Jump to content

Talk:Global catastrophic risk/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Merge With/Delete In Favor of Doomsday event?

This article has virtually the same scope as the Doomsday event page. The only difference seems to be that this page insists on giving summaries and details of the potential events, whereas Doomsday event just links to the relevant pages for each event. StellarFury (talk) 04:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

RE: Earth


I just wanted to make the point that a similar supervolcano eruption in America to the one that's already happened would NOT threaten 'civilisation' but only civilisation in America. This might have been implied by the preceding sentence, but you should really be precise. This fact might still be wrong, but I just wanted to make that point. Edited text is included below.
When the supervolcano at Yellowstone last erupted, 600,000 years ago, the magma covered roughly all of the area of North America west of the Mississippi river. Another such eruption could threaten American civilization. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.69.137.86 (talk • contribs) .

While no one knows for sure what kind of problems such a massive eruption would cause, there is enough evidence from other much small eruptions to suggest it could seriously disrupt the planet as a whole, not just the immediate areas around the eruption. Given that our planet is at high carrying capacity already it may not take much to bring about a massive die-off, a few years without a growing season for example. -- Stbalbach 16:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
The Lake Toba erruption is widely suspected at having caused the human genetic bottleneck, during which time it is believed, the total human population was reduced to less than 15,000 inhabitants - a very near extinction event just 75,000 years ago.
John D. Croft 08:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, OK. I admit defeat. Thanks for clearing that up for me. :)

I just thought I would point out that the end of civilization and human extinction are distinctly separate ideas. The end of civilization can easily happen without complete human extinction.

I added an attention notice at the top of the page. This article isn't paricularly scientific (many of the given possible causes of extinction are science fiction-esque), yet 'The world being a computer game like in the Matrix' is given equal weight to the sun expanding. It needs lots of fixing, perhaps someone cleverer than me could do this. Proto 09:20, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is not supposed to be scientific, nor is it the responsibility or job of Wikipedians to determine which scenarios are more likely to occur than others, that would be original research. It is simply a catalog of scenarios that exist, that people discuss and talk about. See the external links. I'm not sure I understand the "in need of attention" tag, what exactly did you envision? Stbalbach 15:13, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Okay, perhaps I wasn't clear. It might just be that some of the scenarios need expanding upon. 'Intelligent robots take over', 'Giant solar flare fries earth', 'Deliberate built nanotechnolgy malware'. I will try and be bold and do it myself. Proto 10:33, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes agreed, actually it was my original intention to expanded on the scenarios within a section of the individual articles, and link to it from this article. A few are allready set up that way, most still need work. I got as far as the Moon blowing up, before the scientists in that article ran me out of town, so a few probably need a seperate articles. It's a large project and one I have not been working on lately. Your edits are good thanks. Stbalbach 16:11, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

merger with End of civilization and "doomsday event" articles (copied to both talk pages)

Serious consideration should be given to merging one way or the other. IMHO, this should be a merger in favour of the title "human extinction", with the format of "end of civilization", but of course with the merged content of both.

Reasons include: (a) EOC represents an arbitrary level of terminality, and a subset of "human extinction"; (b) "EOC" is more informal, a term of art; and (c), the most compelling argument, as summed up nicely by Wragge, HE is *only* "confined to the complete destruction of the species rather than our civilizations" (emphasis added).

As a minor point, the HE article came before the EOC article — 9 May 2005.

A problem with the EOC article is that it is essentially a summary of Nick Bostrom's "existential threats" paper. Although that is a valuable paper to summarize it should be more open about its narrow source, perhaps by changing its name to "Existential risks" (Bostrom's phrase).
As pointed out above, the actual focus of EOC is broader than HE, with EOC being a necessary but not sufficient condition for HE (by Bostrom's classification). This implies that "Existential risks" (or EOC) should become an Eschatology category containing HE.
After all, there is a lot more to say about the other scenarios: "Whimpers", "Energy crises", "End of science", etc, and these all deserve their own articles. (We don't want Wikipedia becoming too cheerful.) All of these articles should be placed in the EOC/Existential risks category, with this article summarizing them and perhaps discussing Bostrom's paper and typography, and other doom-mongers with an overview of the subject.

Wragge 11:04, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

Well, we were working on the articles around the same time, I dont think either of us had time to become aware of the other working on a related article. I was working on the End of the World disambiguation page and noticed how the various "End of the World" incoming links could be categorized into 4 categories: Religion, Science, Mythology and Literature (fictional). So, I created those 4 sub-categories, which you can see now (the religion and Literature articles allready existed, and mythology still needs to be created as evidenced by the "What lnks here" for the disambig page, a lot of articles reference mythology). This is important, do you know how many articles use "End of the World" and link to it? A lot. I spent days cleaning that up so End of the World links would point to the correct article (Religion/Myth/Science/Fiction)

Now, as for how to deal with the "Science" article. I went with Nick Bostrom because he provided a clear definition of exactly what a "End of the World" scenario means. The chart is fully credited to him. It is important to provide clear guidence to editors so they know what belongs in the article and what doesnt. If we just did "End of Humanity", it would be a small list, since even an astroid impact, some tribe could survive on an island in the south pacific, we dont really know, it would take somthing pretty major to wipe out the human species!

Human extinction takes a different (secular?) approach. It's an overview or summary of how things stand today, examining the current state of politics, the current levels of fear, etc.. it touches on aspects of religion and fiction (didnt see mythology but might have missed it). Overall it tries to cover all aspects, some of which is covered in other articles, some of which is not. It tries to do a lot, but im not sure how well organized it is to fit in with the rest of Wikipedia.

I'm going to suggest the scenarios be seperate articles, because so many other articles will need to reference scenarios, depending on the context of the link. HE would not contain a list of scenarios (except as illustrative or specific), and instead link to the 4 scenario articles that allready exist (and are deeply linked) and keep the scenario list articles separate from the discussion articles. Keeping Religion/Myth/Science/Fiction separate is essential for disambiguation purposes.

We could rename EOC to "End of the World (science)" to be consistent with the other end of the world articles. Overall Id say this is a topic bigger than one article, or even 5, and the articles should be focused. Stbalbach 16:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree. We should probably have the lowest level of granularity possible. A subject I have been wondering about is the appropriate use of lists. It seems that some people prefer lists to simply link to the relevant article, presumably to save space. I took a different approach, assuming that it was more logical to summarize the linked article, especially in terms of relevance to the main article. I don't see anything wrong with repetition in different articles (although admittedly eschatology is a knowledge ghetto with many inter-linking articles, so it wouldn't take more than a day to read them all). It is better to go with brevity, or with a summary? For instance, should distaster scenarios be listed as:

or

  • Some type of nanotechnology accident, such as Grey goo.
  • Catastrophic Impact event with an extra-terrestrial body.

