
10) I Robot / Terminator
11) Idiocracy
12) Catch-all for every other disaster movie evar

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Which ones follow the Quran?

The "extremists" are the ones who DON'T want to kill nonbelievers.

Some Missing Items...

[invid]

13. Supreme Being glances over and says "Hey! I haven't destroyed those ungrateful little twits yet? Kindof embarrassing, I told them Armageddon was supposed to happen 2 thousand years ago. Oh well, if I do it now maybe no one will notice I'm late"

14. Vogon construction of an intergalactic highway.

Re:Some Missing Items...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

15. Someone drops the Red Matter

16. No one can speak "whale song" in 400 years

17. Vger can't find Decker

Re:Some Missing Items...

[Jason Levine]

18. TV show is cancelled before the plot lines are resolved leading to angry aliens storming the planet demanding to see the ending.

Where is systemd???

[Anonymous Coward]

That one is a sure one in my list....

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I for one was saying to myself: where is gay marriage in this list?

Ignored knowns

[gmuslera]

Also should be considered Black Swan events. They are not exactly unknown, but they are dismissed as risks, sometimes because not understanding them well enough. And with them, fatal combos should be counted too, global warming could take 50-100 years to go into full effect, and that is too much time, enough to get combined with, or be a factor causing, diseases, wars, ecosystem depletion and some other factors listed there.

In fact, don't know how things like a big meteorite or supervolcano (that would cause a drop of temperature) would combine with the increased greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. Odds are high that they won't cancel each other, but lead to an even more chaotical environment or more abrupt temperature drop (less visible light don't enter because dust, and infrared could be stopped high enough because co2)

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a religious argument that an evil SkyGod will set fire to a city is probably going to be mocked.

Explain in scientific terms the consequences of a fire spreading out of control in an urban area, and you will likely be more persuasive.

(Though not to the people who think the Fire Code is evil government oppression.)

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Penguinisto]

Funny thing... they only mentioned the end of civilization, not the end of humanity - there is a distinction.

Overall, there are only IMHO two that are probable (bad governance, economic/system collapse), and one distant potential (ecological destruction). Then again, it doesn't take a tinfoil-hat wearer or a bible thumper to appreciate them; they seem kind of straightforward.

I'm sorry, but the rest are either stacked with incredible/'winning-powerball-jackpot-two-times-in-a-row' level odds (e.g. asteroid strike), or are obviously driven by ideology more than anything else ("extreme climate change").

Few civilizations have lasted longer than a couple of centuries, and fewer still longer than a millennia or so. Of the small handful that have (China, India, Roman Empire), none of them have lasted too long without going through fundamental changes and a lot of bloodshed. I fully expect our current global civilization to collapse sometime within the next hundred years (sooner if the USD collapses), but it's the very nature of human civilization; there will be a dark period where some (hopefully most) knowledge is saved, followed by a rebirth of sorts lifetimes down the road.

Sounds depressing, but just be glad that you live in such a wondrous time, eh?

Burst Forth, Publish Your Policy Report!

[eldavojohn]

If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.

Yep, that's the only option. There's nothing between doing nothing and that option. It's all we have. And if anyone starts to talk about mitigation strategies, planning ahead of time or devoting a single cent of taxpayer money toward preparing for it, we are just all going to have a meltdown and throw a tantrum with teabags on our hats. Thank god we have these strawman arguments for what these ivory tower Oxford elitists are telling us to do: eliminate the human race to protect the human race. I cannot believe they would actually come to that conclusion but there it is, right in the article. Those environmentalists will have us starving in mud huts by the end of the month if we just sit by and let this academic report go unabated and without criticism!

*tortured sigh*

Re:Burst Forth, Publish Your Policy Report!

[The Grim Reefer]

Sorry, I forgot the sarcasm tag. Apparently that was not obvious to you. But let's look at the points listed in TFA:

Nuclear war: We've been in danger of it since the 1950's. We even came close on a few occasions. So what's the solution? No one in their right mind has a workable solution. No country that has these weapons is going to give them up. And many countries want this capability. Some are dedicating considerably more resources toward it than others. Do I wish someone could wave a magic wand and make all of the nukes, knowledge of, and desire to build them go away? Hell yes. But it's not possible.

Global Pandemic: Other than isolating the population, what can realistically be done? We can't even stop the yearly flu outbreaks. How are we going to stop something (that may or may not ever happen) "uncontrollable", as the TFA states? By definition, you can't.

Ecological catastrophe: It's rather apparent that as individuals we are interested in this, but as a population no one seems to give a damn. Or at the very least don't feel it's a major concern. Just look at Deepwater Horizon. Or manufacturing in China or India. If the population of the US was truly worried, we'd stop off shoring manufacturing to countries that pollute as badly as we did 50 to 75 years ago. I try to be conscientious of what I purchase. Often looking for the most sustainable option. But it's becoming increasingly more difficult as such products are disappearing from the market.

