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According to psychologists, possible explanations for why people believe in modern apocalyptic predictions include: mentally reducing the actual danger in the world to a single and definable source; an innate human fascination with fear; personality traits of paranoia and powerlessness; and a modern romanticism related to end-times, resulting ...
Nuclear war is an often-predicted cause of the extinction of humankind. [1]Human extinction or omnicide is the hypothetical end of the human species, either by population decline due to extraneous natural causes, such as an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism, or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction), for example by sub-replacement fertility.
In Our Final Hour, Rees explores various risks of human extinction and their likelihood, notably those caused by the unchecked consequences of new technologies (such as nanotechnology or machine superintelligence), uncontrolled scientific experimentation, terrorist or fundamentalist violence, or destruction of the biosphere. [4]
Some were global, but were not as severe—e.g. the 1918 influenza pandemic killed an estimated 3–6% of the world's population. [13] Most global catastrophic risks would not be so intense as to kill the majority of life on earth, but even if one did, the ecosystem and humanity would eventually recover (in contrast to existential risks ).
Some of the more extreme warnings of civilizational collapse caused by climate change, such as a claim that civilization is highly likely to end by 2050, have attracted strong rebutals from scientists. [4] [5] The 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report projects that human population would be in a range between 8.5 billion and 11 billion people by ...
They noted that self-awareness, as depicted in science-fiction, is probably unlikely, but there are other potential hazards and pitfalls. [15] Various media sources and scientific groups have noted separate trends in differing areas which might together result in greater robotic functionalities and autonomy, and which pose some inherent concerns.
Apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural phenomena, divine judgment, climate change, resource depletion or some other general disaster.
Assuming that the world population stabilizes at 10 billion and a life expectancy of 80 years, it can be estimated that the remaining 1140 billion humans will be born in 9120 years. Depending on the projection of the world population in the forthcoming centuries, estimates may vary, but the argument states that it is unlikely that more than 1.2 ...