Is the extinction of mankind a bad thing?

[Lochton]

For us, as we are the mankind, yes. For the planet, not overly but somewhat.

[Laerrus]

Is the extinction of mankind a bad thing?

Well, yeah...

As much as the people who I don't agree with annoy the fuck out of me, this world would be pretty fucking boring without them and everyone else who is a member of this sentient species.

We just need to learn our place in the world as it's stewards... Unfortunately that will not happen anytime soon.

I think a great "reset" could fix all of that.

Perhaps it will be a global pandemic to cull our numbers, much larger in scope and reach to the 1918 flu or 14th century plague. Or maybe a supervolcanic eruption causing an extended global Winter and starving billions to death. Meteor?

Chances of any of these happening are slim to none, so I am betting on another kind of "reset" entirely.

Anthropocentric climate change.

Many people are going to die from the coming famines caused by this byproduct of our own greed, ignorance and need for creature comforts. Less people around will mean less carbon being pumped up into the atmosphere. Eventually our planet will be able to mend. Humanity and the other surviving species will move on and hopefully we all learn something from it.

If not, hopefully future scientists will see the bottleneck in our population beginning in the 21st century and endeavor to avoid making the same mistakes that we did.

[Nerovar]

So many edgelords here
Of course extinction of mankind is a bad thing.

How though? Assuming it's not some slow, painful process but more akin to the "Thanos snap" thing (or some cosmic event that wipes us out without us even knowing) how could it be considered morally bad?

[AlmightyGerkin]

From death comes life, and from life, death

[Kharadin]

The edge in this thread is too damn high.

Unless you wanna die then yes, obviously, human extinction is bad. I kinda like living.

[Iambackagain666]

NO!!

As a designated spokesman for the Ant people i for one welcome our insect overlords and whats left of humanity should too.

The handful of us who get to work in the underground sugar mines (even though sugar doesnt grow underground) should be forever thankful to our insect masters who will make this world a utopia.

[Unlimited Power]

I'd hope that mankind starts colonizing promising planets in distant solar systems before earth eventually becomes completely inhospitable (I'd imagine both of those events are still quite a ways off). But no doubt humanity is a parasitic existence and our unsustainable use of finite resources has accelerated the inhospitality of our own planet.

But our ingenuity also makes us quite resilient, so unless we encounter some catastrophic natural disaster such as massive asteroids or erupting super volcanoes blocking out sunlight, I don't see humanity being wiped out on earth anytime soon.

Whether the extinction of mankind would be good is a bit of a philosophical question though, since we essentially invented the concept of morals ourselves. If humanity doesn't exist, neither does our morals, so could our non-existence ever truly be "good"? By our own morals it'd be good for just about all other life on planet earth, but all other life on planet earth would neither care nor know that it is good.

[Kharadin]

Ok, fair enough. Purely selfish reasons. Yeah, I like to live, too.

Obviously. Wanting mankind to end so you can feel edgy/want to give the environment a blowie is also a selfish reason. Humans are selfish. Everything is selfish.

[Master Factician]

As far as we know, the Universe has a finite lifespan and humans are the only chance at escaping the eventual heat death of the Universe.

The extinction of mankind would have the short-term effect of revitalizing some of the Earth's natural environments. In the long-term, the minuscule chance we have at saving this entire Universe from oblivion would be lost.

Seems bad, imo.

[InTheEnd]

It's funny how you can get ridiculed and labelled so quickly for suggesting the genocide of {insert race/religion here} might be beneficial, but when people insinuate that the death of all humans is desirable , others just chuckle and call them edgelords.

It doesn't matter whether humans do go extinct or not, life - in some form or another - will always find a way to survive. Not that life matters in the grand scheme of the universe and how it functions though.

[Stormwolf64]

Not at all. We're a parasite on this planet that single handedly caused the mass extinction of countless flora and fauna, all in the name of greed and spreading its presence.

Every single creature on the planet is a parasite. Some are just worse than others.

[Kumorii]

It's funny how you can get ridiculed and labelled so quickly for suggesting the genocide of {insert race/religion here} might be beneficial, but when people insinuate that the death of all humans is desirable , others just chuckle and call them edgelords.

It doesn't matter whether humans do go extinct or not, life - in some form or another - will always find a way to survive. Not that life matters in the grand scheme of the universe and how it functions though.

Because regardless of how wrong genociders of races are they still believe it's for betterment of humankind. Entire eradication of humans can never be a good thing for humans. It will always be a bad thing.

[Tiwack]

You're not looking out for them, you're only looking out for yourself to avoid change, lifting a finger and to attempt to make yourself okay with ruin, walking off a cliff while staring into the abyss. What do you think the stories of Gomorrah or Cain are about? Avoiding disaster and jealousy by looking out and to the future.

[Lora]

Nope. Not a bad thing. It's inevitable. Humans are arrogant and cause so much chaos and destruction, including the extinction of other species, plants etc. The planet/universe will be just fine when we eventually go extinct.

[Nerovar]

It's funny how you can get ridiculed and labelled so quickly for suggesting the genocide of {insert race/religion here} might be beneficial, but when people insinuate that the death of all humans is desirable , others just chuckle and call them edgelords.

There's a difference between arguing that nonexistence is morally neutral and advocating for the violent annihilation of groups of people.

[Axaion]

Yes, we cant let the Xenos win.

[Nfinitii]

I believe we are (or always have been) part of our own Demise in this World. We will get to a point of no return that will eventually lead to the extinction of most life as we know it, including the human species

I find this a natural process. Similar to death. After us the universo will continue its course and probably New forms of life will emerge. We've seen these masa extinction happen before. Life always finds itself back.

I find it futile and even selfish to believe that we will be here forever. Things seem kinda gloom in the near future. Perhaps our time here is near an end. And that's fine and quite natural.

What I do believe is bad is that the generation before this masa extinction will suffer and have to en dure harsh lifestyles due to the choices we make today. I find myself pondering about this often and believe that what I can do to help this is just not have children. If at some point I want to start a family I'll probably adopt.

What is your stance on the (probably inevitable) extinction of human kind?

Good and bad is a human’s perspective on things, when humans finally go extinct it ultimately won’t matter. It will just be another species going extinct.

[Scottyjscizzle]

Pretty much.
Even if we successfully extonguished 90% of life on our way down, it will find a way again far after we are gone.

Life..uh, finds a way.

[Zuben]

Some hold value in life itself, that as long as life will return and prosper even after our doom it's all good.

I'm not one of those people. To me the prime value is protecting what already exists. Our collective information, history etc. We are what is important, not what will come after us. What comes after us is about as precious to me as some alien life form lightyears away from us. The reason I value protecting this planet, stopping global warming etc., is because it's about protecting us. The planet itself endures and heals any bad scenario, but we won't.

So yes, the extinction of mankind would most definitely be a bad thing.

[sam86]

Pretty much.
Even if we successfully extonguished 90% of life on our way down, it will find a way again far after we are gone.

no it won't, with so much nuclear waste ppl like to forget that we fucked the planet beyond the point of return
and unlike popular myth, even roaches won't survive nuclear winter
on bright side at least we didn't go to space to fuck everyone else planets too, yet at least