When Will Homo Sapiens Go Extinct?

My God, humans are clueless! That's why I dubbed them Homo laeviculus ("clueless man"). Shortly you will see what I mean.

In 2013 it is relatively easy for a "privileged" few to see that humans are destroying their environment and consuming natural resources at an alarming rate. Surely, these people think, this wanton destruction can not go on for much longer. Surely, it must end soon. But timing is tricky, as I discussed in Let's Talk About Time And Decline.

I tend to think humankind will not exist two centuries from now, but it's hard to say. Homo sapiens is a hardy (and weedy) species. There may be survivors of this human-made holocaust in the year 2213, but I don't think they're going to be Happy Campers.

But such uncertainties do not exist for the vast majority of these clueless monkeys—technically, the primate suborder anthropoidea, which includes monkeys, apes, extinct hominins and humans, the "higher primates" in this phylogeny.

Source

Humans generally think their foolish nonsense will go on forever. They think this way because they imagine themselves as having limitless cleverness (ingenuity) which they can apply to solve any problem they themselves create. Global warming? Not to worry! Disappearing topsoil? No problem. Biologically impoverished oceans? Ditto.

Why worry about this depressing stuff when you can watch Transformers 2?

In short, Homo sapiens is delusional. Humans abhor Reality. They are prone to Fantasy. That is their normal state of being. No truly objective observer could arrive at any other conclusion.

Unfortunately, we only get human evaluations of themselves. Necessarily, these self-evaluations are heavily distorted. Thus we get stories like What Will Humans Look Like in 100,000 Years? Here's a Guess.

I know you will enjoy the video version.

 

So, when will Homo sapiens go extinct?

Have at it. Feel free to speculate. Of course, if you say two weeks from Thursday, or 2035, which basically amounts to the same thing, you are very likely to be wrong

If Forbes Magazine can publish this kind of fantastic bullshit, those on the "other side" of this issue should be able to indulge themselves too.

This bonus video serves as a useful guide as you mull over the title question.

Bonus Video

 

Comments

[James]

Ah, the hubris and fantasy. Not only will we be around in 100,000 years, but we will develop magic low vision eyeballs and have even bigger brains!

Given that humans today are pretty much the same as those from 200,000 years ago (give or take some minor pigmentation variation), I think the trend will continue. Most people don't understand science and think it magic. Evolution happens over very long spans (1000000+ years) and generally only in response to pronounced conditional change. It is not clear when anthropologically modern homo sapiens (AMHS) developed (earliest evidence seems to be about 338,000 years ago) and contrary to popular belief, most other hominid precursor species are not genetic ancestors. Several lived contemporaneously with each other and, maybe, some with AMHS.

And that's exactly the issue. We are still the same primate that developed over a quarter of a million years ago, but think we are some great super being instead of just another branch on the animal tree. Mentally, everything is still based around short term resource acquisition for the most part, though. We gather, fight, destroy, and consume because that is what we are and always have been.

I disagree that humans will not see 100,000 though, with one caveat. If we do not, it is likely that no other advanced animal species will either. That is because humans will viciously gather any life sustaining resources that they possibly can and will obliterate any other species that may also utilize (or provide) them. We will survive even if it means eating bugs and drinking tainted water in brutal tribal societies ruled by implied or overt force. This is not far from reality for much of the world's population now. It is just the bigger stuff and large numbers that will collapse. It will not be sudden, but gradual.

Rome is an overused, but appropriate, example. The outlying, impoverished areas survived in much the same condition as they were before while quality of life continued to decline for the central urban empire. Without imported food and resources, famine and disease ran rampant. I expect modern, largely Western civilization to suffer a similar fate.

Of course, there is always the chance we pull an Easter Island scenario and totally f ourselves leaving no mechanisms for survival at all. That, to me, is particularly horrific as it guarantees we will drag most if not all of the rest of earth's biomass into oblivion with us. We will not go quietly.