Global system catastrophe: The global financial systems are so complex, I'm not sure what could even be done at this point. Just trying to stabilize it could bring about the opposite effect. Even so, after the last decade or so, you'd think that, that's what we'd be trying to do. But again, this is something we care about as individuals, but apparently are oblivious to as a population.

Synthetic biology: What can be done that is not already happening? Create a world policing system and execute anyone caught working on an armageddon germ? I'm sure that there are several countries working on this already. If not to devise a defense against it, but under the guise of doing so. Biological warfare is already banned and most of the planet has agreed to it

Nanotechnology: This is a rather vague one. Of course it has enormous potential for misuse. But the potential for good uses is phenomenal. It's like fire. Sure you can burn your neighbors house down with it, but does that mean you shouldn't be allowed to cook with it? or use it for heat? Of course not.

Artificial intelligence: See nanotechnology above. This is no different, other than James Cameron made some movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I've often wondered if we will ever hit a level of computing power and connectivity through the internet that AI could somehow spontaneously come into existence. If it did, would it even notice us at all? Would we notice it?

Future bad global governance: This could be happening right now. If you turn on the news, you'd probably be convinced that it is. Unfortunately, only history will know for sure. All we can do as people is to vote for what we believe will be the best people to do what is best (if you're in a country where that's an option) Or you can join or organize a revolt.

Unknown consequences: Yes, fear of the unknown. Fuck! We better start working on re-animation so we can bring back Steve Jobs to eliminate this threat with his reality distortion field. Or maybe we should work on a way to channel the power of all of the other threats into a single combined force in order to defeat this "unknown consequence". Or perhaps doing so will cause it to begin with.

So Oxford throws a bunch of scary scenarios out and what's the resolution at the end of TFA:

One resolution to the Fermi paradox - the apparent absence of alien life in the galaxy - is that intelligent life destroys itself before beginning to expand into the galaxy." It's all very cheery.

*rolls eyes*

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelled Religion

Its time for an american solution

[nimbius]

Gentlemen as an american i belive i can lend clarity to this alarmist list of, as you say, poppycock.
1. Extreme Climate Change: not a problem. climate change is actually just a theory, not a fact, advanced by scienists in order to get attention and grant money.
2. Nuclear War: no problem at all. If iraq, afghanistan, and viet-nam are any indication then rest assured America would win a nuclear war by winning the hearts and minds of whatever we were bombing.
3. Ecological Catastrophe: Again, we solved this by offering loans to banks and car companies in exchange for not restroying our ecology and creating more jobs.
4. Global Pandemic: Well obviously Ebola is a great example. Here we have a disease that has existed undetected by american scientists for probably 10 years, and then we cured it through declaring war on it. now theres no more ebola.
5. Global System Collapse: Easily defeated by avoiding taco bell and undercooked meat.
6. Major Asteroid Impact: during simulations and documentary, science has proven bruce willis would defeat the asteroid.
7. Supervolcano: not sure what that one is, but if its not a flavour of frozen confection or a menu item at ChiChis, we've got a war for it.
8. Synthetic Biology: clearly outlawed according to jesus unless we're talking about chia pets.
9. Nanotechnology: in america we have soap with little plastic scrubby beads that comes out of a pump. we're using nanotechnology responsibly and a lemon-scented fresh way.
10. Artificial Intelligence: Was an excellent movie but also did you know? we have self driving cars that use artificial intelligence to get us through the mcdonalds drive through safely without having to get the dashboard all greasy
11. Uncertain Risks: sometimes those are the risks you gotta take, like for example during our patrio-tastic invasion mind saving trip to iraq for freedom...how did we know ISIS would suddenly appear out of nowhere? thats why we have a plan for uncertain risks and a friend in jesus.
12. Future Bad Global Governance: Electing Jeb Bush or Sarah Palin would help the globals by making sure the governance is true and strong. and patriotic. we'd keep a list of baddies too, and probably make an axis of awesome countries that would be in charge of truthiness and justice.

Re:Its time for an american solution

[david_thornley]

13. Unsanitized telephones.

Nothing better to do at uni?

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW. does zombie apocalypse fall under the category "Global pandemic"?

The Article Was Flawed

[Akratist]

IANAS (I am not a statistician), but the basic problem I saw with the article was that it listed various probabilities for certain things, but didn't really add up to one hundred percent. So, a 1 percent chance the world is going to end a certain way, by implication leaves a 99 percent chance for it to end another way. At most, it didn't come close to a hundred percent for all options. Another flaw was that, IIRC, the Earth has around 300 million years of oxygen, and will be consumed by the sun in another 2.8 billion years, both of which are a relative certainty, and I don't remember either being listed. In theory, the risk of asteroid impact should be progressively lower as time goes on, and the other risks, outside of resource depletion and nuclear war, are just speculation. Even with resource depletion, life in some form is going to exist, albeit not with modern conveniences, and nuclear war's survivability is open for debate. I guess the one thing we can be completely certain about is that even Oxford University likes to put a little clickbait out, now and then.

