The end of humanity
Over 99 per cent of all species that ever existed went extinct. The worry is that humanity faces the same fate. The question then becomes: till when will Homo sapiens live? One thing we can do to answer that question is to look at our closest relatives and see what happened to them. The average lifespan of all Homo species is about 300,000 years. The one that lived the longest was Homo erectus with circa 1.6 million years. Considering that Homo sapiens evolved about 200,000 years ago, that would leave us between 100,000 and 1.4 million years. There is a big difference between Homo sapiens and other Homo species. Modern humans have a power unprecedented in history: since the invention of the atomic bomb, we have the power to make ourselves extinct. Atomic bombs are the most prominent threat to humanity, but they are not the only one. Advances in biotechnology, for example, make it ever easier to replicate pathogens or even engineer new ones. What is currently only possible for big, well-funded labs could become feasible for relatively small groups of people with bad intentions. Other future technologies, such as general artificial intelligences (not yet invented), could have the...