What would be humanity's likeliest demise?

[kerbiloid]

Industrial nations were on a level: a chain of ten people manufacture a pin.
Word "industrial" is not proper here, as it was a "manufactory", not a "plant". A "manufactory" differs from "industrial plant" exactly by its translation from Latin: "manu"+"factory" = "hand"+"made".

The industry appeared exactly between early XIX and late XIX.

[Bill Phil]

Just now, pyrosheep said:

You can basically use anything that burns hot enough to boil water to run a steam engine, people mostly used coal because it has better energy density than wood.

In places were wood was much cheaper than coal, wood was used instead of coal.

This steam engine used wood as you can tell from it's spark arresting funnel.

Except it was designed by skilled engineers.

[pyrosheep]

1 minute ago, Bill Phil said:

Except it was designed by skilled engineers.

yes, it's just addressing that not having coal, although definitely not ideal, shouldn't stop you from being able to make steam engines.  

[kerbiloid]

Especially when there are many thousands of technical libraries, many thousands of locomotives (steam, electric, diesel) and stiil alive mechanicians who still can teach others.
It's enough to reproduce this once, at a single place, and this state would establish its rules over all neighbor tribes, cloning new mechanicians for its army.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

21 hours ago, Randazzo said:

Human short-sightedness, ego, nationalism, and stupidity. In any combination.

I agree, but that will result in global climate change, and nobody will realize that they are about to be :

1. Hit by and asteroid.
2. Have their solar system cleared out of the way by Vogans to make a highway.

[magnemoe]

46 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Myself - no. Any technology needs some minimum amount of people to be used.

But early XIX century people worked using hammer, plough and other primitive hand instruments. And as you can see, 40 years later there was a steampunk age.
But 40 years before they had no idea about all that technologies. Now, what about tell early XIX people what are steam and diesel machines, how to construct and use them?

Now there are hudred millions of mechanics and engineers, billions of engineering books, millions of cars and steam machines and mountains of instruments.
It's clear what to do, it's more or less clear - how, there's no need to start with brimstone.
Several years until somebody establishes a leadership over enough large region and mobilize people to gather the machine remains and to build primitive plants - and a score years later there would be a state on the later XIX century TechLevel.

Back in the end of 17 century then they made the first steam engines they had some restrains. 
They knew how steam and vacuum behaved but presisjon parts for larger stuff than clocks and locks was weird for them. 
Same with high pressure outside of gun barrels. Low quality iron was also a problem. 
This was improved over time during the 19th century. 
 

[Wjolcz]

Nuclear war or cosmic threat. We either go full dumb mode and kill ourselves or don't pay enough attention to the killeroids. The rest can be dealt with relatively easily, I hope.

[Spaceception]

Just now, Veeltch said:

Nuclear war or cosmic threat. We either go full dumb mode and kill ourselves or don't pay enough attention to the killeroids. The rest can be dealt with relatively easily, I hope.

Well, Superintelligent AI/Rouge Experiments would probably be inescapable.

[Wjolcz]

1 minute ago, Spaceception said:

Well, Superintelligent AI/Rouge Experiments would probably be inescapable.

I don't think humanity will create any kind of Skynet any time soon. And even if it happens, I don't think anyone would be so dumb to give it free will and do whatever it wants to do.

[Spaceception]

Just now, Veeltch said:

I don't think humanity will create any kind of Skynet any time soon. And even if it happens, I don't think anyone would be so dumb to give it free will and do whatever it wants to do.

I hope so.

[Wjolcz]

2 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I hope so.

It's logical. If you create a superinteligent AI you want to keep all of it's knowledge and thoughts, and whatever  it comes up with for yourself. You want it to teach and educate you, not enslave.

[tater]

The idea that "climate change" would entirely wipe out humanity is absurd, as are most of the options. If the mass-extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs (or the extinction events before that one) didn't wipe out everything alive, then lesser events won't wipe out humanity, because we, unlike dinosaurs, can mitigate the effects of anything short of an extinction-level event (and we can deal with some of those with some engineering).

That leaves the nice post above, "evolution," along with "cosmic" events as the only possible answers. The next most likely might indeed be pandemic, though it's a poor adaptation for a virus or bacterium to kill 100% of its hosts, it's not an impossible random adaptation, I suppose (rabies is virtually 100% fatal---a few survive in induced comas, though, I believe, so if it were airborne...)

[PB666]

2 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

I agree, but that will result in global climate change, and nobody will realize that they are about to be :

1. Hit by and asteroid.
2. Have their solar system cleared out of the way by Vogans to make a highway.

Its Vogons, and all you have to do is engage the infinite improbabilty drive to magrathea and get zephod to sign the letter reverting the highway, or simply tapped the lab mice and tell them the vogons are about to obliterate there experiment to answer the ultimate question. Of course there is always marvin the depressed android with a reciprocating emotion gun.   I wonder actually, if you are making a highway, why would earth inconvenience the process, after all the sun would be more in the way, and the oort cloud and asteroid belt create more inconveniences.

