Planetary Threat Log

[Lorizael]

The biggest threat to human life on Earth by far is the prospect of war. Natural disasters are not focused events. Wars are focused events where the human capital and infrastructure of countries are directly targeted.

Indiscriminate events can be enough if they're large enough. The geological record can attest to that.

[Winston]

The Nine Billion Names of God..

[onodera]

How about that we're on a spinning ball of mud, covered by a thin layer of gas, surrounded by a infinite void of vacuous death! I'm hiding under the bed.

What if the mud is actually on fire and only a thin crust separates it from the void?

[Unimatrix11]

Ok, so you've got:

1) Our own stupidity/short-sightedness. From nuking ourselves into oblivion to ****ing up our environment beyond all repair (whether you believe this entailed unchecked global warming, stupid policies enacted in the name of stopping global warming, or whatever).

2) Major asteroid/comet impact.

3) Biological event (in combination with #2?).

What else?

-Arrian

WigLaf.

[The Mad Monk]

While I think that the potential damage from such an event is immense and that there are probably relatively cheap ways to protect against it (?) I'm not big into statements about the US being knocked back into developing nation status by a catastrophe that doesn't immediately kill some significant percentage (5%?) of US population.

Developed economies are extraordinarily resilient. There is a large mass of human capital built into their workforces which standard measures like years of education etc. miss. Perhaps it's growing up in a place where you're used to cooperating closely with others, where the rewards to your labour are not arbitrarily seized or destroyed. Trust and lack of corruption are immensely valuable resources, and natural disasters will have a hard time destroying these.

Yeah, they overstated the case. Still, we should certainly consider these things when we are planning the "smart grid". The cost in life is still significant.

[The Mad Monk]

Ok, so you've got:

1) Our own stupidity/short-sightedness. From nuking ourselves into oblivion to ****ing up our environment beyond all repair (whether you believe this entailed unchecked global warming, stupid policies enacted in the name of stopping global warming, or whatever).

2) Major asteroid/comet impact.

3) Biological event (in combination with #2?).

What else?

-Arrian

Perhaps you should try reading the thread.

[The Mad Monk]

Indiscriminate events can be enough if they're large enough. The geological record can attest to that.

Exactly. Which, of course, is why we really need to get off this rock.

[Lorizael]

So eventually we're gonna compile this list and send it to the UN like we did with the Civ III Wish List, right?

[The Mad Monk]

No, eventually I'll pull up this thread for examples whenever somebody asks why we should bother colonizing other worlds.

[Theben]

Well the History Channel did their "Last Days on Earth" special a few months back... it was mainly global warming, nukes, biological warfare out of control, pandemics, things that come out of the sky (we had a near asteroid miss a few months ago), and calderas, from what I recall.

[The Mad Monk]

Yeah, I should include something on Yellowstone.

[chequita guevara]

The planet has a finite life span. It will be vaporized by the sun when it becomes a red giant.

If humanity ever expands to the stars, it will change beyond recognition, eventually becoming many species. Contrary to the claims of some, humanity is still evolving.

[Provost Harrison]

"Provost says Mars is a b*tch and he could have it in a fight."

There, add that to the planetary threat log.