Re:The Article Was Flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

You are assuming that the world will end by exactly one of these 12 possibilities. There is also a chance that the world will not end, which accounts for the missing percentage. There is also a chance that the world will end by more than one of these events occurring. For example we might wipe ourselves out with one of the human causes such as nuclear war or bio-engineering catastrophe, and then an asteroid hits that would have wiped us out had we not already done so.

Re:The Article Was Flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trolling? Because if you're trolling, clap. Clap. Clap.

If you're not, how ever do you cope with, say, Top 40 music lists? Because when you add up the sales of those top 40 hits, they don't add up to the total sales of the music industry!

It's almost like there's a difference between '12 greatest risks' and 'all of the risks'! Like, one is a subset of the other, and so smaller! Maths is so confusing lol!

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Which of the religions mentioned figure prominently in virtually every trouble spot in the world to day? HINT: It follows the teachings of a pedophile, murdering prophet.

Economic/system collapse = End of civilization

[srussia]

Overall, there are only IMHO two that are probable (bad governance, economic/system collapse)

System collapse is not a cause, that's what the end of civilization is! And whatever "governance" there may have been before collapse will necessarily be considered "bad".

Re: Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is not worth commenting on.

The greatest risk to human civilization is people.

[Ihlosi]

Yeah. Human civilization would be nice if it didn't involve all those people.

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

A Few unrealistic ones, Robot taking over and climate change. One is a fantasy the other can't be proven to actually exist, just scientists guessing. The others are possible.

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

"According to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), between 1580 and 2013 there were 2,667 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks around the world, of which 495 were fatal."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_attack

495 deaths is, you know, a day's work for Islamists in the ME and Africa right now.

Number 1: Humanity itself

[mnt]

Somehow that selfish, greedy monkey called human will manage to destroy itself.

Re:Number 1: Humanity itself

[ArcadeMan]

Strangely enough, the movie title "12 Monkeys" seems rather appropriate.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when Space Nutters do it, then it's +5 Insightful as you pack your suitcase for Mars, right?

Re:Islam

[hooiberg]

And we invite those people to speak on a public event for charity... On international women's day, 8 March, no less. The shame... :(

The theory data is bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

"1. Extreme Climate Change: not a problem. climate change is actually just a theory, not a fact, advanced by scienists in order to get attention and grant money. "

Given the facts of data tampering, the man made climate change religion is losing the battle and the war, lol. It's hard to believe that people actually think they can tamper/falsify data on such a huge scale and get away with it.

Re:Islam

[Livius]

That was before lasers.

How about a more realistic list

[DanDD]

The only ones on the list that have any factual basis:

1. Major asteroid impact
2. Super volcano
3. Ecological catastrophe

The others in the list seem to be the result fanciful imaginations or anti-science fear mongering. So, I'd like to add two more item to the list:

4. Failure to understand history/philosophy/science (aversion to rational thought)
5. Poisoned minds, poisoned cultures

They didn't even mention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a single mention of overpopulation, yet it is the #1 problem. Fuck Oxford pinheads.

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me...

Female Genital Mutilation.
Honor killings.
Child Marriages.

Not necessarily exclusive to Islam, but embraced by Islam with a vengeance.

Swap #1 and #12

[Anonymous Coward]

And it would be a pretty decent list. To suggest "bad governance" is below "uncertain risks" is absolutely absurd - especially when everything around us points it to the top slot.

Climate change won't destroy civilization.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the cause! Can't you imagine that something is a bit more complicated than two stones?

These are missing

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian aggression and muslim terror don't rate a place on the list?

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

The scariest scenario is that we end up in a stable state similar to how Europe languished for over 1000 years with tiny, feuding dukedoms and duchies, where because of the constant warfare, any attempts at trade would be impossible, since any traders would be killed and their goods taken for a dukedom's coffers... or killed and the goods burned so it doesn't go to the next dukedom on the list. This was a very stable state where no progress could be made in technology or the arts... until the Black Plague make it impossible for the ruling class to have enough backs to flog to keep themselves on top. Subsistance peasants could grow things like olives instead of crops needed for food, and up sprang the Renaissance when before the plague, large nations that had the means to do things were just a pipe dream.

This nightmare can easily hit us again. Europe and the US are a lot like Rome where instead of bread and circuses, it is beard oil and iPhones. The barbarians are already at the gate, and unlike a conquering Rome which "embraced and extended" Greece's civilization, they are interested in nothing but destruction. Knowledge can be saved, but with the ethic that groups [1] like the Taliban and ISIS have (destroying the Buddhist statues for example, as well as burning film archives), it will be a lot harder to preserve items from our current civilization than it was back after Rome fell and a lot of scrolls and libraries wound up in Persia for safekeeping.

Our civilization is robust. Europe was nearly eradicated by WWII, but it is the beacon of light for the world now. However, it wouldn't take much for a global war to start that would involve every nation out there [2].

