Doomsday

[MotorWaffle]

My guess would be asteroid, given that our entire astroid prevention team is just large enough to work half a shift at McDonalds.

[Drdiggit42]

Spam bot?

[AlexanderDitto]

Yeah this is probably a spambot. Their IP is from Bangalore and their first video is WGWJ. For some reason, a particular brand of spambot ALWAYS gives that as their first video. :/

But just because I've obliterated the spammer's post doesn't mean we can't discuss this very topic! They were asking about Doomsday scenarios, and which you think would be most probable. I think the most likely classical one is meteor strike, and as was pointed out, we have virtually no one trying to protect the earth from these things, and we only have like 50 percent of near-earth objects identified and mapped out. So shit could hit us at any time.

I'd like to think that if someone did identify something coming at us, scientists of the world would cobble together a solution pretty quickly. The question is whether it would be quick enough.

[Slack Mesa]

Asteroids are a good disaster, and I'mma let you finish, but zombie apocalypse is the best doomsday of the year.

[Drdiggit42]

I've always been partial to gamma ray burst from a pulsar. We wouldn't even see it coming.

[Metcarfre]

...is a terribadlarious movie, but that's beside the point.

In terms of single point events, I'd agree an asteroid/comet/other stuff in space strike is most likely.

But for now, I'd say the most likely scenario is a collapse of earth's ability to support the majority of human life through a combination of climate change, resource depletion, overpopulation, and dogged refusal to give up fossil fuels.

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

This is what happens:

Aliens.

However the aliens don't invade us but instead evict us, saying that there is new tenants for Earth and we're behind on the rent.


"We didn't know we had to pay rent!"
"What do you mean you didn't know? You think you get to stay here for free?"
"Well we didn't even know that this was rented."
"Humph, really? Well you have a lot of back payments to make and I'm not going to stay around and see you scrounge to make them, I've waited long enough and I'm not waiting any longer. Plus look what you've done to this planet! You're defiantly not getting your deposit back!"
"We had a deposit?"
"Yes, although I must say I let the deposit be a lot smaller than normal. I mean this is a nice planet in a nice part of the galaxy. Not to mention that the Milky Way is a very nice sector of the universe."

And you get the picture with that.

[AmazingPjotrMan]

I'm going with supervillain because that would mean they'd have to make up team of ragtag heroes and unlikely characters that need to work together in order to save earth. But since we're all dicks, we'd all die.

[Keab42]

Boiled alive in 5 billion years time as the Sun begins it's journey to becoming a Red Giant

[TheGhostOfZero]

I don't care, the leader of my country can take a freaking joke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebtj3gDaE64

[Master Gunner]

I'm going with Gamma Ray Burst, as there's fuck-all we can do about that, other than leaving the solar system before it happens.

[AdmiralMemo]

In any case, I don't care about the Apocalypse, because I live my life like every day could be my last anyway.

Though if the world did end on the 21st, I'd be pissed that I didn't get my Christmas reward in Star Trek Online.

[Kthanid]

I'm going to take a far bet and say solar flare E.M.P. knocking out all of our electronics. I mean think about how much we rely on it.

This is what would be affected if we lost our power-grids from that.
Telephone & Internet, Manufacturing (like the ability to replace damaged parts, Water Pumping, Sewage treatment, Food Storage, the ability to create fuel, to make modern medicines, and so on.

So it's not as flashy as an Asteroid or Gamma ray burst, but still pretty damn terrifying.

[Drdiggit42]

I didn't think solar flares created E.M.P.s like that. Maybe our resident astronomer can clear that up?

[Kthanid]

well specifically it'd be a Coronal Mass Ejection that would hit the earth.