If humans get into space seriously, we can divert any asteroid, thats not a problem. If we can't get permanent stuff in space, were doomed (as in red giant sun bakes us to smitherines in 300 million years) anyway so the asteroid would simply shorten the misery. I figure the second will be the case, I was listening to NPR its funny that Belgium has one terrorist attack and they want to split apart add this to the Brexit, seems like the EU is doomed, the more inclusive they become, the more the wealthy players want to exit. This is human nature, don't share resources unless there is strong coercion to do so.

Edited March 31, 2016 by PB666

[adsii1970]

In all honesty, outside of some cosmic event such as an asteroid impact, man will be the demise of his own longevity. As a species, we will either allow our health to continue to deteriorate because of our own laziness or through our own short-sightedness, allow ourselves to become governed into extinction by some elite ruling class.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

They knew how steam and vacuum behaved but presisjon parts for larger stuff than clocks and locks was weird for them. 
Same with high pressure outside of gun barrels. Low quality iron was also a problem. 
This was improved over time during the 19th century. 

Yes, the main problem was the low quality iron, until in the later XVIII they have invented how to construct a large smelter which allows to melt out cast iron and then convert it to steel, and that gave an opportunity to produce steel in enourmous amounts and to build machines which can produce large series of standardized and precise details. And they call this - industrial revolution.

And as now all these things are built, described and studied in dozens of variants, by millions of people: usually to recall the forgotten is easier than to study the new.

[PB666]

23 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Yes, the main problem was the low quality iron, until in the later XVIII they have invented how to construct a large smelter which allows to melt out cast iron and then convert it to steel, and that gave an opportunity to produce steel in enourmous amounts and to build machines which can produce large series of standardized and precise details. And they call this - industrial revolution.

And as now all these things are built, described and studied in dozens of variants, by millions of people: usually to recall the forgotten is easier than to study the new.

Electricity is key, if you can make and store electricity you can make steel from rot-iron, with a source of electricity the technology is not that fantastic.

Had they known that using magnets and a good waterfall (like Niagara falls) they could easily produce enough electricity to make an electric smelter the technology would have changed 100 years earlier, but a hundred years earlier people did not think of electricity as a novelty or something to avoid. In those days steel came and forests went.

Edited March 31, 2016 by PB666

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Veeltch said:

It's logical. If you create a superinteligent AI you want to keep all of it's knowledge and thoughts, and whatever  it comes up with for yourself. You want it to teach and educate you, not enslave.

Before you create an superintelligent AI with full access to your your systems you will create an stupid one with limited access. 
Well if the stupid one has the same moral as skynet it will try to take over and be to stupid to understand that it would be hopeless and mess up. 
This will be an major warning, same with humans and GM diseases, and yes some idiots will do it. Starting an unlimited war with US or Russia is pretty stupid too and mulitple has done it

[Wjolcz]

2 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Before you create an superintelligent AI with full access to your your systems you will create an stupid one with limited access. 
Well if the stupid one has the same moral as skynet it will try to take over and be to stupid to understand that it would be hopeless and mess up. 
 

That's why it should be monitored and get only input information without a way to give any output information AKA provoke a war or grab you with a robotic hand and crush your skull just for the lulz.

[Laie]

I chose the nuclear option.

Completely wiping out the entire human race would not be easy; global thermonuclear war or another chixculub won't do, we'd also need a nuclear winter that surpasses even the most pessimistic predictions. So, not very likely either way.

Still, as long as the nuclear arsenal exists it's an accident waiting to happen; I say nukes on earth put us more at risk than anything extraplanetary.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

Lets not let any of these things happen.

[Bill Phil]

9 hours ago, pyrosheep said:

yes, it's just addressing that not having coal, although definitely not ideal, shouldn't stop you from being able to make steam engines.  

Yeah. Making charcoal would be better though. I'm just saying it'll take a while. 

And the designers might not teach others. 

[PB666]

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Yeah. Making charcoal would be better though. I'm just saying it'll take a while. 

And the designers might not teach others. 

There's a hell of a lot of coal still in the ground and we know where it is, its likely to stay there, particularly the lignite coal.

[Bill Phil]

28 minutes ago, PB666 said:

There's a hell of a lot of coal still in the ground and we know where it is, its likely to stay there, particularly the lignite coal.

And there's a whole lot of wood that can be grown.

[Matuchkin]

Overpopuation, 100%.

[fredinno]

13 hours ago, tater said:

The idea that "climate change" would entirely wipe out humanity is absurd, as are most of the options. If the mass-extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs (or the extinction events before that one) didn't wipe out everything alive, then lesser events won't wipe out humanity, because we, unlike dinosaurs, can mitigate the effects of anything short of an extinction-level event (and we can deal with some of those with some engineering).

That leaves the nice post above, "evolution," along with "cosmic" events as the only possible answers. The next most likely might indeed be pandemic, though it's a poor adaptation for a virus or bacterium to kill 100% of its hosts, it's not an impossible random adaptation, I suppose (rabies is virtually 100% fatal---a few survive in induced comas, though, I believe, so if it were airborne...)

A Pandemic can only survive if it has enough hosts. Disease cannot kill off a species entirely, as it will almost certainly eventually doom itself by killing its hosts, and thus the infection rate grinds to a halt.

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

There's a hell of a lot of coal still in the ground and we know where it is, its likely to stay there, particularly the lignite coal.

But most of it is not easy to mine, which is the part of coal reserves that matter.