However, if enough of the world got destroyed, the ability to get back to working on state of the art technology may not happen. One needs the tools to make the tools, ad nauseum. Destroying an energy infrastructure would put things back in a dark age for a long time, since coal and oil are musts to keep the lights on, and nuclear requires a civilization level to keep running. Transportation is also vital, for rare earths, coal, water, food, and other basics to keep a civilization active.

As for decentralized energy, they all have issues. Solar is good, but is one EMP blast away from being history.

Which leaves hydroelectric and geothermal... and those are only usable in only a few regions, which would leave the rest of the world sans power.

Without power and transportation, there would be starvation in the billions, since there is no way a densely packed city like Signapore, Dubai, or even London can support itself by food grown in a nearby radius. Even here in the US, if the trucks stopped going into NYC, in 1-3 days, the entire city will wind up a giant Donner party.

What can one do? Here in the US, one is fairly lucky -- arable land is available with wells to be dug. 5-20 acres can keep a family fed, with a critical mass of available livestock around so life can go on even if anything more high tech than a horse-drawn carriage was rendered inoperable. Getting out of the "hives" is a high priority since one's life is at the mercy of the city's administration if push comes to shove.

[1]: Again, one has to note that Islamic countries were the ones that kept Roman and Greek history from being lost in time while the average European had an average lifespan of a Justin Bieber fan (if they didn't starve to death, they were killed by the nobles for sport.) It is the extreme offshoots from the Wahhabi philosophy that view only setting up a thanatocracy as one's sole goal in life. It is ironic that the group/religion which preserved Western religion and culture for centuries, now has extremist sects devoted to its destruction.

[2]: This can easily be started. If Russia completely collapsed and neighboring countries started claiming territory, this would bring every single country in, either in hopes of a land grab, or preventing an enemy from doing so. We saw shades of this a century ago when countries came to Russia to fend off others. Even the US did this... and this is still a sore point with Russians, especially when Murmansk and Archangelsk are brought up.

Re: Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the ones the CIA or NATO have been training, funding, helping or supplying in places like Libya, Afghanistan... right?

EndOfTheWorldList.items.add()

[Anonymous Coward]

"liberal do-goodery";

9. Nanotechnology - FAKE ARDUINO!!

[user.aaaaa]

yea fake Funduino is going to kill all the humans

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

or, is it really just one Islam that does it all.

Well, it's really not one thing. The Sexual slavery, for example, is not the same as the others, it's about profit, and disdain for other human beings in a way that the others aren't. And not at all limited to Islam. You really might be surprised as where you can find that happening.

Though one should be careful not to let fear of it overcome the reality. The hysteria of the so-called "White Slave Trade" was problematic during the early 1900s, to the point where real problems were ignored to chase down imaginary phantoms.

Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[Paul Fernhout]

See: http://overpopulationisamyth.c...

In general, as Julian Simon wrote, the (educated, nourished, healthy) human imagination is the ultimate resource that invents all other resources, so in general the more people you have, the more imagination you have. For example, woudl we have the internet if someone in the 1600s had decided there were too many people because London was overcrowded and killed off all but a million humans on the planet? The solar system can probably support quadrillions of people living in space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and asteroidal ore like JD Bernal imagined in the 1920s.
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/...
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...

That list is very similar to what I had listed here in back in 1999 (minus a few fanciful ones):
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...
"The race is on to make the human world a better (and more resilient) place before one of these overwhelms us:
        Autonomous military robots out of control
        Nanotechnology virus / gray slime
        Ethnically targeted virus
        Sterility virus
        Computer virus
        Asteroid impact
        Y2K
        Other unforseen computer failure mode
        Global warming / climate change / flooding
        Nuclear / biological war
        Unexpected economic collapse from Chaos effects
        Terrorism w/ unforseen wide effects
        Out of control bureaucracy (1984)
        Religious / philosophical warfare
        Economic imbalance leading to world war
        Arms race leading to world war
        Zero-point energy tap out of control
        Time-space information system spreading failure effect (Chalker's Zinder Nullifier)
        Unforseen consequences of research (energy, weapons, informational, biological)"

But in the end, I think the issue raised in my sig is the biggest challenge: the perilous irony of people using the tools of material abundance in a war-like way as if material scarcity was still a major concern, as well as derivative issues like the moral problem of creating artificial scarcity under capitalism and so on. There are possible solutions to such issues (basic income, expanded gift economy, improved subsistence via 3D printing and personal agricultural robots and indoor agriculture and solar panels and so on, participatory democratic planning supported by the internet), but ideology and existing artificial-scarcity-based power structures stands in the way. Still, the dominant ideology is slowly shifting top a more open and abundance-oriented one. As Buckminster Fuller said decades ago, whether it will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end...

Re:Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[itzly]

as if material scarcity was still a major concern

I'd like a mansion on a 10-acre beach front property in a nice sunny climate, please.

Re:Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[DamonHD]

And I'd like two entire universes please.

Just because you can make a silly demand, doesn't make it anything other than that.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[swb]

I'm not sure I understand how billions more poor people are an imagination resource if they are underfed, uneducated and enthralled with religious superstition unless the imagination product is just day to day survival skills as poor, hungry, ignorant serf in a theologically dominated environment.

