What's going to destroy humanity this year?

[Samus Aran]

highwaystar101 said:

Samus Aran said:

Actually the damages wouldn't be extremely high. There have been a lot of pandemic outbreaks were millions of people died, but there's almost no example in history were diseases killed of an entire race. The only thing that comes to mind at the moment are the Inca's and the Aztecs, but even they didn't completely die off.

Birth rate is so high in some places that it could easily buffer against 100million dead people.

I'm sorry, did you just say

A. Extremely high damages means the whole of the human race? 

B. It wouldn't be a disaster if 100 million people died because we could replace them?

 

Extremely high damages with is a case where a disease would kill millions; the whole human race would be another level altogether (catastrophic). Not one person in this thread has claimed that Swine flu will wipe out the human race, but many have acknowledged that it poses a risk of death to millions.

It wouldn't be a disaster for the human race as a whole in the sense that there would still be plenty of us alive and that we wouldn't be endangered- at all. 

And also the fact that diseases have always been the number one killer of humanity since agriculture. Yes, we can replace them. That's the whole freaking point here.

Diseases are the cost we paid for agriculture. Of course there were diseases as well before we "invented" agriculture, but nowhere near as the diseases that came after it. The life expectancy actually went DOWN at first for a LONG time when people became farmers. Even though the life expectancy went down a lot, the birth rate was so high that it could easily buffer against the increased mortality rate. Yes, the population grew to astonishing heights even though we died a lot faster/sooner.

I'm glad we paid that cost, it's worth it :)

Diseases are a necessary evil(or were if we manage to wipe out all diseases one day, which I doubt).

Perhaps you should discuss the real treat to humanity for once?