Patricia Grisafi
There are a lot of sci-fi movies that attempt to tackle the story of how humanity got wiped off the face of the Earth. But what do people think would be the most likely cause of our mass extinction? Would it be similar to an event that caused the death of the dinosaurs? Or something that feels like it should be under our control?
On Reddit, people are theorizing about mass extinction—and maybe it does take just one rogue space rock.
1. Rogue Planet
“Astronomical phenomenon like a rogue planet, or an asteroid.” — Tink2013
2. Cosmic Catastrophe
“I think people really underestimate what it would take to actually completely exterminate our entire species. We already bounced back from a population collapse down to under 10,000 once, we could do so again. Nuclear war, ecological collapse, incurable disease; I highly doubt that any of them could kill everyone. Even if it’s just a few isolated pockets in the outback or the jungle that survive, that’s still not extinction. Honestly, I think it would take a cosmic catastrophe (asteroid/comet impact, gamma ray burst, etc) to completely obliterate us and that assumes that it occurs soon enough that we don’t have viable populations outside of Earth.” — GalacticNexus
3. Cyborgs
“I’ve always thought that humans will begin modifying DNA and making cyborg-like modifications to the human body until we reach the point that the concept of human will be so diluted that we will have to call ourselves another way, leading to the extinction of humanity as we know it.” — -exekiel-
4. Climate Change
“Climate change, pandemics, etc will probably just make a dent of a smaller or bigger size. For an extinction level event, there’s fewer options:Asteroid impact. Global thermonuclear war. Gamma ray burst.” — arkaydee
5. Ancient Bacteria
“Polar ice cap melts, releases bacteria from 5 million years ago and it’s pissed.” — tuscabam
6. Humanity
“Humanity.” — LopensLeftArm
7. Hubris
“Hubris.” — SOAL92
8. Abuse Of Resources
“Over consumption of resources in general.” — fgs322
9. Greed
“Greed of manufacturing companies causing pollution/rubbish that destroys the planet for us.” — OGrouchNZ
10. Water
“Running out of usable water.” — MissingCalifornia-
11.
“While anything is possible, I highly believe the most likely is climate change. We are generating our very own mass extinction event. And it won’t just be us either. Nature will surely recover in time but majority of animals and people are going to die out. Maybe not in our lifetimes but at the rate we’re heading probably soon.” — mrPastyMuffin
12. Aliens
“A bad-tempered, bureaucratic alien species of space engineers deciding to construct a hyperspace bypass through our solar system.” — -o0_0o-
13. Solar Flare
“How about solar flares? What if there comes a solar flare that fries all electronics? Suddenly, we’d have no transportation, no food because it relies on transportation, no running water, no pacemakers, etc.?” — 101st_kilometre
14. Emus
“Emus.” — criddlem92
15. Insects
“Murder Hornets? Am I the only one prepared?” — progressives_suck
Featured Image: Unsplash
