Human Extinction

Primary Focus: War

http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

 

"Killed by an extraterrestrial civilization

The probability of running into aliens any time soon appears to be very small (see section on evaluating probabilities below, and also [66,67]).
If things go well, however, and we develop into an intergalactic civilization, we may one day in the distant future encounter aliens. If they were hostile and if (for some unknown reason) they had significantly better technology than we will have by then, they may begin the process of conquering us. Alternatively, if they trigger a phase transition of the vacuum through their high-energy physics experiments (see the Bangs section) we may one day face the consequences. Because the spatial extent of our civilization at that stage would likely be very large, the conquest or destruction would take relatively long to complete, making this scenario a whimper rather than a bang."




Analysis:
The extinction of man kind is possibly one of the biggest topics in depictions of the future. Will we last or not is the main question which leads to questions like: If so, for how long? Will we be our own imminent demise?What will the human extinction look like? Many people dream of intergalactic relations but with it obviously comes the possibility of intergalactic wars. Astronomers are said to be sending out radio waves into space in hopes of having extraterrestrial life picking up the radio waves in order to find us. But the biggest concern with is, how can we know whatever we may contact our there will be friendly? The popular Tom Cruise movie War of the Worlds shows what might happen if alien life forms plot our demise - the movie shows that the humans were completely powerless to the invader's super advanced technology and our only chance of survival was when the aliens could not resist the threat of Earth's bacteria. But what if aliens DO in fact decide to attack us after picking up these radio waves being sent out into space and we stand no chance against them and the human species gets wiped out? This would be another common example of how human curiosity and technology would be our own downfall in the future. The possibility of contacting other lifeforms who we could have good relations with sounds great, but the threat that also comes with it seems to not make it worth it at all. But also whats to say that if there are aliens out there with advanced enough technology to get to us, that they don't already know about us without even needing the radio waves being sent out to space? That would be a problem completely out of our hands.

Futurama

Futurama is a comedy cartoon show similar to Family Guy or South Park. Futurama takes place in the year 3000, nearly 1000 years in to the future from present day. The video is the intro to the show which gives a good idea of the setting for anyone who has never watched it. The intro shows a number of iconic future scenes which includes spaceships flying around in the air in the city, cars that hover above the ground as they’re driving around, and people flying through giant glass tubes that takes them all around the city instead of them having to walk. Technological advances such as these are common in most people’s perception of the future but one of the things that Futurama has that is uncommon in robots and aliens walking among humans which shows a vision that in 1000 years time our civilization will be so advanced that we will be able to create robots that can act just like humans, make contact with others life forms, and even have the technology to travel to different planets. The world of Futurama is such a fun and magical world that it would seem that the creator’s perception society is that we’re on the right track, and that we’ll only continue to advance in technology that’ll better our world. While that is mostly true, there are episodes that show the downsides of having a society like Futurama. One episode touched on environmental damage which shows that they believe the environmental problems we have today will continue even in 1000 years. Another touched on the risks of being in contact with other dangerous life forms. Even though he show is mainly for comedy, it can also be interpreted as a way of saying let the cards fall where they may. The world will continue to amaze us each day, but at the same time our problems will never go away. We may never reach a utopian status but the earth may not be completely doomed like other artists may say.