Re:Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[itzly]

Why is that a silly demand ? Beach front property is an example of a highly desirable, yet scarce resource. Claiming that scarcity does not exist, or will not exist in the future, is bullshit.

Re:Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[DamonHD]

Hi

It is a silly demand because the scarcity is artificial and unless you are a fisherman (and possibly not even then) it is by no means an essential.

We can all just make up demands for things like 10t of precious metal each that might also be highly desirable because of how we happen to price them, but artificial scarcities are not meaning for a discussion.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[Paul Fernhout]

You bring up an important issue. However, in practice, the most common way large numbers of people tent to become underfed, uneducated, and victims of slave culture ideology (religion being complex topic) is from things like colonialism and militarism actively destroying real abundance and healthy cultures in a quest for some dysfunctional imbalance.

For example, consider what happened when Columbus came to the Americas:
http://www.historyisaweapon.co...
"These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus. ... The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.... ... When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island. ..."

Contrast with what Marshall Sahlins said about most hunter/gathers:
http://www.primitivism.com/ori...
"Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's - in which all the people's material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to recognise that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times. ... The world's most primitive people have few possessions. but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilisation. It has grown with civilisation, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo."

Also related:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
"Peace makes plenty.
Plenty makes pride.
Pride breeds dispute.
Poverty's the fruit.
Poverty makes peace."

But that poem from the 14th century (!) is a very different take on things than saying scarcity or want or ignorance is a natural state of being...

Still, even in such cases as you describe with billions of people under subjugation, people (in aggregate) are always thinking of new ideas about their situation and new ways of doing things, and improving their skills and sharing ideas. It takes a lot to shut that growth process down.

For a current example, consider all the effort of groups like by RIAA and similar groups through political lobbying to create more artificial scarcity (e.g. The Sonny Bono / Micky Mouse copyright extension act). These restrictive efforts now ensure people can in theory do more jail time and get bigger fines for sharing (copyrighted) information like a few inspirational songs than if they had committed murder. See for example:
"Seven Crimes That Will Get You a Smaller Fin

Re:Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality

[david_thornley]

I don't care about having enough precious metal around to be a nuisance, but beachfront property would be great. It has real value for looks, for handy swimming, and so on. I suspect it's got health benefits.. It's also limited in amount.

You say that beachfront property is not essential, which is true, but limiting the "no scarcity" to essentials makes it near-meaningless. By that yardstick, we're post-scarcity now, since the problems with supplying essentials to everybody are basically political, not technical or economic.

Re: Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

"This article is not worth commenting on."

BUT - here you are!!

Let's just call this...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the "chicken little" list. This is what the list is all about, after all! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe that story, I have some bridges to sell you, kid :)

Come back once you've graduated middle school, then you can join the adult discussion where we actually have to filter our facts for correctness.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Daniel Hoffmann]

The problem is that globalization means that EVERYONE collapses at the SAME time, all those old civilizations collapsed over an extended period of time and most parts of the world were not affected directly by their downfall. I don't think our retrospective lessons of past events will help much for the future in this case.

13. Oxford University Researchers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes...humanity is eeevillll...our greedy and gluttony will bring about the end of all life on the planet.
How long has it been that we've been hearing that?

12: Unknown

[Anonymous Coward]

friendly alians don't qualify as unknown? what did I miss. :o

There is only one thing;

[unixcorn]

Humans have an inherent weakness that will do us all in at some point. It's greed. Whether it has to do with religion, money, power or good karma on Slashdot, it's all the same. Lacking greed, people might be able to live together without fear of others. Unfortunately, greed is also what drives progress in so many ways as well.

Re: Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

And those infidels shall be burned alive for their atrocities if NON-compliance. But of course they'll be given painkillers first, because Allah is merciful. And if they're bakers, and they refuse yo bake a cake for our weddings, they'll be burned alive without painkillers, because NOT baking a cake is worse than what the nazis did.

Re: Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

And if they dont check their spelling or grammar before posting, it will be even worse, and they shall be punished before they can post again on slashd ... hang on. Someone's violently knocking at my door ...

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[HornWumpus]

EMP is overrated as a hazard. In lab tests, typical cars needed to be power cycled to reboot their computers. Electromagnetic emission regulations effectively mean all consumer products are lightly EMP shielded these days. Power grid is another question.

General Jack Pershing made two really ballsy, fantastic decisions in his carrier.

1. He told the English/French high command 'Fuck no! You guys are incompetent jackasses. Just give us part of the front.' (para) when they wanted to use American soldiers as replacements in English and French units in WWI.

2. He told the US congress via the press: 'Get us the fuck out of here, this place is a mess and we are only making things worse' (para) when in command of the 'Allied Expeditionary Force' in Russia after WWI.

It's a safe bet he personally saved a million lives and shortened WWI.