Which is prefered and why? Thanks, Wragge 17:23, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

For this list I think it is essential to include some descriptive elements, but I added a bold link to the main article as the first word. My goal is/was to have the main article contain a sub-heading that describes the scenario in more detail. And if the other editors of that article dont agree and remove the scenario from their article, then it should be removed from the list as well. FOr example I had one about the Moon blowing up, and added a section to the Moon article about it, and was over-ruled by the scientists there as being ficticious, so it was removed from this list as well. Seemed like a good stress test of the viability of a scenario :) I think thats the best way to detail the scenrios, inside the main articles themselves, to keep them sane and legitimate. Stbalbach 17:31, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

That sounds cool. Is there a way to construct a 'dynamic' list where elements are removed automatically, or do you mean connections added & removed through concencus? You're point about the credibility of various disasters is a common theme. The best way to deal with this would be to somewhere list all disasters (even the most incredible) against a probability index of some kind (the estimates given by leading scientists for the scenario probability and timescale). It is critical to cover all the scenarios, especially the ludicrous ones, within a consistent structure (because the more extreme possibilities form the more lurid urban myths, which should be judged by the same standard as the "credible" scenarios within Wikipedia). The MAIN problem with this idea, is that very few scientists are willing to assign numerical probabilities to disaster, so a lot of this will have to be an a qualatitive basis (e.g. "Scientists at institution X consider this a 'remote' possibility"). Wragge 18:05, 2005 May 9 (UTC)


If this is still an open issue, I think the articles should be kept separate. The end of civilisation is conceptually different from human extinction. E.g. some kind of massive economic collapse might destroy civilisation as we know it without rendering humanity extinct. At the same time, the articles should be worked on together so they are consistent, have appropriate cross-references, distinctions, etc. Metamagician3000 00:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

This whole concept can be all loaded in with the doomsday event article as well. I suggest we make that the head line and subdivide categories into "doomsday" or destruction scales (ie, civilization ending, species ending, biosphere ending, planet ending, galaxy ending, universe ending, etc), as well as touch on the probabilities, etc. This should mostly just be a summary page of the most likely doomsday events in each section with links to main pages, plus links for the more obscure/unlikely ones. Of course these are science and not religious oriented. 70.89.210.169 (talk) 07:29, 29 March 2008 (UTC)Kilo

Proposal: A unified index of catastrophe scenario probabilities

For example, this could be a table with headings:

  • Hypothesis
  • Initial advocate
  • Evidence for
  • Probability range with current scientifc knowledge
  • Time scale
  • Likely damage
  • Evidence
  • Typography

Entries would be ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS, such as Luna related:

  • Moon explodes
    • Dr Craziman
    • Physically impossible
    • Never
    • No likely damage since it can't happen
    • Evidence: Some reasons this can't happen include the history of the vast energies required to separate Earth and Moon in the first place. This is not physically available as chemical energy on our sattelite.
    • Type: Science-fantasy (harmless)
  • Moon recedes, causing damage
    • Newton
    • An ongoing, observable phenomenon, immediate departure at any time can't be ruled out because the three body problem or Earth, Moon, and Sun is unsolvable, but gradual separation more likely due to long period of stable orbit (4 billion years?)
    • Within X billion years the moon will recede too far from the planet to stabilize axis precession, based on current projections the probability of this happening within 1 billion years is 1.7% (Citation of astophysist).
    • Damage may be dramatic (depending on tidal and axial tilt effects).
    • Evidence: Telescopic measurements confirm, physical cause well understood.
    • Type: Possibly existential, long term, hard scientific.

I think this could be a good way to centralize and organize the 'eschatology' scenarios, although it might need to exclude religious, mystical, or mythological predictions to be manageable. Perhaps it could be called "Projections posing as science", or something like that, which sounds better. What do you think? Wragge 18:28, 2005 May 9 (UTC)


Yeah a table would work. I'd be hesitent about making quantitative measurement on probability via a categorization system. I dont think we should or need to. No matter what, every scenario needs to link out to some page somewhere where a full account of the scenario can be given, and if it is exploding moon, then we should detail the reasons why it would never happen, deconstruct the scenario. If that cant be done in the main Lunar article in a sub-section, then we create a new article called Exploding Moon and detail it there. Stbalbach 06:20, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree - the text above is too long to be a good example, the summary should be much more condensed, and linked to a fuller article. Since we are lacking good numerical estimates we must use a COLOUR CODED system in the table.

  • RED - Plausible
  • YELLOW - Implausible
  • GREEN - Impossible with current knowledge
  • WHITE - Speculative, religious, not falisiable, not yet classified, etc.

We will need to define exactly how this judgement is made (Karl Popper-type classification, or appeal to authority, etc) so that everyone can extend the table in a consistent way. Possibly this might be re-inforced with a column for "Popper-falsifiable? Y/N" or "Many professional scientists accept Y/N?" Wragge 09:47, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

Im still not sure. The rules of Wikipedia make it difficult, we are not supposed to do original research. What might be implausible to you and I might be plausible to the next person, since we are dealing with unknowns and potentials, there is no way to say without making a judgement. I think anything that is clearly implausible, that no sane rational person could believe, should be in the Fiction article. I think we can make the judgement on what belongs in the article without having to have a classification system? And if there is debate about it, then its outlined in the extended article and we list it under a separate heading "Controversial scenarios", but so far other then the Moon article its not been a problem. I dont think this is as big a problem as it appears. Maybe im wrong. Stbalbach 16:44, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Naming conventions

The reason that we need some sort of quantative judgement is to handle the accusations of triviality and sensationalism which keep cropping up. The only way we can organize the credible and the incredible together without raising objections is if the classifications are clear. Unless we can do this then the subject becomes unmanageable. Without the availability of hard numbers, colour coding might be the only way to achieve this. Another possibility I would recommend is to break the lists/articles/essays across three pages:

  • End of the world (scientific, 21st century)
  • End of the world (scientific, long-term)
  • End of the world (pseudoscientific)

This breakdown is important because entropy or proton-decay scenarios in the year 12 billion have little to do with 21st century risks. However, it highlights the problem with these names; in the long term the end of the "world" doesn't necessarily imply the end of humanity. Wragge 15:19, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

I have not run into any problem with triviality and sensationalism. The reason is, Wikipedia is designed to report what other people say. WIkipedia is simply a record of what other people are saying. The fact other people are saying it, makes it notable enough to be included. If someone complains about triviality, then they are breaking the notability rule and dont understand how Wikipedia works. I also dont think we need to create lots of articles. Its really not that complicated, we just list the scenarios that are being reported out there in the real world, too much more and we verge on original research. Stbalbach 16:44, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'll leave it to your judgement.
Of course, you are right about "notability" being a valid reason for inclusion, but without setting up a rigourous framework the articles can degenerate, and these claims do crop up on the talk pages, for understandable reasons: People are surprised to see "Oil crisis" and "Alien invasion" included in the same article even though both are "noteworthy".
There are many things reported in the "real world", as you mentioned yesterday (without the need for any original research we could probably dig up a hundred separate scenarios that claimed to be scientific at one time or another).
I probably seem as though I'm contradicting myself, first suggesting we have a unified list, and then suggesting three separate list, but the fact as "End of the world" doesn't really capture the dangers of the universe's heat death, or self-replicating probes converting the galaxy into themselves. "End of the universe" is more like it, but not quite right, and neither "End of civilization" or "Human extinction" really cover it.
Anyway, that doesn't matter. The great thing about Wikipedia is that we can fix any problems if they come up. Please distribute the material according to your current ideas.
Cheers, Wragge 17:19, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

Merger with Human extinction

These articles cover the same ground in slightly different and overlapping ways. A unified article would be much easier to digest, though there's too much of it for the resulting merged material to stay in one article. Some content would need to be pushed out into logical subarticles. -- Beland 05:35, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Worst article canditate?

Where is the opposite of WP:FAC? The world's gonna end! Mass insanity. Aliens. Robots. Strang matter. The only thing listed that's certain the sun, and the only thing listed that might possibly "end civilization" (whatever that means), well, there isn't any. How on earth is a switch of the magnetic poles going to end civilization? This is almost a candidate for deletion. At least 90% of the article is, but that would probably be taken as blanking. Gerrit CUTEDH 11:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Purpose of this article

The purpose of this article is to report on what other authors are writing about in concerns to future scenarios for major catastrophies. If you follow the reference external links you will note that all of these are sources and can be cited and are legitimate. None of this is "made up" by a Wikipedian. It is a legitimate topic for a Wikipedia article to report on this topic.