(forgive the Wikipedia copy/paste but it's far more succinct than I can be)

When the ejection is directed towards the Earth and reaches it as an interplanetary CME (ICME), the shock wave of the traveling mass of Solar Energetic Particles causes a geomagnetic storm that may disrupt the Earth's magnetosphere, compressing it on the day side and extending the night-side magnetic tail. When the magnetosphere reconnects on the nightside, it releases power on the order of terawatt scale, which is directed back toward the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Granted it'd have to be a perfect storm of events so to speak but the point of the matter is we aren't prepared for something like this happening...at all.

[Smeghead]

See what I find funny about the whole 2012 end of the world theory is that Michael Coe who first published the theory in a book; basically stated that it was just bullshit, as it is really just about how the mayan calendra works (they didn't count years but days. A 'age' to them would last 144000 days, and that is what ends on dec 21. Just meaning that the 13:th age ends and the 14:th starts on dec 22)

Just to list off a few other ways the end would come.

A super vulcano could errupt either in the USA or in asia; killing all life several hundred miles from it; coverinng most of the earth in ashclouds, starting a new iceage.

The magnetic poles of the planet starting their shift from north to south (a process that might take decades), during which navigation will be distrupted, the planet will be vunerable to solar radiation which will drastically increase cancer cases and damaging electronics. This is a process that might already have started to happen given how much the magnetic poles are moving each year (but then this process has happened maybe thousands of times in the past; so it's not the end of the world; just probably very damaging to our civilization.

A small black hole might pass through the solar system; while missing all the planets it might pass close to the sun sucking up some of its energy which would most likely toast the inner planets.

Clown attack (you all know they are up to no good... planing. Until the day has come for them to unleash the bloody circus that will end us all!)

Pandemic

The Mongol Hord

The old ones

Vishnu

[AdmiralMemo]

Well, if Yellowstone Caldera ever erupts, the Western Hemisphere is pretty much doomed.

[Yaxley]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Either that, or flaming clown spiders.

[Dubious_wolf]

Warp gate collapse?

Attack of the bad sci if books?

Bees?

[JustAName]

BEES?! AUGHLAUGHLAGUHL!

[Kapol]

BEES?! AUGHLAUGHLAGUHL!

Nick Cage would just save us by knocking out a woman in a bear costume.

Anyways, I'm willing to bet we'll end up killing ourselves off somehow before a natural disaster happpened. Feel free to call me old fashioned, but I think that nuclear was is a good short-term option.

Of course, it all depends on what we define as doomsday. Do we mean the end of life as we know it, or the end of the human race?

[Lorithad]

Aliens finally recieve all the signals we've been sending out into the universe, and decide to pay us a visit. Unfortunatly for us, they use a not so perfect warp drive system to get here, destroying all of us when they arrive.

[empath]

Of course, it all depends on what we define as doomsday. Do we mean the end of life as we know it, or the end of the human race?

I'm of a mind that extinguishing ALL LIFE on Terra would be much harder than most people think; 'Mother Nature' has been bipolarly trying to wipe the slate clean for millions of years now, with means WAY BEYOND anything homo sapiens sapiens can field for effort...


...on the other hand, making the planet uninhabitable for HUMANITY is vastly easier; heck - all we gotta do is keep treating our homeworld the way 'greeks' treat their fraternity house...

[Metcarfre]

Oh! Nick Cage. There you go.

I mean, have you seen Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans?

[Kapol]

Of course, it all depends on what we define as doomsday. Do we mean the end of life as we know it, or the end of the human race?

I'm of a mind that extinguishing ALL LIFE on Terra would be much harder than most people think; 'Mother Nature' has been bipolarly trying to wipe the slate clean for millions of years now, with means WAY BEYOND anything homo sapiens sapiens can field for effort...


...on the other hand, making the planet uninhabitable for HUMANITY is vastly easier; heck - all we gotta do is keep treating our homeworld the way 'greeks' treat their fraternity house...

I had meant life as we know it just as it sounds. Not all life, but the standard by which we live today. Examples being zombies and the EMP mentioned earlier in this thread. They wouldn't kill off humanity entirely (or at least I hightly doubt either would), but it would ruin our current living standards.