If Russia collapsed, there would be a little nipping at the edges. Mostly nations taking their land back. Nobody want's to try to control Russia proper. Besides which; their nukes aren't going anywhere.

Russia's 'Government' is a show, same as everywhere. The real power there will not collapse in any case.

Re: Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that sharia law comes to the U.S. soon. I think we should be able to throw acid in women's faces for accidentally seeing a strange man in their peripheral vision or exposing a toenail in public.

I Think I Know...

[Greyfox]

I'm pretty sure it'll be shortly after I figure out how to set people on fire with my mind.

Re: Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Uuuh, punishment for refusing to bake a cake would fall under "Queeria" Law, not Sharia.

Re: Fear Mongering FTW

[rot26]

>>> "This article is not worth commenting on."

>>BUT - here you are!!

>Looks more like a meta-comment to me

I call shenanigans!

[Anonymous Coward]

Greatest threats to Civilization, and not ONE mention of the plague that is mimes?

So, they're just pretending that mimes are not ready to strike? Hiding behind their invisible walls, arming their invisible weapons, ready to wreak invisible havoc on a visible world?

Those pasty faced monsters won't stop until every last person has been silenced...

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Asteroid strike within the next 12 months is on the same order of probability as a single powerball win, off a single ticket purchased.

Asteroid strike within the average lifespan of people alive today is 30 times more likely than that, add another 3x if you want to consider people already alive, and another 3x if you care about their grand-children.

They missed the most important one

[Anonymous Coward]

American rapid capitalist , fundamentalist nut jobs

Extreme religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Religious extremists have made the end of civilization their goal; however, they are not a credible threat? Be afraid, very afraid!

Far more likely than You Think

[Roger W Moore]

I'm sorry, but the rest are either stacked with incredible/'winning-powerball-jackpot-two-times-in-a-row' level odds (e.g. asteroid strike)

Actually the odds of you being alive for an extinction level event, while low, are far higher that. The odds of winning the UK national lottery are about one in 14 million. The average life expectancy of a human is ~80 years in the western world so if the rate of extinction-level events only has to be one every ~1.1 billion years for the annual probability of one to mean that there is a higher chance of you being alive when one happens than there is of you winning the lottery.

If you look at the frequency of all mass extinction events given here then you can see that the rate is far higher than that. Unfortunately we don't really know for certain how many, if any, of these were caused by asteroid impacts or massive volcanic eruptions but the rate of these natural extinction events is clearly far higher than one every billion years. Hence the data suggest that you are probably many times more likely to be alive when a natural mass extinction event happens than you are to win the lottery even once, let alone twice.

Is the report titled "Dumb Ways to Die"?

[jthill]

n/t

Re: Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Asteroids are very unlikely but very deadly and relatively easy to prevent with pocket money. The question is. Should we spent that money to something irrelevant or to something that could save us all.

Re: Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

So far Christianity has done much worse than that. E.g. sawing people in half while they are still alive and that is not even the worst. It is not even so that the people doing this stuff are horrible. It is mainly the environment.

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Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[DamonHD]

Well, your sig "I am a crackpot" leads me to hope that you don't actually believe the mental contortions in that item!

Rgds

Damon

Religion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although that could be under "Future bad global governance".

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[account_deleted]

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The end of civilisation

[DanielOom]

One proof the world is sliding backwards: fifty years ago the end of civilisation was due to only three things: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Few people thought there would be any civilisation left after the year 2000.

Oxford University skimmed IMDB...

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks to me like the "researchers" went to IMDB and searched for movies tagged "Disaster":

1) The Day After Tomorrow
2) Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
3) Outbreak
4) Armageddon
5) 2012
6) After Earth
7) Live Free or Die Hard
8) 12 Monkeys
9) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
10) Terminator 2: Judgement Day
11) CSPAN
12) ??? ... Profit!

Re:Islam

[firewrought]

There are so many...or, is it really just one Islam that does it all.

Looks to me like there's also >1.4 billion Muslims who didn't do any of those things today.

#13

[Anonymous Coward]

Oxford University Researchers!
MUHUHAHAHA!!

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr... the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Peace be upon his noodly appendage.

Re:Islam

[sycodon]

Neither did the express any outrage over those things being done in their name.

Not today, yesterday, nor, I suspect, tomorrow.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheldon Cooper, is that you??

Threat #13

[Anonymous Coward]

Inevitably left-wing, meglomaniacal academics.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[ganjadude]

3rd world countries will have a leg up then. humanity will go on

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

...I'm sorry, but the rest are either stacked with incredible/'winning-powerball-jackpot-two-times-in-a-row' level odds (e.g. asteroid strike), or are obviously driven by ideology more than anything else ("extreme climate change")...

Yeah. Stupid physics. If it wasn't so driven by ideology we would have had flying cars by now.

You list ecological destruction but then turn right around and say climate change isn't real. I bet I could get around a megawatt of power if I wrapped copper coils around your head due to the spin from the cognitive dissonance on that one.

Anthropogenic climate change was predicted well over a century ago, and the physics that led Dr. Arrhenius to the development of his physical model that showed this was based on work going back to Fourier in the early 1800's.