As for the tags, we are dealing with future scenarios. If there is some specific reason for the tag then it needs to be outlined with actionable items, and not mis-used simply to express disfavour with the article. Stbalbach 15:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Gerritholl, your edits are entirely POV. They are your opinions. This article simply reports on what others have said, which is what we do at Wikipedia, we report. Every scenario is fully citeable. I really do think you misundestand what this article is about and its purpose. Please do some further research in the external links section, as well as the Human extinction article. Stbalbach 16:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, let's take them one by one, and see what could possibly be seriously meant.
OK.
OK.
Yes, there have been situations in the past
  • Nemesis. According to theory, the Nemesis star periodically passes through a denser region of the Oort cloud, potentially sending millions of comets into collision with Earth, causing mass extinctions in the past.
Nemesis does probably not exist. It is a highly hypotetical star to describe a pattern that might not even exist. Please see Nemesis.
This source is not scientific. The site is an amateur site. It does not even say the star may destroy the earth, only that it may cause meteorites to come near earth. Will this kill humanity? Perhaps. But the star will not destroy earth immediatly. The claim is false.
  • Black Hole. Wayward black hole enters solar system.
How is this going to happen? Source?
  • Gamma ray bursts. Gamma ray bursts strike the Earth, causing mass extinction. Some scientists believe this happened 450 million years ago.[2]
This claim is false. Some scientists believe it **could** have happened 450 million years ago, according to this source.
This is fiction. Source?
  • Kuiper Belt. Beyond Neptune lies a vast reserve of large icy objects that could break loose and strike Earth.
How could that happen? Source?
  • Dark nebula. A giant molecular cloud chokes out Earth's atmosphere.
How could that happen? Source?
How could that happen? Source?

Earth

  • Ice Age. An Ice Age recurs every 40,000-100,000 years.
This can't kill humanity. Source?
OK.
This can't kill humanity. Source?
This can't kill humaniy. Source?
This can't kill humanity. Source?
Highly hypothetical.

Humanity

Ficton. Any serious source?
Fiction. Any serious source?
How is this going to kill humanity?
No it won't. It might kill a lot of humans, but severe climate change is most certainly not going to kill **humanity**. Any serious source?
 I would argue that linking to the global warming article when one clicks on climate change constitutes an implied fallacy - the concept of climate change also covers ice ages and other atmospheric events, and while global warming appears to be the most recent and/or pressing concern in relation to climate change, it is by no means the only doomsday scenario that climate change encompasses. Maybe I'm just nitpicking here, but it's worth taking into consideration DySWN (talk) 00:13, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes.
  • Demography. Demographic trends create a baby bust.
How is this going to kill six billion people?
  • Ecology. Natural resources are used up, or the environment is so damaged through pollution and destruction that civilization fails.
How is this going to kill six billion people? Any serious source?
  • Finance. Markets fail worldwide, resulting in economic collapse: mass unemployment, rioting, famine, and death.
Any serious source how this is going to kill all of humanity?
  • Infertility. Human fertility continues to decline, eventually ending with no fertile humans left to continue the species.
Any serious source?
Humour...
Science fiction, discovery channel, Greenpeace making us afraid. Any serious source?
Possible.
  • Peak oil. Oil runs out before an economically viable replacement is devised, leading to global chaos.
Like the ecology - how is this going to kill humanity?
  • Quantum energy. In the search for new quantum particles, scientists accidentally destroy the universe.
LOL... I can't take this one serious. I'm a physicist.
  • Quantum vacuum. During an experiment in high-energy physics, scientists accidentally trigger a quantum vacuum collapse.
See elementary particle
  • Robots. Intelligent robots out-compete humanity.
Any serious source?
There is not one serious source, I have looked at it.
  • Technological singularity. Technology advances so rapidly that present-day humans are wiped out. Note that this possibility can be said to be a blanket scenario which may include the Robots, Artificial Intelligence and Biotechnology scenarios, as well as possibly many others, including some not noted here.
And as nonsensical as those. Any serious source?
  • Telomere. Some researchers theorize a tiny loss of telomere length from one generation to the next, mirroring the process of ageing in individuals. Over thousands of generations the telomere erodes down to its critical level. Once at the critical level we would expect to see outbreaks of age-related diseases occurring earlier in life and finally a population crash.2
How is this going to kill humanity? The source says:
Once at the critical level we would expect to see outbreaks of age-related diseases occurring earlier in life and finally a population crash
So, it will not kill humanity.
  • World government. Misguided world government caps progress, leading to stagnation and reversals of Civilization.
Sorry? How is this going to kill humanity?
I really don't see how I can take the majority of those serious, sorry. I will remove them again, for almost none of these will even theoretically be able to kill humanity. Please do some research yourself. Gerrit CUTEDH 16:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Gerritholl, please see the rules of Wikipedia. We report on what the experts say, not on our own opinions of what the experts say. Your selective removal of those scenarios you dont agree with is POV and original research. This article simply reports on what other people are saying and makes no claim one way or another if they will happen. Also the article never says "kill humanity", if you read the first section it outlines the level and types of risk, these are risks to civilization, as we know it, on a large scale. You will also need to see Human extinction which goes into a lot more on this same topic. Stbalbach 16:55, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

The article is called End of civilization. The introduction says:
The risks in this list are associated with those in the Global-Terminal category. This type of risk is one where an adverse outcome would either annihilate intelligent life, or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.
We rely on what the experts say. That's why I asked for sources above. None of the sources cites an expert seriously talking about Ice-9 Type Transition or Insanity. I shall ask for help in resolving this dispute, because it seems we disagree about what constitutes an expert and how this is interpreted. I was asking for sources (because it's not in the given sources), but didn't get them... Gerrit CUTEDH 17:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
I added a request for a third opinion at Wikipedia:Third opinion. Gerrit CUTEDH 17:20, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


