Hawking: Humans Only Have 1000 Years Left on Earth

[exfileme]

Humans need to press on with their exploration of space, as the clock is ticking.

Hawking: Humans Only Have 1000 Years Left on Earth : Read more

 

[del35]

Fortunately not much intelligence is needed to make such a prediction. This is one of the few truths that Dr. Hawking has uttered.

 

[aoneone]

You have to understand that technology moves close to exponentially rather than linearly. In other words, things may seem slow but within the next 100 years or so, there will be progress. Just look at us now versus the Industrial Revolution. Just hang in there and stop overpopulating our Planet that's all. ^_^

 

[BulkZerker]

Aoneone. Tell that to the impoverished. And religious breeders.

 

[nuvon]

I wish I can live that long to prove it....

 

[ceh4702]

People that make these kind of remarks should go back and read the remarks of the past. They said we would not be able to feed all the people when the population of the world was about 1 billion. However we are still here. Humans are able to adapt and develop new technologies. This will not change any time soon. There is no guarantee we can find another habitable planet. Necessity is the mother of invention. All it takes is one devastating disease to drastically reduce world population.

 

[NuclearShadow]

Wow, I had no idea he was 71. I don't know if his statement is correct or not but regardless he is right about us needing to take space travel seriously.

 

[eklipz330]

a man whom i have infinite respect for. of course this is all just speculation, and nobody will live to see it, but it's worth taking notice from a guy like him

 

[nexians]

Am happy if they are building an Enterprise Ship as shown in pic

 

[DRosencraft]

I think we must all respect Stephen Hawking. He is a very brilliant scientist. That being said, I don't think it's ever good for any scientist to get into these hyper ling-term predictions. There are so many things that can happen to a planet over that period of time. Heck, civilization has only been around for about 5000 years. There's nothing known of to compare our species to relative to intelligence and means, in terms of the ability to survive on a planet on that time-scale. You would have to be fairly certain that there will be some event that will make life actually impossible on the planet to assert 1000 years as a benchmark for "must leave the planet". Unless you're talking about space colonies, it's not even all that likely we'll have anywhere to feasibly get to in that short a time span in terms of a livable planet to settle on. I agree with the idea in principle Hawking is putting forward, but I guess I take issue with his supporting assertion, or I guess the way he makes his case.

 

[ohim]

Sadly humanity spends money on useless things like religion and wars instead of human evolution.

 

[balister]

For those that think that Hawking's prediction is off, he's taking many factors into this using probabilities. I can see very easily what he's talking about and why. For instance, ways Humanity can be wiped out:

1) We kill ourselves through nuclear war/engineered plague/chemical means (like pollution)

2) A large meteor/asteroid/comet strikes the Earth and causes an extinction event like that which ended the Triassic-Jurrasic period.

3) A super volcano erruption (like Yellowstone or one out in the Pacific)

Any of these could wipe out most life on the planet and probability of any of those things happening in the next 1000 years is quite likely. When you take all of them into account, it is almost an certainty that one of many possible events could occur that would extinquish Humanity from the Earth.

 

[punahou1]

May we please have details as to why the Earth may not be survivable? Most of what is in this article is a rehash of older Hawking material...

 

[mjv1121]

Hawking is an idiot and a crap scientist. Magic nonsense is not science - dividing by zero is NOT infinity - singularities my ass. Unless the Earth is hit by a seriously big rock, I see no reason why humans should not survive for thousands more years. As to whether "our" civilisation will continue without expansion into space, perhaps not. Even if some calamity occurs here on Earth, perhaps in 1000 years humans on Mars will recolonise Earth.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

None of us will be around 1000 years to disprove him.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

mjv1121 -So Stephen Hawking is an idiot and a crap scientist for saying that people will need to look for other places to live in the next 1000 years to survive... I have no idea who you are and you said people will be to mars and back to earth in 1000 years! You are an idiot! At least Stephen Hawking has some clout to what he is saying as a world renowned scientist!

 

[Meatymutawings]

considering we'd all die long before that, this shouldn't concern any of us whatsoever.

 

[nebun]

and how does h know this???

 

[jack1982]

Looking at kids today, I'll be surprised if the whole world isn't reduced to subsistence agriculture in 100 years.

 

[STravis]

Not entirely a crazy prediction. Think of the amount of 'damage' we've done since the start of the industrial revolution (circa 1760) - that's less than 300 years ago - and think of the progress we've made in the last 40 years.... yeah 1000 years on this planet is asking for a lot.

 

[leeashton]

steven hawkings is a f**ken tool and does not know shit!

 

[sonofliberty08]

People that make these kind of remarks should go back and read the remarks of the past. They said we would not be able to feed all the people when the population of the world was about 1 billion. However we are still here. Humans are able to adapt and develop new technologies. This will not change any time soon. There is no guarantee we can find another habitable planet. Necessity is the mother of invention. All it takes is one devastating disease to drastically reduce world population.

reduce world population...... suddenly it sounds like Hitler was not that bad after all......

 

[novatoposter]

I have traveled to the future, and what i saw there was not nice

 

[STravis]

Maybe in a 1000 years, Toms can fix the comment section - this is freaking horrible.

 

[bystander]

I don't think he predicted the end of the world. He is predicting that we will no longer be able to live in the environment earth transforms into. Earth will go on, life will go on, but we might not be able to live on the planet ourselves after all the pollutants and climate changes that may take place. Though if we can colonize another planet, we may vary well have the tools to fix our planet for ourselves, but our chances of survival are much higher if we can colonize other planets.