Why you seem to think this is some new ideological conspiracy/fad in science is beyond me.

They forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Carrington Event.

Otherwise kind of a weak list.

Just saying.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[umafuckit]

or are obviously driven by ideology more than anything else ("extreme climate change").

This is not ideology driven. There is a scientific consensus that extreme climate change is a serious threat. The only ideology I see comes from the deniers who don't accept the science.

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

You've spoken to each and every one of them then?

No.

Well, don't worry, there's plenty of documented history of such. If you bother to look.

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Disturbingly, it's getting harder and harder to Google these, as ever more sites pop up dedicated to spreading the heinous racist myth that all Muslims must, axiomatically, dedicate themselves to the murder of non-Muslims.

But the Koran, it says:

Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not, aggressors. (Al-Baqarah 2:190)

Call unto the way of thy Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and reason with them in the better way. Lo! thy Lord is Best Aware of him who strayeth from His way, and He is Best Aware of those who go aright. (An-Nahl 16:125)

Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of [your] religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely Allah loves the doers of justice. (Al-Mumtahanah 60:8)

Conversely, the Bible says:

Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. (Deuteronomy 13:15)

But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)

Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (Numbers 31:17-18)

Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys (1 Samuel 15:3)

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[Hognoxious]

General Jack Pershing made two really ballsy, fantastic decisions in his carrier.

That was Chester Nimitz.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[camg188]

Incompetent/corrupt government should probably be number one.

Try Minecraft for cheap beachfront property

[Paul Fernhout]

You can download a Palm Beach Hotel and beachfront here: http://www.planetminecraft.com...

Or, if you want something less virtual, consider working towards seasteading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Or large space habitats:
http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov...

And of course, there is also "the Matrix" of "the Holodeck" for immersive reality beyond what Minecraft offers (not there yet, but maybe we are?)

Each of those ideas is a product of the imagination... Even if some have yet to be realized, or may never be.

So, yes, you can have what you want, today, with Minecraft, thanks to a lot of imaginative people (including Inifiniminer by Zachary Barth, a big inspiration behind Minecraft). Should we have declared all those imaginative people surplus at birth out of some fear there was not enough to go around? People may consume resources and they may crowd places, it's true, but people also can create resources and can create places worth being in.

Now, after my having said this, you may put more qualifiers on your request to be contrary perhaps and say a beach front hotel in Minecraft virtual reality is not what you mean. However, then you are not engaging in a playful spirit and you are to some extent creating your own artificial scarcity and artificial unhappiness for yourself compared to a lot of interesting experiences you can have right now. As far as the basics (and including a computer that can run Minecraft and so on) there is plenty to go around on planet Earth for billions of humans. And with a little bit of effort, we could create enough land (and beachfront property) for quadrillions of people. Just like the Dutch created habitable land from the sea, future humans can create habitable land from space resources.

For some inspiration on what might be possible, see Iain Bank's "Culture" novels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Anyway, will there still be conflicts and scarcities, even with abundance? Sure. Humans compete with each other for all sorts of reasons, including for the attention of specific people nearby (and including as part of a mating dance for relative status, see for example James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear"). But by the time we are talking about those sorts of scarcities, we are way beyond the sort of material scarcity most mainstream economics assumes.

BTW, various jobs are listed here at Palm Beach area hotels if you want to be around that physical ambiance right now:
http://www.hotelforcepalmbeach...

After all, how many rooms of a mansion can one person physically occupy at one time? And an empty mansion at night with you as the only occupant can seem kind of creepy and lonely and even boring...

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[HornWumpus]

How would a WWII admiral make decisions for a WWI general?

On modern academic economic "theology"

[Paul Fernhout]

A mainstream academic economics department is in some ways essentially a modern theocracy.

The book "Disciplined Minds" helps explain the social dynamic behind that (which applies to some extent in most graduate programs, but may be most extreme in some like economics these days):
http://disciplinedminds.com/
"Who are you going to be? That is the question.
In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict "ideological discipline."
The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy.
Schmidt details the battle one must fight to be an independent thinker and to pursue one's own social vision in today's corporate society. He shows how an honest reassessment of what it really means to be a professional employee can be remarkably liberating. After reading this brutally frank book, no one who works for a living will ever think the same way about his or her job."

Supporting examples include "The Market as God": http://www.theatlantic.com/mag...
"A few years ago a friend advised me that if I wanted to know what was going on in the real world, I should read the business pages. Although my lifelong interest has been in the study of religion, I am always willing to expand my horizons; so I took the advice, vaguely fearful that I would have to cope with a new and baffling vocabulary. Instead I was surprised to discover that most of the concepts I ran across were quite familiar.
Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of deja vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies. ..."

