To drive ourselves to extinction we would pretty much have to blow up the planet. Possibly we’re back to bugs or fish or microbes. Won’t be monkeys or cats or something with a brain and it won’t really have to evolve to take over. Just survive. And I guess there’s a chance nothing would evolve to reach our level again.

hir04tr3dd1t t1_j28c466 wrote on December 30, 2022 at 11:01 AM

#1,177,054

 If intelligence and awareness of humanity were to be more advanced and developed, then the idea that human activities will led to extinction might seem to be impossible. In retrospect, past extinctions happened not because of self-driven causes but from natural events. Now these natural events in the present are mostly identified and have been compensated with various methods of prevention and mitigation because the capability of the human brain unlike any other species ever roamed on the surface of the Earth. 
 Issues relating natural abnormality even now, are being compensated for instance, earlier this year, humanity had successfully deflect an asteroid; it might seem to change a little bit on its orbit yet this proved that humans can, in the upcoming years, compensate a celestial impact from space. With the issues we're having in the world, awareness and action are just as needed to be able to re-program our lifestyles to adapt natural changes caused by us. With that being discussed, if things go smoothly with our development, we might ascend to another level of being humans or perhaps become interstellar explorers because after all, in about 5 billion years or so, our world will meet its end.

athomasflynn t1_j28isdh wrote on December 30, 2022 at 12:23 PM

#1,178,182

Lots of different catalysts have triggered mass extinctions but the event they often trigger is a change to the ocean's microbiome. Giant influxes in fertilizer, methanation, changes to acidity, salinity, temperature, etc. Lots of things have triggered them but the end result is a change to atmospheric composition. It's why there used to be giant bugs and why they're not here anymore.

My point being, whatever comes next will probably be so different than us that it thrives in a very different atmosphere.

thunderchungus1999 t1_j28lwjm wrote on December 30, 2022 at 12:56 PM

#1,178,789

Replying to Shamino79 (#1,175,731)

IIRC Earth has still 400 million years left on the clock before multicellular life becomes unsustainable due to the increase in heat and radiation incoming from the expanding red sun.

It took 1000 million years for life to evolve from single celled life into ocean-dwelling fish and early amphibians.