Social Question

spiritual's avatar

Do you think the world is on the way to it's end?

Asked by spiritual (1271points) January 14th, 2010
46 responses
“Great Question” (3points)

I’m wondering if you think the world will end in some way or form or if you think it will continue on, with or without mankind?

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Answers

jackm's avatar

Of course the world will end. Everything ends.

TexasDude's avatar

Well, yeah, eventually, but not any time soon.

And if anyone says anything about 2012, I’m going to reach through their monitor and strangle them with their own larynx.

pjanaway's avatar

Don’t worry it will all be repeated again, when time goes back on itself. We have lived this lifetime an infinite times already. :)

jackm's avatar

I think the world will end in 2012

asmonet's avatar

Of course, we’ll end up a part of the sun eventually. I don’t care to think about the other nonsense. The world will not end because humans perish. It will thrive.

TexasDude's avatar

@jackm, *strangle, strangle, strangle…

filmfann's avatar

@jackm? Are you okay? @jackm?

Shield_of_Achilles's avatar

in 2012 magic will be re-found on the earth.

I love wikipedia sometimes….

filmfann's avatar

The world will end, but not for millions of years.
If our species dies out next week, the world will continue for millions of years.

Cruiser's avatar

The world has flirted with nuclear annihilation for 50 years now and it is hotter than ever. Even so a bomb here or there will only mess things up for a lot of folks and others will find a way to survive. It’s anything can happen time and some volcano or meteor could mess things up pretty good too! Life is too short as it is to sweat the small stuff. Get out and live it while you can…I am!!

mollypop51797's avatar

I think that the world will end. yes. BUT! I don’t think it’s going ot be happening anytime soon! Personally, I think I’m going to have to break my computer if I hear “the world will end in 2012” I am SICK of it!! AAHHH!! However, I think that more people should be aware that the least we could do is recycle, or use the new eco friendly bags for grocery shopping like at Stop&Shop. But, in all, I don’t think that the world will be going anywhere anytime soon. or at least I hope not

Dr_Lawrence's avatar

The world may end within a year or may persist for 800,000,000 more years. We have no way to know and any prediction is as good or as poor as any other.

Of course, for those who know for sure the Earth is only a few thousands years old, they have special secret knowledge about the quickly approaching Apocalypse. It must be great to know everything with such certainty, a certainty that science can never offer.

Silly scientists with their bogus facts! Those crazy liars! Evolution is a hoax! Scientists hate Believers. They want to destroy Religion. They undermine society and mislead young children in school with their soulless falsehoods. There never were any dinosaurs! Fossils are all fake. The end is near! Repent now or roast in Hell forever.

The Bible is the only true source of knowledge. If it isn’t in there, then it never happened!

jangles's avatar

Most generations seem to be bent on the notion that the world will end soon. Even Plato at around 400 bc, was under the impression that if the current “socially destructive” trends of his time continued (and they did) that the world would surely end.

There is no way of knowing when the world will end (if by world you mean, life on earth or just simply human civilization) but there isn’t really a lot of conclusive evidence to suggest that it will anytime “soon”.

lilikoi's avatar

I just read the book Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea where the author, a mathematician, explains that the world must eventually end (although it has been calculated that we are at least a billion years out) because the sun will eventually burn all of its fuel: The most important star in the Universe for our planet will one day die. Of course, the world could end much sooner if we (humans) decide to blow each other up in a nuclear holocaust or World War 3.

CyanoticWasp's avatar

This reminds me of a story…

A high school kid was half-dozing at the back of the science class, not paying much attention to the teacher’s lecture.

At the front of the room, the teacher had just finished describing how ”... in a few billion years the Sun will exhaust its nuclear fuel and probably shrink into a Red Dwarf star, at which time all life on Earth will cease.”

The kid bolted upright in his chair. ”What?” he exclaimed. “Would you repeat that, please?”

The teacher, pleased to see that he had gotten the kid’s interest, repeated what he had just said, ”... in a few billion years the Sun will exhaust its nuclear fuel and probably shrink into a Red Dwarf star, at which time all life on Earth will cease.”

“Oh, okay then,” the kid said. “Whew. I thought you said a few million years.”

….............................................................................................................................................
Yeah. Of course the Earth is on a collision course with some kind of doom. A few million years, a few billion years… who’s going to know?

marco_esquandolis's avatar

The world has always been on the way to it’s end. Of course, no one knows when this will happen, but I dont think anyone of us needs to worry about the end of the world because its probably not going to happen in our lifetime. If WW3 happens and all mankind dies the earth will continue spinning and rotating for a long time.

Austinlad's avatar

Everything is on its way to the end. Pretty good reason to enjoy the ride.

Russell_D_SpacePoet's avatar

All things come to an end. It won’t be any time soon, or it could be. 2012 has nothing to do with it.

flo's avatar

I am clueless about the answer to this question. I am just answering because it is under my “questions for you”.

flo (13313points)“Great Answer” (1points)
texasescim's avatar

Honest answer flo. Lol
I hope I don’t offend anyone for mentioning the Bible, but according to the Bible, the earth will be here forever.

(Psalm 104:5) He has founded the earth upon its established places; It will not be made to totter to time indefinite, or forever.
(Ecclesiastes 1:4) A generation is going, and a generation is coming; but the earth is standing even to time indefinite.

(2 Peter 2:5) and he did not hold back from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a deluge upon a world of ungodly people;
(2 Peter 3:6–7) and by those [means] the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water. 7 But by the same word the heavens and the earth that are now are stored up for fire and are being reserved to the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men.