Mass Insanity is listed here in Discover Magazine, although this is a common theme that you will find many people discussing who are in the business of discussing future disaster scenarios. The Strange Matter (Ice-9) is I believe listed on Exit Mundi but Im sure elsewhere as well. I think your taking this article much too literal, and the notion of "expert" too strictly. The fact is, there are people publishing books, writing magazine articles and asking "what if" questions, and we as Wikipedians report on that activity. Since these are future scenarios, there is no way to know if they will happen or not, but none of them are strictly impossible. Im also curious why your picking on this article, and not Human extinction which covers these same topics but with a lot more citation and a much more involved and knowledgeable base of editors on this topic. Stbalbach 17:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
The quoted article is from Discover Magazine, which does not look very scientific. It has this to say about Mass Insanity:
While physical health has improved in most parts of the world over the past century, mental health is getting worse. The World Health Organization estimates that 500 million people around the world suffer from a psychological disorder. By 2020, depression will likely be the second leading cause of death and lost productivity, right behind cardiovascular disease. Increasing human life spans may actually intensify the problem, because people have more years to experience the loneliness and infirmity of old age. Americans over 65 already are disproportionately likely to commit suicide.
Gregory Stock, a biophysicist at the University of California at Los Angeles, believes medical science will soon allow people to live to be 200 or older. If such an extended life span becomes common, it will pose unfathomable social and psychological challenges. Perhaps 200 years of accumulated sensations will overload the human brain, leading to a new kind of insanity or fostering the spread of doomsday cults, determined to reclaim life's endpoint. Perhaps the current trends of depression and suicide among the elderly will continue. One possible solution--promoting a certain kind of mental well-being with psychoactive drugs such as Prozac--heads into uncharted waters. Researchers have no good data on the long-term effects of taking these medicines.
They are quoting one biophycicist who appears to be claiming that people will soon be 200 years or older. Although the article does not provide a source or a basis for this (what are the biochemical processes that will suddenly make people getting more than twice as old? Where was this claim made? How can I check if it's true?), it does cite someone with degrees stating this claim. Discovery Magazine then continues with unbased speculation: "Perhaps" 200 years...will overload the human brain... there is no good data... they are disproportionately likely to commit suicide... That's what Discove Magazine says here - no where it says that it might cause anything near mass extinction, let alone the end of human civilisation. The article does not claim this. Not even Discover Magazine claims it.
About the Strange Matter, see my contribution to Talk:Ice-9_type_transition.
I am taking this article seriously. I think that is more or less the same as literal. Otherwise, the article should be categorized as a society or science-fiction article, and not claim to be serious. I am "picking" this article and not Human extinction, because the latter is much better than this one, and I happened to run across this article. Indeed, Human extinction#Human_extinction_scenarios suffers from the same problem. The scenario's have been discussed by scientists, but those scientists have not concluded that it could lead to mass extinction. Rather, a scientist says something and does some speculation in front of a popular sensationalist magazine (this may be very bad indeed), the magazine speculates further and further until it is suggested, but not said, that it's a serious threat to human society as a whole. Let's take the supervolcano as an example. The source is mainly a co-production of BBC and (again) Discovery Channel. But then the science part: the term is not known in volcanology. None of the mass extinctions that have probably happened in the past are likely to have happened due to a supervolcano; yes, the impact is large. But the claim that it will cause human extinction is not sourced. Yes, in the extremely unlikely event that it will happen in the forseeable future, it might be a big, big disaster. It will, if it happens.
Let's see, who is this Hans Moravec, who is cited in Human extinction? He has argued that humans might be replaced by AI. He is obviously knowledgable, for he is a proffesor in robotics. I wonder what he said exactly. According to Hans Moravec, he has argued that robots will evolve into a new series of artificial species. That is not the same as being replaced. I am curious to what he said exactly. But if it's true, than the way Human extinction described it is okay (I very much doubt he said it would be replaced, though - very often, experts say something and in popular science it is twisted with all the nuances gone). The article is much better: at least it say often considered to be a scenario purely from the realms of science fiction when talking about aliens.
Perhaps we should just remove the examples from this article and point to Human extinction. I don't think there is any difference. Someone wrote that it's easily possible that the one happens without the other (I wonder what is meant by easily) and it touches upon the definition of Civilization; it is a whole seperate branch of futurology to discuss events that do lead to the end of civilization but don't lead to the extinction of humans. Personally I don't think this kind of speculation should be in a general-purpose encyclopedia, and I don't think many scientists have discussed it either. But I could be wrong. I'm in favour of merging the articles. Gerrit CUTEDH 18:32, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this kind of speculation should be in a general-purpose encyclopedia Well, thats your opinion, but a lot of people disagree with you (see the many editors who have contributed to these two articles). It is not "speculation", there are published works on this, and according to the rules of Wikipedia, so long as things can be cited, we can report on what people are saying about it in a NPOV manner. It sounds more like you have a problem with the wording, which is fine your free to edit, but outright deletion of most of the article because you dont agree with the content, is not how Wikipedia works. Stbalbach 19:49, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

It is speculation. The published works do not state what the Wikipedia article states. No published work lists mass insanity or the switching of the magnetic poles as a threat to civilisation. Those are on the lists from the (highly speculative) discover magazine, but the latter does not list it as a threat to civilisation as a whole. Only we do. It is incorrect, speculative and original research. Therefore, those should not be in the list. I hope we can get a 3rd opinion on this one, because we are obviously not getting anywhere. Gerrit CUTEDH 08:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
The title of the Discover article is "Twenty ways the world could end suddenly". The context is clear. It sounds like you dont personally think it could happen and therefore we should not speculate on it. If the wording is not to your satisfaction, feel free to change it. I am also open to mergeing this with Human extinction, or creating a new article that is a "list of" type that lists scenarios with citations and qualifiers. But removing published scenarios just because you dont believe in speculatory ventures is not good. It would also be a good idea for the article to remain intact so people can look at it, comment and discuss merging. Stbalbach 15:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, here's one third opinion: Stbalbach is right in saying that it's not our place to evaluate the various scenarios, unless you happen to be an expert in the field in question. On the other hand, not all these scenarios are equally likely, as Gerrit was saying. Some of these are very fringe theories, like Nemesis, and they shouldn't be treated the same as well-respected theories, like the sun expanding.

I vote that we should leave most of the scenarios there, but add a sentence or two for each giving the credibility the theory has with its respective experts. For example, I can tell you right now that the gradual telomere loss theory is very fringe, simply by the fact that I'd never heard of it (I work in a DNA repair lab, so I read journal articles and attend seminars about telomeres all the time). In fact, I could list several reaons why it's almost certainly wrong. Even so, I don't advocate getting rid of it, since there are people who believe it. We should just add a tag saying that few experts support it. TurboCamel

This article needs verifying. There are references at the bottom, but there is no effort made to link which items link to which reference, forcing the reader to either accept "Mass Insanity" as equally likely as a peak oil economic collapse, "Robots" as equally likely as a pandemic, etc. or to read every reference to determine which are actual concerns. See the above conversation about magnetic pole reversal as an example. That's not in the same category as, um, insane robots, but the editors here had no way of knowing that. I'd recommend taking the references here, and any other that are available, and rebuilding the article from scratch. Avoid a list format as much as possible, because it encourages people to put in pet theories. I'm tempted to remove mass insanity and robots while I am here, but I am concerned that once I get started I may not stop. Best of luck. Jkelly 03:46, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Original research

This article has been turned into an original research essay full of POVs. It originally just reported a list of published scenarios. It never suggested any where likely or not likely. To speculate on the likelihood of those scenarios is Original Research. To say some are purely "science fiction" is POV, obviously the published sources do not agree. Wikipedians are reporters, not scientists. Please see the rules and guidelines. Stbalbach 18:40, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Unlike the original list of "published scenario's" (it was not, those were not published scenario's), the current version is properly using footnotes, especially where it states that it's unlikely that aliens will attack Earth. You can't seriously propose that it's POV to state that the universe dying is more likely than Earth being attacked by the Borg that will make us slaves. We are reporters, so we report on what other people have to say. That is exactly what I'm doing. I admit that I was a bit harsh at first, removing content that was extremely bad, but now I'm making it better instead of removing the bad content. Gerrit CUTEDH 20:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Of course they were published scenarios! Why do you mention "a borg will make us slaves", that was never in the article. Your mischaracterzing the natue of the article. Where did it ever say one scenario was more likely than another? Stbalbach 02:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Nick Bostrom clearly explains why some are more likely than others, and provides many, many footnotes to source that assertion. I think there also is a Wikipedia policy called use common sense. The article did not say borgs will make us slaves, it did suggest aliens will take over. Personally I don'treally see the difference, except that the latter is an example of the former. And with regard to published scenarios: Is it a published scenario if someone who may not have any knowledge at all writes an its homepage that a giant cloud may eradicate Earth, without providing any sources on what this is supposed to mean? If so, I can just add the obvious facts to my own homepage so that we have a source for them, but it's quite ridiculous to assert that that's neccesary. And those so-called 'clouds' are area's of the universe with a low star density. Original research to say that a megatsunami will not destroy civilisation? Please, of course no scientist has ever written this, because it's obvious. A megatsunami is a reginal disaster, not a global one, you don't need to know any geography to understand *that*. Use Common Sense, please.
I shall comment on your most important changes one by one and state why I disagree with them:
  • Removal of With a smaller meteorite, there might not be the case: this is sourced in the footnote cited immediatly before.
  • Removal of but it will probably be many millions of years before a large meteorite will hit the earth again.: This is also sourced in the footnote. It says larger meteorites are more rare, and 1-km meteorites happen twice per a million years.
  • Removal of It is not likely that humanity would be completely destroyed by it, though, because in the tropical regions, life will remain possible: every source on ice ages states this with regard to the climate in the tropical zones. Although exitmundi.nl suggests it would become 40 degrees colder, science estimates it has been 6 in the past.
  • Removal of It is not likely that a pandemic will destroy humanity completely - this is sourced in the footnote immediatly before.
  • Addition of [a megatsunami] but could threaten civilization as we know it., where is this sourced? Who says this? It's listed in an article called End of civilization...?
It seems we are getting closer to each other than we were in the beginning, though. Gerrit CUTEDH 08:36, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, per the opening section, the article covers any scenario that ..is a risk where humankind as a whole is imperilled and/or would have major adverse consequences for the course of human civilization. If we only looked at human-extinction scenarios, it would be a short list indeed, and of not much value. So Im not sure why we have to keep saying things like "none of these scenarios could possibly destroy humanity completely" .. after all End of Civilization does not mean end of Mankind; for example the fall of Rome was (arguably) an end of civilization event.

