Adapted for the Internet from:     Why God Doesn't Exist

    Summary

    Extinction is a law of life: every species  is guaranteed to disappear the moment it is born. Mother Nature plants the seed of
    death in each of her scions the moment she is pregnant. There are no exceptions. Over 99% of the species that ever lived
    on Earth are no longer around. This is as close as it gets to a biological law. The notion most people have that, unlike the
    rest of nature, Man can escape this fate borders on the ridiculous.

    The establishment holds that extinctions are the result of climate change, extraterrestrial or earthly catastrophes, infighting,
    competition, disease, or new predators. Unfortunately, none of these mechanisms explains pervasive selectivity [1] [2] [3]
    and thus cannot be used to justify a single extinction event in the history of life on Earth.

    Here, I propose two models that are above all selective. They explain extinctions in any epoch or habitat. A natural
    background extinction results when the population pyramid of a species overturns. I show that it is impossible for any
    species of plants or animals to avoid this natural process. Neanderthal and Woolly are perhaps the two most noteworthy
    examples that succumbed in a background extinction. A natural mass extinction results when the ecological pyramid
    overturns. An entire food chain comes to an end as the island shrinks and the many end up feeding on the few. A mass
    extinction is a sudden economic collapse, the last stages of an exponential process where the carrying capacity
    disintegrates for a group of interdependent species. The dinosaurs are the most famous case. The last Neanderthals
    died of old age. The last of the T-Rexes starved to death.

    Man won't go quietly, unnoticed, the way of Neanderthal. Man is destined to go with a bang, the way of T-Rex, in a
    geologically sudden economic collapse. We are among the last of the mammals and certainly the last of the hominids.
    Only the last of each family tree have the privilege to participate in a mass extinction. Our time is up! We can go at any
    moment now. Ironically, forewarning can only accelerate our schedule. Extinction is a problem technology and
    intelligence can do nothing about.

    The reason for Fermi's Paradox is that advanced intelligence necessarily has a very short geological lifespan. The
    planets where humans evolve are simply too few and too far apart in distance and in time.

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We are the last
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    Last modified 05/21/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Holy Bill
Baaad Bill
Pie-in-the-sky future that
Mathematical Physics,
post-humanism, and
traditional religion
promise you.
What Bill
guarantees
you!
"What a deal, Bill!"
    Executive Summary
    (Mass Extinction)
    All species undergo a long term, demographic S-curve that invariably leads to extinction. Every species
    necessarily attains ZPG, a historic milestone where its population reaches a maximum. Population
    expands geometrically and climbs to ZPG after a species conquers or adapts to its last invisible enemies.
    Humans brought viruses and bacteria under control during the 19th and 20th Centuries and, predictably,
    population expanded exponentially.

    Since 1963, however, the global birth rate has steadily declined. This is not a result of the education of
    women or of government programs, as economists and demographers would lead you to believe. It is the
    result of urbanization. Man does not live spread out evenly across the planet. Man lives like ants, in urban
    mounds: one ant hole here; another one there. All species are subject to density dependent birth rates,
    especially those that develop to become top predators. Density is not a function of space, but of food
    (carrying capacity). Humans are so efficient that they produce food almost upon demand. When plants
    or animals are corralled into tight spaces and provided with just enough food, the population
    miraculously stops growing. The day we migrated from the farms to the cities, we guaranteed that
    population would eventually grind to a halt. Globally, our demographic history resembles that of
    bacteria which have multiplied on a finite piece of bread.

    The trouble is that our artificial economy is an inverted pyramid scheme. It is founded on the expectation
    that there will be more demand (i.e. humans) tomorrow. The Service Economy cannot run on a constant
    population. When population grinds to a halt, demand grinds to a halt, and the Service Economy is
    exposed for what it is: a mirage. The Service Economy is all verbs and no nouns: a series of relations
    which vanish when you wake up. The veil is finally removed and Man suddenly finds himself living in a
    natural economy (based on food). We return to our hunter-gathering days albeit under radically different
    circumstances. Without economic incentives, the agricultural corporations which produce most of the
    food today have no reason to plant crops, grow livestock, process food, or distribute it. Billions
    suddenly find themselves stranded in cities and towns with nothing to eat. The day we migrated from
    the farms to the cities, we isolated ourselves from the only thing we need to stay alive: food. These are
    problems intelligence and technology can do nothing about.

    The only economy that needs to collapse is the US Economy. Globalization guarantees that all other
    economies tumble right behind it. And it doesn't require a stock market collapse, although this is the
    likely trigger. The real problem is unemployment. Without jobs, nothing else matters. Once the US
    Service Economy disintegrates, millions of destitute urbanites will first vandalize local supermarkets.
    Next, they will migrate to the surrounding countryside and pick the fields clean. After that, it's a dog
    eat dog world. Nothing will remain.

    Population will not rebound after the collapse. Adam and Eve are not in the cards. Sorry! No one will
    even know that there had ever been humans living on Earth.