Thread: The End

>>I much prefer y. You have a problem with that???

Yes I do. Which is why its a damn good thing that:

a) I dont know where you live
b) I dont own tactical nuclear weapons
c) My supper will be ready soon

>>b) I dont own tactical nuclear weapons
Maybe that's how the world will end then. Two cprog.com residents having an international argument about two letters of the alphabet. y is still way better!

>>c) My supper will be ready soon
And maybe man's stomach will be his saviour.

OK, slight change of theme, when do you think it will end?

>>OK, slight change of theme, when do you think it will end?

Oh, yeah. This thread had a topic... Not a particularly interesting one though really. Its all fairly baseless conjecture [at this point in time]. Its very hard to see an end to anything until you're quite close to it. *looks around* Yup, no iceberg.

Originally posted by Scourfish
The earth will be destroyed in order to build an intergalactic bypass.



42!

lol yes, 42 (what sort of meaning of life is that!?)

Ok ill add my ramblings on the subject:

Viruses scare me. Really scare me. I'm not worried about countries going to war and blowing each other up, although i wouldnt say it was impossible. I'm more worried about some nut producing a doomsday virus that wipes the human race.

Human viruses that have been around a long time are not a threat, because the virus is better off not killing us. Funny eh? Many viruses 'can' easily evade the immune system but 'deliberately' dont so that they don't kill us. The problem viruses are those that jump the species gap: The flu that killed more soldiers than bullets in WW1 is an example as is HIV, Ebola, etc. They are the real nasties, because they evolved to 'not kill' their particular hosts, HIV was the SIV virus in monkeys, the 1918 flu jumped from another mammal i forget which one. So when they get to us our immune system hasnt got a clue and we promptly get into trouble.

Now whilst the threat from natural viruses that jump the species barrier is worrying (and a whole load of chickens were slaughtered in Honk Kong because they thought they might have a form of flu that might be transferable to humans), the real scare factor is the possibility of genetically engineered super viruses, believe it or not they have already made an HIV/ebola/Influenza (i think its got influenza - might be something else) hybrid virus for the purposes of gene vectors in medical gene therapy (you need a good way to insert genes into cells so you use a cut down virus (there are other ways too), problem is the immune system comes along and chomps the virus, so they built themselves a super virus - still cut down mind you ie. it has the nasty bits removed).

But what if our doomsday nut decides he wants to end the world, well he decides to build himself an uber virus, perhaps he looks at the gene therapy research and decides to activate some of the deactivated genes/insert new viral genes, or maybe he starts with a base from HIV/ebola/Influenza and adds genes from the others.

Certain viruses already have >90% mortality rates, what happens when you combine that mortality rate with a symptomless highly infectious period of 7 days?

BAM armagheddon. Well not entirely, but pretty much a reset of human civilisation.

Of course its not all doom and gloom mind you, medical science is progessing at a rate of knots, and i suspect (or hope) that by the time that any old nut can build himself an uber virus, we might have realistic uber virus treatments.

I dont think.. Human built weapons are these much strong that they can end the Whole world .

We will start colonizing other orbits. Human today will have disappeared sooner or later, but other species, which in some way have evolved from us, will live on.

Maybe technical creatures will get rid of humans, but we will be the ones having granted them life.

Human today is in any way a seed of intelligent life, I believe.

I don't know whether the universe has a beginning or an end.

It's a toss up between Revelation's and Man himself, through Nukes, a geneticly enhanced super virus, or something along those lines.

I'm sure that by the time the sun expands Space Travel would let us escape.

it doesnt really matter to me, as long as the giant fireball that consumes us all doesnt hurt too much.