As for sources, some of the scenarios are well known and have well known essays and/or authors behind them. That the sources dont have a PhD from a University, or are not peer reviewed in academic publications, is not a disqualifier for being in Wikipedia. Ive just added a few footnotes and will add more as time allows. Stbalbach 16:34, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

remove or document?

I have tried to document all scenario's, find scientific sources that comment on the credibility, etc. Google Scholar has been a lot of help. However, I'm having a hard time doing this for the remaining ones. I don't see what Catastrophe theory has to do with extinction or civilization, nor can I find a source that does. Financial markets collapsing seems like the recession category to me, like the oil and the world government and actually the ecology one as well, and I still don't know how to take insanity serious: yes, I read the Discover Magazine source, but it doesn't seem to take it very serious either, nor does anyone else. I don't see the difference between the demography threat and the infertality and can't find a scientific source on either one, at least not for this category; again, the sources treat it like the thinning of the ozone layer. I think unsourced scenario's are original research and therefore should not be in the list. Gerrit CUTEDH 10:13, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I would ask that any you leave out, that you continue to leave in the article, as comments, so that as I or others have time to research further can have a record of which ones need further research.Stbalbach 15:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

removed some text...

I removed:

Another kind of accident is the Ice-9 Type Transition, in which our planet including everything on it becomes a strange matter planet in a chain reaction. This is not a credible scenario[3].


It admits its nt a credible scenario, there is no need to even mention it in this article.

You removed more than just tha Ice-9 theory. I've restored the deleted text. Also the credibility of the Ice-9 is not without debate, the footnote just gives a single perspective. Also when you remove things that have footnotes, you should also remove the footnotes. --Stbalbach 16:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello all, I'm not an expert in anything, just reading a little history, but I must say I think an article on EOC should be balanced and realistic. If merely 'popluar' theories must be included, they should certainly have very identifiable disclaimers attached. After all, many people trust Wikipedia as a source of information and harbour virtually no suspicion that it might contain misleading ideas that are far from being proven facts. This type of journalism is sensationalist and related to a tabloid vision which personally makes me pall.

Nevertheless, the point about everything being possible to some degree, minute as it often is, remains undeniable. So, as with all things, communication might be the key. The list in its original form was not acceptable as a resource because it failed in this area, as pointed out by Gerritholl. It's good that the article has been revised. Popular beliefs are all well and good, but when did people en masse ever get it right? Also, we may well be mad already, but it's not slowing us down much! Tom.

Nature of Death

My edit has been removed by another editor. I think it should be a part of this article. The nature of death, everybody dies, is completely discarded in this article. This article describes disasters, most of them happening when our whole generation is extinct. Being a European, i know that Americans have an obsession with disasters, so i like to add some down to earth information.

A philosophical discussion of the nature of death is beyond the scope of this article. This article is not about death or philosophy. It is simply a catalog of scenarios. As I said in the edit notes, you might want to look at human extinction which seems to be more "essay-like" and could possibly fit in there.-- Stbalbach 16:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Human extinction is on the nominantion of being merged with this article. I see your point about civilization. Civilization continues when a generation is gone. Problem is that some of the scenarios of ending civilization are very questionable. A worldwide government is a civilization. A humanity with an average iq of 50 could still have institutions and stratification. So, why is my edit so inapropriate?--Daanschr 18:40, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Andromeda Galaxy collision with the Milky Way

I don't think this statement is accurate at all.

"Projections indicate that the Andromeda Galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way. Impact is predicted in about 3 billion years, and so Andromeda will approach at an average speed of about 140 kilometres (87 miles) per second; the two galaxies will probably merge to form a giant elliptical. This merging will most likely either eject our solar system into deep space or bombard it with other solar systems, either way causing our planet to become uninhabitable (an actual collision is unnecessary)."

While the collision is not disputed, the distance between stars in both these galaxies, particularly in our solar system's type of region, is pretty huge. It's thinly populated. A star from the Andromeda galaxy may very well throw our sun and its solar system off course. Indeed it's likely that the collision (more accurately a merger) will change the entire form of both galaxies even resulting in some fragments being ejected from the main grouping of stars.

However, that doesn't mean catastrophe for Earth. Even if it was launched into inter-galactic space on its own, the Sun and its solar system including Earth is pretty much self-contained and will continue along its natural evolution.

And even if it was pushed towards a denser part of the new galaxy, it would still be unlucky if it was to collide with anything or come close enough to a massive object for the solar system to be disrupted and planets thrown out of orbit.

Of course, the merging galaxy formation will contain regions of high incandescence where large dust and gas clouds will interact. But even if our solar system went straight through one of these, the matter density is only marginally higher than it is in our current region.

While it's a long time until the Sun reaches a point where it can no longer produce enough energy to support life on Earth and many catastrophies could happen to it during that time, the Milky Way/Andromeda collision is probably not one of the higher risks. (Ajkgordon)

Even if andromeda would collide with our galaxy the odds of winning a state lottery are some 200 times smaller than an asteroid or planetary collision —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.251.240.117 (talk) 11:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

End of the universe

Could somebody please re-write this bit?

"On an even longer time scale, the universe will come to an end. The current age of the universe is estimated as being 13.7 billion years. There are several competing theories as to the nature of our universe and how it will end, but in all cases, there will be no life possible. These scenarios take place on an even longer timescale than the expanding of the sun."

It should be pointed out that the end of the universe is many oders of magnitude further in the future than the expanding of the sun and the current age of the universe.

It should also be pointed out that, if at the end of the universe there is a far distant evolution of our civilisation (or others), they are likely to be highly advanced beyond even the Kardashev scale, i.e. able to manipulate the universe so its end is either indefinitely put off or other ways of continuing the civilisation.