(Proverbs 2:21–22) For the upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. 22 As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.
(Psalm 37:11) But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, And they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace.
(Psalm 37:29) The righteous themselves will possess the earth, And they will reside forever upon it.

ItalianPrincess1217's avatar

I’ll die before the world does. That’s all I give a shit about.

jackm's avatar

As my honest answer, I am actually worried about the proliferation of nuclear material. If history is anything to go by, science and methods that were once expensive and hard to do always become cheap and easy. Even if governments try to stop it, people will eventually be able to create nuclear bombs in their basement. I see this in the not too distant future. (My lifetime)

Now all we need is a crazy person and humans could be wiped out. There have been plenty of crazy people in the past, but we have never had the ability to destroy all of humanity like this before.

What consoles me is that as science advances, we may be able to figure out how to stop such nuclear attacks, or mitigate the effect somehow. Typically preventative measures advance hand in hand with destructive measures (see the coevolution of bullets and bullet-proof armor). But never before have the destructive measures been so destructive. If the preventative measures aren’t literally always ahead of the destructive measures, it would mean the end.

Scary stuff, but I try not to think about it.

Factotum's avatar

It seems likely to me, should we outlive the billions of years the Earth will be habitable, that we will be able to live elsewhere. I do not believe in end-of-the-world doom-mongers of any variety.

Tenpinmaster's avatar

I don’t see an end to the world in its entirety but perhaps in the next 100 years or so a great shift either environmentally or to our unsustainable way of life will occur. Our fossil fuel dependance and population boom will cause us to re-think how we do “business as usual” in this world.

Scooby's avatar

Everything has an ending, it’s inevitable really, I think it’s been estimated that the world (planet Earth) has about five billion years left give or take a few millions either side before our sun supernovas & wipes it out , in the words of Carl Sagan “One day the world will be toast” :-/ the human race will have long gone by this time! so no need to worry.

mattbrowne's avatar

Not for the next 500 million years. Human beings will populate the entire galaxy much earlier.

jamcanfi74's avatar

Eventualy it will end but I’m sure it won’t be in 2012 like they claim and if it is I just pray it goes fast because I don’t want to see it comming.

Russell_D_SpacePoet's avatar

Ever since it began, it has been marching towards it’s eventual end. Barring humans wiping ourselves out, plague or asteroid, we will be here for a while. 2012 is not gonna be the end of the world.

Strauss's avatar

The world as I know it will end when I cease knowing.

candide's avatar

going on five billion years and it hasn’t ended yet, but we’re working on that!

flo's avatar

@spiritual I think they have been saying the world on the way to it’s end for a while now. But when you say “without mankind” you mean, a natural disaster?

flo (13313points)“Great Answer” (0points)
Strauss's avatar

I think the world is closer to its end (however that will happen) now then it has ever been since it came into being (however that did happen).

filmfann's avatar

And now we are even closer.
Closer now!
Now, we are more closer!

Wow, time is a bitch!

Strauss's avatar

@filmfann lurve to you!

shpadoinkle_sue's avatar

I think it will keep changing whether or not we’re here. Our world might end, but the Earth should be here for a while longer.

KeithWilson's avatar

I dont really know what else to say about the matter that hasnt already been said. Most of the posts were in line with my own view of the subject and a couple of the entries were quite interesting and intriquing. I especially like the idea that we will come back around to this point in time again and relive our lives again and again. I appreciate the implied idea of eternity and eternal life for that matter. Besides its a rather quaint way of avoiding the undeniable END of the world. By saying that the whole thing will be generated agian eternally. This idea is actually based on a sound philosophical arguement about the nature of time. Very nice.

HungryGuy's avatar

In about 5 billion years fromn now, the sun will exhaust its supply of hydrogen and swell up to a red giant, destroying the earth. In about 30 to 60 billion years from now, all the matter in the universe will have decayed, and nothing will exist.

mYcHeMiCaLrOmAnCe's avatar

yes. but I don’t know when.
I hope I’m gonna be there to see the end of the world

IsthmusCrypticus's avatar

The world will end. The concept of Yin Yang for me captures this perfectly – Life cannot exist without death. And the universe can technically be viewed as a living organism within itself. Stars die, and a new one is “born”. Our sun will not last forever, and its also slowly expanding. Eventually, its believed that the sun will consume the earth, and then eventually the sun will implode on itself and a new star will be born and a new planets will develop along with it in another section of the universe. Ofcourse we are talking millions of years into the future, but this world will end. Its just apart of the natural life and death cycle which underlies the basic components of life

HungryGuy's avatar

@IsthmusCrypticus – Billions of years. 5 billion until the sun exhausts its hydrogen fuel and expands into a red giant. 15 billion until entropy has reaches maximum, and the whole universe is nothing but cold gas. 30 to 60 billion before all matter decays at the atomic level, and nothing exists any more.

zenele's avatar

The oil spill has got me thinking.

JenniferP's avatar

Yes. It will at Armaggeddon.

Inspired_2write's avatar

The world as we know it will end, as did in the past.
Just before each era new technology appeared to change the landscape.
The earth is in transition always and we humans have adapted accordingly.
As in the future we will too.

Strauss's avatar

The world ended on December 21, 2012 at 0411 GMT. We are now experiencing a mass hallucination to the contrary!

SmartAZ's avatar

Science is anything that can be measured. Scientists have adopted a theory about how the sun works that contradicts their measurements of the sun. So scientific predictions are wacko. The only reliable predictions we have are from the bible, and that says the world will go on for another thousand years after Armageddon. Christians will be called to heaven before Armageddon, and I’m still here, so that has not happened yet.

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