And "The Mythology of Wealth": http://conceptualguerilla.com/...
"Justifications for elites and social hierarchy goes all the way back to the pharaohs. For 6000 years, society has organized itself into social classes. The people who do the work are always in the lower classes. The harder and nastier the work, the lower down in the social order you sink. The people who don't do this work must justify their position. They do it by establishing their "worthiness", and a variety of cultural devices have been concocted over the millennia to accomplish this. The pharaohs, you may re

The greatest threat...

[Anonymous Coward]

The greatest threat we face is actually Sid.
Meet Sid - Shallow, impatient, demanding. He's everywhere in the developed parts of the world, and his attributes are rapidly spreading to the rest of it. He's the cause of banking crises, social inequalities, freeway pileups, muggings, riots, etc. The ultimate result is breakdown of social cohesion leading to anarchy - making human existence (to paraphrase Hobbes) nasty and brutish if not short.
But the secret is that Sid has always been with us. All that's changed is the ease with which he can operate (and therefore the number of Sids operating at any one time) and speed with which we hear about it.

Re:Fear Mongering FTW

[david_thornley]

Nimitz never commanded a carrier. He did run a light cruiser aground once.

Re:Islam

[david_thornley]

Which Islamic country or countries has the military and/or economic power to be more than a nuisance?

Agreed; we could have post-scarcity now

[Paul Fernhout]

"By that yardstick, we're post-scarcity now, since the problems with supplying essentials to everybody are basically political, not technical or economic."

Yes, exactly. And it has been that way for some time. And if all that energy spent propping up a social order based on artificial scarcity (e.g the Iraq war) was instead, say, creating fusion energy (US$3 trillion incurred on Iraq would have brought us pretty close...) we'd be able to go way beyond the basics for everyone.

That's the paradigm shift that could happen. It's what James P. Hogan explores in his novel "Voyage from Yesteryear", maybe with some overly rosy glasses about decentralization but still a good read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...
"The Mayflower II has brought with it thousands of settlers, all the trappings of the authoritarian regime along with bureaucracy, religion, capitalism and a military presence to keep the population in line. However, the planners behind the generation ship did not anticipate the direction that Chironian society took: in the absence of conditioning and with limitless robotic labor and fusion power, Chiron has become a post-scarcity economy. Money and material possessions are meaningless to the Chironians and social standing is determined by individual talent, which has resulted in a wealth of art and technology without any hierarchies, central authority or armed conflict."

As I wrote in this essay, abundance for all essentially comes from multiply technological progress times social progress. So, with social progress, what technology you have can do a lot more, and vice versa.
"Getting to 100 social-technical points (was Re: a Change)"
https://groups.google.com/foru...

Realizing how fragile our civilization is on this planet (given solar flares, supervolcanos, asteroid strikes, climate change, plagues, and so on including all the things in the original story) is one motivator for people to put more effort into cooperation and less effort into conflict.

BTW, an "endless pool" is (I hear) really great for convenient swimming, and a lot cheaper than most beach front property. :-)
http://www.endlesspools.com/

The thing is, as soon as you state what specific you are trying to accomplish (exercise, sunshine, storage space, time in nature), rather than what specific thing you want (mansion on a beach), there are probably lots of creative paths to obtain that in ways that everyone could also do. As another example, yes, there may be only one original "Mona Lisa" painting (or maybe a few similar ones by the same artist), but if you want a pleasant painting on the wall to look at, or are willing to accept a copy of a well known painting, that is relatively easy to achieve in material terms.

So, even if actual Earthly current beachfront property is scarce relative to the demand at a price of "free" (I have to concede that), opportunities for exercise, being in nature, or having beautiful experiences are readily available to most people (or could be).

clouds of dust the biggest problem

[Anonymous Coward]

In the article, clouds of dust wiping out all life is caused by several disasters. Are there research on how to tackle clouds of dust? Because then, we would be immune to several catastrophes: Asteroides volcanoes, nuclear war, etc. They would hurt, but only clouds of dust could wipe out life. For a realistic scenario of clouds of dust, watch The Road with Viggo Mortensen

Re:clouds of dust the biggest problem

[rot26]

Not many people survived that movie. After seeing it most of them killed themselves.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

They forgot the most obvious one: Apathy. People will lose interest in everything, descend into idiocracy, and use up all the energy that could otherwise be used to get off the planet. We will die of boredom, stupidity, and a lack of motivation. We will play video games and eat snack foods until there is nothing left. Never underestimate the power of human ignorance.

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me...

Female Genital Mutilation. Honor killings. Child Marriages.

Not necessarily exclusive to Islam, but embraced by Islam with a vengeance.

Usually only found in very few regions with Muslim population. And also practiced by non-Muslims of those regions.IOW regional, not religious. Like sheep fucking in the US.

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither did the express any outrage over those things being done in their name.

Not today, yesterday, nor, I suspect, tomorrow.

Nope, it just hasn't been reported on by the media you consume. And you can bet they will refuse to report it tomorrow.

Re:Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Which of the religions mentioned figure prominently in virtually every trouble spot in the world to day? HINT: It follows the teachings of a pedophile, murdering prophet.

The guy who said: "Let the little children come to me" - Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them.