In any case, the end of the universe might not be a valid example of a reason for the end of civilsation. (Ajkgordon)

It is completely unknown if there are other civilizations and what level of advancement it will have. So, it should be an open question in my opinion.--Daanschr 20:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
That's why I said if. If there is a civilisation (or many) at the end of the universe, the probability that it will be highly advanced is surely extremely high. One could go as far as to say that the chances that it wouldn't be highly advanced are insignificantly small. Besides which, I imagine that in this context is is human or post-human civilisation that we are talking about. In which case it would have had many billions (or almost any higher number you care to choose) of years to reach a level of advancement where matter, energy and even spacetime manipulation are second nature to it. (Ajkgordon)
Problem is that your assumptions can't be checked in reality. They remain occult to use a term of Isaac Newton.--Daanschr 14:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
This whole topic is occult!
I think you're missing my point. My point is that the end of the universe might not be a valid example of the end of our civilisation. Frankly there are probably many other examples, some of which are listed in the article, that are more likely.
Moreover, if we survive all those, the end of the universe probably won't present too much of a problem for us! (Ajkgordon 16:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC))
Hear hear! You are absolutely right! I especially like dysgenics, what a crap is that.--Daanschr 07:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
What? What has dysgenics got to do with anything? Please explain. (Ajkgordon 11:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC))
Hey, i didn't put it into this article.--Daanschr 12:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Right, thanks, very constructive.

So is anyone going to re-write that bit? I'm not qualified. (Ajkgordon 16:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC))

I have deleted it. You are qualified to delete to my experience. There are many editors who think that only their selfrightuous point of view is enough to delete. They even call it npovising, which apparently means trying to change an article to a neutral, selfrightuous point of view. At least we are sharing the same opinion.--Daanschr 13:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This article is real simple. It documents "end of the world" scenarios that other people talk about. If you personally agree with it is irrelevant. Some of them are controversial and highly unlikely but unless they can be shown to be purely fiction, then there's no reason they can't be included in this article. We simply report on and document what other people are saying. Of course contextual information is relevant, such as how likely it is, or how controversial it is, etc.. so ask yourself - has someone else said this could lead to the end of the world, that can be cited and verified? -- 15:07, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You forgot your username, mister stbalbach. You deleted input from which was based on knowledge of other people. On what authority do you make decisions of deletion or keeping?--Daanschr 15:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah it sometimes does that, I put in the 4 tildes, but only the date shows up. Anyway, not sure what you mean, I deleted input? diff? -- Stbalbach 16:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
This input=Jonathan Dollimore in his book Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture emphasizes on the denial of death within modern, enlightened ideologies. Everybody dies. Our generation will be gone in 200 years. This is overlooked by people who are frightened of all kinds of disasters. The death of Milosevic is a good example. Many wanted Milosevic to stay alive so he could be convicted for ordering the death of other people. Now the history books will not mention him as a warcriminal. But what would it matter in 200 years when we are all gone?
I can't remember a vote on this.--Daanschr 19:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh ok, well, this particular article is simply a list of end of the civilization scenarios; it is not a post-modernist philosophy article on the meaning of death in Western civilization. Some other articles you may want to consider for Dollimore's theories are end of the world (philosophy) and human extinction. -- Stbalbach 20:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I think I get your point, Stbalbach, but on that score you could put in any scenario you liked however unlikely, e.g. civilisation could end because of a mass-Waco style suicide.
I'm not asking for the end of the universe's deletion, rather that it is suitably marked up as very unlikely due to the reasons I gave above. If people agree that my reasons are valid, of course. (Ajkgordon 21:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC))
Well, is what your saying an entirely new position on the fate of humanity and the universe? If not, who else is saying this, that can be verified? -- Stbalbach 21:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Me!!! Does that count for other people.--Daanschr 06:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Max Planck rules!--Daanschr 08:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
No, not at all, Stbalbach. I'm simply saying that the end of the universe is NOT a likely reason for the end of civilisation. Let me try to explain.
Let's say that the time needed for a civilisation to reach extreme advancement, advancement to the stage of being able to control spacetime for its own advantage, is around one million years. Should be plenty.
That's a very small proportion of the time that the universe will have existed by the time it ends.
Therefore the chances are much, much higher that either there won't be a civilisation or that any civilisations will be extremely advanced. And of course, that goes for our civilisation too.
So, the end of the universe is extremely unlikely to be the reason for the end of civilisation. (Ajkgordon 19:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC))
It's just that this paragraph simply doesn't make much sense: "On an even longer time scale, the universe will come to an end. The current age of the universe is estimated as being 13.7 billion years. There are several competing theories as to the nature of our universe and how it will end, but in all cases, there will be no life possible. These scenarios take place on an even longer timescale than the expanding of the sun."
First of all, the statement of the current age of the universe doesn't have much bearing. Secondly, end of life doesn't necessarily mean the end of civilisation. That is, the definition of life, compared to the biological definition we give it now, will probably have changed.
It just doesn't read well nor does it take into account how the end of the universe might be rather irrelevant to the civilisation if any that exists then.
Does that make sense? (Ajkgordon 19:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC))

merge End of planet earth

End of planet earth doesn't discuss anything that is not already discussed in this article, or Human extinction. We already have too many "end of the world" articles, we don't need yet another one that repeats the same material. -- Stbalbach 04:54, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Unnumbered notes

Why are the notes not numbered? It makes it harder to read if they aren't. Skinnyweed 01:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


The Third World War

There were, I recall, a number of "factual prediction" books with the above or similar titles -they should be included.

Most of the predictions for the end of civilisation as we know it seem, in the event, to fall into the category of failed history ("civilisation as we know it" having decided to go in a completely different direction entirely).

Original research it is, but a review "somewhere" of past "end of..." scenarios might be interesting. Jackiespeel 18:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Some people are immune to HIV?

There is a statement under the ===Earth=== section that states that some people are immune to HIV. Is this verifiable and true? If so, citation will be needed. I will soon add a citation needed template next to that statement. Funnybunny (talk/Counter Vandalism Unit) 04:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is true, it originated during the Bubonic Plague. Some people grew resistant to it and they passed along a special gene to their descendants. people who have one parent with this gene don't get the full blow of HIV and AIDS. people whose parents both have this gene are completely resistant to it. I saw it on secrets of the dead on PBS one night

According to the wikipedia article on the Black Death, the theory that this gene arose in response to Bubonic Plague is currently a matter of some debate. There is evidence that the mutation arose during the Bronze Age. DySWN (talk) 00:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Citation needed

It would be good to have inline citations for the "scenarios" under Humanity. Shawnc 18:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


List of doomsday scenarios

Could use votes to save this article, thanks MapleTree 22:23, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Move article to Human extinction scenarios

The end of civilization is not the same as the end of the world or Mankind. Simple living adherents and Christian anarchists see the end of civilization as a good thing. No more Roman Empire, no more taxes and no more government led wars, so to speak. Civilization is something the Egyptians created to suppress the masses and is still around 6,000 years later. The difference between civilization and humanity should be noted on the article, but it will require a re-write of the introduction and/or change of article title. Comments please, before I attempt editing. nirvana2013 21:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I have moved the article to the correct and more encyclopediatic name of Human extinction scenarios. nirvana2013 19:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
No consensus for this. Moved back. -- Stbalbach 20:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
It might be a good idea to add Human extinction scenarios, but such an article would be a subcategory of this one, to wit, human extinction is a cause of the end of (human) civilization, but not the reverse in all likelihood. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Related articles:

Well, you asked for anarchist perspectives so here it is. End of civilization, as you describe above, is not "anarchism" as envisioned by most anarchists. This is something which is hoped for by anarcho-primitivists, but there is no reason why the end of civilization would necessarily be anarchist. Civilization could end, but racial/gender power structures could remain. However, it certainly seems that the end of civilization is a seperate concept from human extinction or the destruction of the planet/universe. Hope this helps. Fightindaman 00:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, it's definitely something different, and I'm not saying this as an anarchist but as a student of anthropology. There are big differences between civilization and humanity. You can easily have people still living with civilization ended. And, like Fightindaman says, it wouldn't inherently be anarchism as anarchists see it, but it might be closer. Ungovernable ForceGot something to say? 07:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

