It’s never pleasant to think about death, extinction, or the world coming to an end, but I will say that it definitely makes for some good conversation.
Will it be a nuclear war? A plague? An asteroid that hits Earth and wipes us all out?
It could be any number of things…
Here’s what people on AskReddit had to say…
1. A scary thought.
“I have a feeling we’re eventually headed towards nuclear fallout or chemical destruction.
I believe it is inevitably China Vs the United States (and allies like Australia).
I also believe Putin is sitting back with the popcorn at the moment.”
2. Sickness spreads…
“I think it will be a pandemic, much like we are having now, only more lethal.
I’ve heard several people say that COVID isn’t the big one, but it’s going to expose how unprepared the world is for the big one.”
3. Poetic justice.
“Because the majority of the population choose to believe oil CEOs with everything to lose instead of scientists with no reason to lie.
Pretty fitting way to go honestly, I hope the climate change deniers keep on denying it up til the very end, that’d be poetic justice for humanity.”
4. Inching closer to it.
“Depletion of resources, destruction of the environment, and the wars that will result from those things.
I don’t think humanity will ever get to a sci-fi future where we’re exploring the stars and colonizing other planets. The resources on this planet are very finite and they will not last thousands of years at the rate we’re using them. Even 10,000 years is less than a blink of an eye on a cosmic scale.
I think the next 100, maybe 200 years are going to be the peak for our civilization. As the critical resources necessary for technological advancements dry up and environmental destruction creates refugees/migration/starvation on a global scale, we’ll basically destroy ourselves in the resulting wars.
We might not actually go extinct until many millennia after that, but civilization as we know it will be over.”
5. All kinds of calamities.
“Absolutely we will go extinct.
Rising temperatures will eventually push many places around the earth to be uninhabitable. Combine that with the decreased ability to grow grains at scale needed to sustain the over-bloated human population, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Eventually large wars will break out over the very scarce resources that the earth is able to provide.
It’s called loss of habitat due to resource exhaustion. Many species experience it and it leads to their extinction, and humans are just another species.”
6. Poisoning ourselves.
“Pollution.
Especially the hormone disruptive ones. They won’t kill us instantly, but each generation will be more affected by them than the last, making it harder and harder to reproduce.
Might not happen this century or even the next few centuries, as there’s still plenty of people to reproduce, even at a lower rate. But it’s already affecting people , and the problem will worsen generation by generation.”
7. A simple act.
“Through some act of stupidity in all honesty.
With all the dangerous diseases and viruses various governments all over the world are experimenting with at any given moment, all it takes is one screw up to have some catastrophic results
And the current pandemic has shown that the general population is either unable or unwilling to respond to a disease or virus of significance.”
8. The crazies.
“Most likely nuclear war or some other form of military action.
Mutual assured destruction only applies to people who are afraid to die.
Once the crazies figure out how to build something extremely destructive, they will set of a chain of events that can’t be undone.”
9. Stupidity.
“Our own stupidity (in America anyway).
Too many think covid-19 is a hoax by (all?) The government(s) to remove our freedoms….the whole world is going through this, idiots, not just one country.
America’s President didn’t get with all the leaders of the world and convince them to shut down absolutely everything worldwide just to take American freedoms.
But yes, some of our rights are being trodden on, I’m not saying its not happening, but it’s a side effect, not the cause.”
10. Hell hole.
“Overpopulation, honestly.
The insane amount of people will outnumber the amount of food the earth can produce and it will become a hell hole.”
11. Keep an eye on it.
“Let’s watch out for South Korea.
They made a study and it says Korean people will be extinct in 300 years because newer generations ditch marriage and having a family.”
12. Scary scenarios.
“We will either kill ourselves in war or burn out the Earth’s resources and cause such heavy global warming and pollution that life at our level cannot physically survive anymore.
Slowly, people will be unable to successfully raise children until we all filter out.”
13. Could happen…
“Unpopular opinion: I don’t think it‘s gonna be our fault.
More something like a comet hitting us, the sun exploding or something like that.”
14. Uh oh…
“Genetic manipulation will become popular in the future and we accidentally or purposefully create a new species that is better than humans.
I expect it will be a human that makes the modification to themselves to create the new species.”
15. The end of days.
“It will probably not be war because we are to smart for that so maybe something from space like a huge meteor or the sun turning into a red giant if we are still on this planet in the next billions of years.”
Well, that was certainly uplifting!
How about you?
In the comments, tell us how you think human beings will become extinct.
We look forward to hearing from you!
