For 300,000 years, the human species has had a reasonably good run… but do you ever feel
like our days could now be numbered? Like we’ve ridden our luck to get to this point and that, at
some point in the future, that luck is sure to run out? There have been doomsday predictions pedaled
for pretty much all of recorded history. But some demand more attention (and concern) than others.
This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at
the future events that really could kill us all.
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For today’s video, we’re going to look at broad topics - technology,
nature and war - but through the lens of particular examples. These are predictions,
models and theories as to what might be awaiting us, just over the horizon. So, let’s get into it.
First off, technology, which we’ve been riding on the coattails of for decades now. Of course,
the advent of new technology is not a new thing in itself - whole civilizations have risen and fallen
based on their tech and innovation. However, by almost all measures the twenty-first century has
witnessed a boom. From computing to AI to quantum processing. From mobile to smart to augmented
technology. So much so that, by now, the looming concept of the singularity is quite well known.
But, actually, the sentient robot apocalypse isn’t all we need to worry about, according to some.
So-called cybergeddon could take various forms in the future. For example,
some envisage an eventual total lack of privacy as a result of our current digital reliance,
resulting in everyone knowing everything about one another - right down to passwords,
account numbers, how you vote, the websites you visit, the things you buy,
et cetera. On one level, this would be intrusive and maybe embarrassing. On another, it could
lead to blackmail, to the breakdown of law and order, to the manipulation of medical records,
to the grounding of airplanes, to the crashing of airplanes.
From some perspectives, it might be that we don’t even get to the more traditional AI singularity,
where the machines just do away with us. Instead, nefarious actors will have targeted,
say, the banks long before then, and wrought economic collapse, leading to starvation,
riots, disaster and death. Or hacktivists will break into smart cities, locking up the roads,
putting a stopper in the energy supply - leading again to riots, disaster,
and potentially death. The fear is that today’s convenience in these matters - the connectivity
that we all now enjoy - could one day come at a cost, and a grave one. Globalization in
the digital age has linked us all together, and usually for the better. But is the web of modern
humankind also more susceptible to being wiped out in one? Let us know your take in the comments!
We’ve seen similar concerns entrench themselves into how we face up to the natural world, as
well. There are certain scenarios that we’re all vulnerable to. The big ones include an asteroid
strike, and the eruption of a supervolcano. Astronomers - including a dedicated team at NASA
- keep a watchful eye on the space rocks in our solar system, and some are more concerning than
others. For example, a currently far-off asteroid named 101955 Bennu has, according to NASA, a 1 in
1,800 chance of impact between the years 2178 and 2290 - with 2182 billed as the most likely
of all. Although, at less than a mile wide, Bennu shouldn’t really kill us all - only some of us. In
fact, at present, there’s no known and incoming asteroid that would wipe the whole of humanity.
Although, there have also been plenty of occasions in even the recent past when an undetected
asteroid has flown by Earth, without prior warning - so there’s always a chance of a surprise event.
With regard to supervolcanoes, the odds are also fairly low. While the numbers can be crunched to
show that the most famous of all, Yellowstone, is overdue for an eruption… it’s also true that
volcanoes are rarely so predictable. Fuelled by the vast and enigmatic convection processes
within our planet’s burning mantle, no-one can say with certainty exactly when any one
mountain will blow. And, regardless, by some measures, Yellowstone still has another 100,000
years to go before it could truly be considered “late”, anyway. Nevertheless,
if it were to explode to its absolute highest potential, then it really could kill us all.
There’s a video dedicated to this on our channel, so be sure to check that out next.
In terms of a massive disaster that the world could throw at us tomorrow,
perhaps that’s the reportedly imminent Cascadia earthquake. While, for decades, it’s been all
eyes on the more southerly San Andreas fault line, with the Big One touted with almost every
passing year… experts agree that, actually, the greatest risk of damage lies further north. In and
around the westernmost part of the US/Canadian border. This is the Cascadia subduction zone,
where the oceanic Juan de Fuca plate is sliding beneath the continental North American plate.
There is massive pressure building up here, with the highest predictions warning of magnitude 9.0
earthquakes and tsunamis that could be more than 100 feet high. While perhaps not quite such a
global event as an asteroid or supervolcano, a Cascadia ‘quake would be catastrophic for the US
western seaboard, and with lethal rippling effects sent out across the Pacific Ocean.
But lastly, we have war to worry about. In general, war seems an unfortunate inevitability
in human society. Statistics vary, but in all versions of the data we see that in the
last three thousand years or so… only around a couple hundred have been technically war-free.
True peace on Earth just isn’t something we see very often. What’s concerning,
then, is that if that fact continues, then… well, we’re in big trouble. The prospect of
nuclear war has of course hovered over us since the end of the last world war,
World War Two. But, actually, even plain nuclear is a thing of the past today.
While almost all future predictions do concede that the global nuclear arsenal is still the
primary powder keg should we want to destroy ourselves - with around 10,000 active nukes
on the planet right now - it’s no longer quite so simple as just hitting the big red button to
launch an attack. Instead, many versions of World War Three foretell of a hybrid war, guided in
particular by insidious, cyber tactics. These, again, are essentially computer hacks but on a
terrifying scale, with fears that the controls to any one nation’s nuclear motherlode could now
quite easily be overridden and redistributed by an aggressor. Certain countries have spent decades
building these weapons and stashing them away, but control of them might now be lost in moments.
Really, this is the ultimate nightmare of a hybrid war. But there are other
ways in which it could play out. According to NATO, hybrid warfare “entails an interplay or
fusion of conventional as well as unconventional instruments of power and tools of subversion”.
The concept has been criticized due to its seeming vagueness, but one interpretation
of it is that states can (and will) fight and dismantle other states as though from afar.
There might not be physical battles, and there might not even be a clear declaration of war,
but it will still be possible to bring a nation down by other means. By, say,
the directed spread of disinformation, by the manipulation of another’s elections,
or again by anonymously hacking and destroying key bits of infrastructure.
At its heart, a hybrid war is all about creating a breakdown of trust between any one state and
its people… turning humankind against one another. Inciting chaos. According to NATO,
“this translates into [the] perilous erosion of the core values of coexistence, harmony,
and pluralism in and amongst democratic societies as well as the decision-making
capability of the political leaders”. When that happens, it could be said that a war has been
fought and won without the risk or spectacle of a “traditional” physical conflict. And,
in the minds of some, the international landscape could be embroiled in a hybrid
war (or the beginnings of one) as we speak, with NATO concluding that; “public trust
[in the US] has declined from 73 percent in the 1950s to 24 percent in 2021. Similarly,
in Western Europe, trust levels have been steadily declining since the 1970s”.
So, what’s your verdict? Which of these areas of concern is most likely to catch up with us first?
Some kind of tech glitch with wide-reaching implications? A monster natural disaster,
the like of which could potentially kill off all (or most of) humankind? Or the quiet outbreak of
a hybrid war, which even the world’s best military strategists are still trying to
truly get their heads around? Or, actually, is there something else that you think we should be
paying even more attention to? For now, those are the future events that could kill us all.
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other
clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.