About 1.5 years ago I re-organized all these "end of the world" themed articles. They used to be a major mess. I broke them down into related categories - science (multiple), fiction, religion (multiple), mythology and some others, and created a End of the world disambiguation page. They used to be all tangled together with various spurs and trees going off in all directions. Even to this day it is like herding cats to keep "end of the world" themed articles under control, new ones keep getting created that overlap - we've already seen End of planet Earth (silly article) and the dubious Human extinction - this last article is very problematic, which I won't get into now. Anyway, this problem is bigger than any one article and represents a complex picture across many articles and how they are structured and presented to the end user. -- Stbalbach 13:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Stbalbach thanks for your work on the articles. I am sure you are right. Any title move will not be without problems and its knock on effect to other articles. Wikipedia articles are continual work in progress so there will always be changes and therefore inconveniences. As for this move request, well it simply comes down to civilization and humanity are two different things. I agree they are related, as in civilization could not exist without humanity, however humanity could exist without civilization (humans did without civilization for the majority of their evolution). I agree there are many websites and films that talk about the end of civilization and the end of humanity as the same thing, but should not Wikipedia try to seek the truth, whatever the inconvenience? nirvana2013 19:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't actually think of any work of fiction or theory where mankind goes extinct, except for religious judgment day scenarios. I'm sure there's a decent article about that subject already though. --Zero g 20:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
It could be argued that Childhood's End and The Time Machine qualify. However, The Screwfly Solution, a short story, certainly describes the extinction of humans. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 21:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I guess Night of the Living Dead classifies as well. Back on subject, I see no reason for a move. --Zero g 23:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Humans survive in Night of the Living Dead although the main characters are all killed. Cat's Cradle may be the most noteworthy of the human extinction works of fiction. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 22:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Nirvana2013, article titles are symbolic placeholders, matters of convince, which describe roughly what the reader can expect to find in the article. We can change and play with article titles, so the real question is, what are these articles about? This article defines itself in the first section End_of_civilization#Types_of_risks. You can interpret that section to mean "end of civilization" -- or if you have a better idea. It is certainly not a "list of human extinction scenarios" because almost none of the scenarios listed are guaranteed to cause human extinction, many of them could not. The human extinction article says it is about "human extinction", but then goes on to talk about and list scenarios and topics that would never cause human extinction. The problem is not here, but with the human extinction article, because it tries to be about human extinction - and finding that topic generally lacking and not very interesting, quickly starts talking about civilization-ending scale events which overlaps with this article, which is really what most people care and talk about. Also I disagree about there being a middle ground of "humans exist but no civilization". It enters the realm of philosophy and semantics and speculation, but civilization in this sense means any organized human culture that has unique characteristics, which can come about with as little as two people. Think "Lord of the Flies" - they formed a kind of (dystopian) civilization. The only way humans would not have a civilization is something like "Planet of the Apes" where there is regression of intelligence, a change in what it means to be human - civilization and humans go together. -- Stbalbach 04:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"Also I disagree about there being a middle ground of humans exist but no civilization." Check out the Wikipedia article civilization - Civilization basically means being governed and living under the laws of that government/community. What you are saying is man cannnot live without laws/police/army etc etc. That goes against the beliefs of most anarchists. Anarchists vision of humans living together in a peaceful society with no need for government or laws is not a "regression of intelligence", but quite the opposite. nirvana2013 19:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Nah, if you agree to live without laws that is an agreement and a type of civilization - As soon as you have two people you have a society and mutually agreed on norms of interaction, even if that agreement is anarchy, it's an agreement and a norm. Like I said this enters the realm of philosophy and semantics and for the purposes of what we are talking about pointless, I think your taking the article title too literally. The real question is, what is this article about? It's about major traumatic events. If they also happen to wipe out humanity is possible (or not) is irrelevant. Limiting the discussion to end of humanity removes most things from the table, since most things are probably not going to wipe out humanity entirely, and could not supported with sources as such. That is why human extinction is so problematic. -- Stbalbach 21:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
"...a type of civilization - As soon as you have two people..." - So by your rationale Adam and Eve lived in a civilization?
Before we go any further I would suggest you take a look at what other people really "expect to find in the article", by doing a search on google for the "end of civilization" [4]. It seems Wikipedia, not me, is missing the point on what the end of civilization means. It is not about meteorite impacts or alike, but the end of empires and a change in human consciousness. The third article on the google search is by Kirkpatrick Sale, who is a simple living adherent. Exactly the point I was trying to make in my very first post.
Stbalbach, I propose a solution. As you can see above the title End of civilization does not describe what is in the article (this is my major concern). There is also a problem with Human extinction scenarios, as this also does not reflect the article content (I believe this is your major concern). How about a third alternative name for the article such as Global catastrophic events, or similar (open to suggestions)? nirvana2013 18:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
A further point that is confusing me. Picking up on your point "since most things are probably not going to wipe out humanity entirely" naming the article human extinction scenarios is incorrect. I agree with you. Where I start to get confused is that you believe that humanity and civilization are so closely linked that they could be thought of as the same thing i.e. "As soon as you have two people" one has a society and a civilization. Therefore if the end of humanity/human extinction scenarios is the wrong title "since most things are probably not going to wipe out humanity entirely", then by your definition the end of civilization is also the wrong title "since most things are probably not going to wipe out humanity entirely". Some clarification would be appreciated. nirvana2013 18:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
<~~ continued to left>...

There are scientifically-based "doomsday events" that are commonly discussed that could lead to a dramatic change in the world as we (humans) know it for the worse. I'm not dead set on "civilization" and I would like to see this article and the end of humanity article merged so there is no overlap now, or in the future, so someone doesn't come up with a new article that describes basically the same thing under a new phrase, as has happened. Whatever the article is called, I think the discussion of the definition of "civilization" is fruitless. We do know this: the events are of a global scale impact, and they are catastrophic to human beings. The problem with Global catastrophic events is it doesn't provide a human perspective -- the destruction of half worlds forests could be arguably a global catastrophic event - but not so much for humans, who benefit from it (more agriculture land, wood, ec..). So the idea of "civilization" was to make it about catastrophic events to humans, and obviously anything on a global scale is going to bring about a change in civilization. -- Stbalbach 22:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Please note that I do not think the "discussion of the definition of civilization is fruitless". If we cannot get the name of the article right, how can editors and readers know what to expect (I refer you back to google [5]). Perhaps that is why Wikipedia has had so many problems with content for this topic. If you are not "dead set on civilization" as an article name we have progress (the first thing you have agreed with me on). Any idea on alternative title names? nirvana2013 01:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Basically what your saying is you think the title is too "soft" and not clearly defined. Well, unless you want to limit the discussion only to the complete extinction of the human race, no matter what title is chosen, it will be open for interpretation and a matter of opinion (as it should be). The reason is it's impossible to predict what the future will bring, or when that line between a normal problem and what someone would consider a "doomsday" or "end of the world" type event occurs. These are subjective opinions. What is "civilization" exactly when discussing the end of it? We could go back and forth all day on that. What exactly is a "catastrophy"? I'm not sure what the Google link is trying to show. The phrase is subjective and open to interpretation? That is obvious. There are 3 major ways to approach "end of the world" discussions: Science-based, Religious-based, and Fiction-based. This article is about the science-based discussions. It overlaps with human extinction which tries to have it both ways: a neutral objective title, and a subjective and open-ended list of scenarios and topics that go far beyond only the end of humans. -- Stbalbach 14:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
You didn't answer my question. Anyway, how about Global threats to humanity, Global threats to Mankind, or Global threats to humankind? I would agree a merger of human extinction and this article under one of these title names. nirvana2013 18:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Sure I answered your question, you just didn't see it :) Wouldn't you think a threat to humanity would be global? Or are there regional threats to humanity? And are all these things really "threats to humanity"? That sounds like we are limiting the article again to only those things that could cause human extinction, which removes most of them as a possibility. -- Stbalbach 18:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I personally don't see any problems with Global threats to humanity, Global threats to Mankind, or Global threats to humankind. It is certainly a great improvement over the End of civilization. Remember Wikipedia is work in progress and continually evolving, lets just try to improve it. Nothing is final. If Wikipedia is still around and has not changed its policy, articles and their names will still be changing 3..10..50 years from now. nirvana2013 23:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
See comments below to Losecontrol. The article is not just about "threats to humanity" it's more subtle. A threat to humanity would be on the most extreme end of the scale, on the other end of the scale it might only be a threat to civilization - there is a wide potential scale, civilization is the most common denominator. -- Stbalbach 05:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

There was a solicitation posted at the Talk:Anarcho-primitivism page, so I thought I would put my 2-cents in for consideration on this issue. The article title end of civilization should simply redirect to societal collapse, and the current content located here should be relocated to other entries. Much of the current entry could be moved to the extinction event entry, if it is not already covered there. Other content is more appropriate to the societal collapse entry, etc. If someone likes the idea of a comprehensive list of "threats to human existence" with links to all of the info covered in the current entry, that seems to me to be more appropriate to a List of threats to human existence entry. It would be a good home for the content that would not be appropriate elsewhere. LC | Talk 23:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Societal collapse appears to mainly be related to the scholarship discussing historical patterns in world history. It's focus is on past events and tries to explain and classify past "collapses", perhaps with an eye towards creating a model for future events. Extinction event appears to overlap some with this article, but again, this article is focused on events that could bring about the end of the world as we know it, which could include society and civilization as we know it, not just the end of the human species. It doesn't have to be an extinction event, or the end of humanity (although it could be) - just some major trauma .. say half the world dies, something on the order of the black death. It would be an event that would be civilization-destroying or at least a major change to civilization at a minimum. -- Stbalbach 05:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with LC - end of civilization should simply redirect to societal collapse. As for the content on this article it should be merged into another article, or retitled. Human extinction and the end of civilization are two different things entirely. The opening paragraph:
"The end of civilization or the end of the world are phrases used in reference to human extinction scenarios..." is fundamentally incorrect. nirvana2013 17:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
These articles are really very different. Societal collapse is about the academic study of past civilizations and has some serious scholarship behind it. It discusses how various historians have tried explain why past civilizations fell, with perhaps some implied lessons for our own. This article is (mostly) popular culture predictions of what could happen in the future and draws from mostly non-academic non-historian sources - entirely different approaches, goals and types of authors and sources involved. Mixing them together would be a mistake. Stbalbach 19:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Stbalbach you misunderstand me. I am not suggesting the content of this article and societal collapse should be mixed. Just that the title "end of civilization should simply redirect to societal collapse". The end of the Incas is one example to an end of a civilization. The Incas did not all die, just that their society and civilization simply collapsed. Repeat "As for the content on this article it should be merged into another article, or retitled." nirvana2013 02:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
No matter what title you pick it will have the same problem. I challenge you to come up with any title and I can use the same logic your using and tear it down. This is a very speculative and impossible to define subject matter. I said this earlier and you never responded. Article titles are symbolic placeholders. They are not statements of fact. They are designed to tell the reader roughly what the article is about in 1-5 words or so, like the title of a book. They can be subjective and may not be exact. The lead section defines more specifically what the article is about. The problem is not only with this article, it is with all the articles in the end of the world series, including the religious articles (and including the very phrase "end of the world"). They all have these same problems of in-exact, subjective titles that could mean something else, but people use these phrases and when they do they generally mean something. Your making an issue over something that will probably never be resolved. Ok so you don't like this subjective title, lets replace it with another subjective title, and someone else will replace it again etc.. it is disruptive unless there is a compelling reason to change. None of your proposed titles are any less subjective or easily confused. Also the literature that this article is based on typically talks about the destruction of civilization so it has some external precedence beyond the insular discussions here. -- Stbalbach 19:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be pointed out that you don't need civilization to come to an end to have anarchism... Anarchism is the way it is right now. Sure you have laws ,but the power remains in the peoples hands to follow them. I consider myself an anarchist, and at least my view of anarchism is that it is supposed to empower the individual. You cannot control another individual to do something, you can strongly coerce. Anarchy is impossible to take away. And I would also say that if an anarchist system was set up, it would be the one and only time there was true "civilization". Freedom comes with a price... Responsibility. That means each individual would need to be civilized enough to govern themself and their family. We are not civilized that is why there are laws. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.23.125.124 (talk • contribs) 05:31, 30 November 2006

oppose move as proposed under this discussion. end of humanity and end of civilisation are two totally different things. i havent read any proposed name changes or moves that make sense in this entire discussion. the status quo should be maintained and focus on improving the articles themselves, unless clear consensus can be arrived at. incidently, whoever said that losing half the worlds forests could benefit mankind by providing more food needs to go back to school in Ecology 101. regards. Anlace 16:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you Anlace the "end of humanity and end of civilisation are two totally different things", but why then does the article state in its introduction "The end of civilization or the end of the world are phrases used in reference to human extinction scenarios?" What is the article about - end of civilization, end of humanity or end of the world? It is most confusing. nirvana2013 13:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Well Nirvana2013, you are correct that the intro part you quoted should not be there. i recently edited that sentence to fix it and another editor very quickly reverted my alteration. I shall take another stab at it. but you are correct...each article must have an intro definition that makes sense, before we discuss moving, merging etc. best regards. Anlace 15:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
This article is about all those things. Who are we to say that a future event is limited to only civilization and not humanity, or planet earth? An asteroid could qualify for all three - it is impossible to segment it out based on the effect of the event, because we have no idea how bad it would be. The problem is there has been no scholarly accepted terminology for this type of thing. However the term "existential risk" appears to be gaining favor among futurists as an encompassing term. It can be cited, and is probably where this article is headed. -- Stbalbach 15:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
i dont take exception to anything in your post above, Stbalbach; i dont understand your emphasis upon existential risk, even though i am not disputing the importance of the term. existential risk implies risk of human extinction whereas end of civilisation need not involve human extinction. i hope you are not proposing a move (yet). let s get the intro definition correct before we discuss moves or merges. i altered the intro because (a) it did not allude to ecological disaster, which is much more likely than all this asteroid stuff and (b) the previous intro equated the article title to "end of the world". clearly mankind's civilisation can end without the world itself (e.g. all biota or all the planetary mass) coming to an end. regards Anlace 16:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
<Thread continued back to the left..>

There is unnecessary confusion because of idiomatic phrases as article titles so we should probably try to avoid them, except for some basic etymology and usage info. Re: ecology, it is just one of the scenarios the article lists so it wasn't clear why that one was being singled out fpr the lead section from the others - I agree it is important, but then, other are just as important (viruses or nuclear war). re: Exesential risk is more encompassing and seems to be a term used in futurist studies which is the scholarly branch of what this article covers. The article was never written to be just about civilization, it was an idiomatic placeholder, so anyway hopefully the new name will help. If there is disagreement about the use of "Existential" it could be changed to "Future", or just removed entirely and be "Risks to.." -- Stbalbach 17:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Global_catastrophic_risk/Archive_1&oldid=1136767491"