how will it end?

Peak Oil?

WW 4:War Of The Wankers (bush vs bin laden)?
WW 4:War Of Power (bush vs Iran)?

Global Warming?


what else?

Four horsemen without an apocalypse probably but I think we'll bounce back. Just finished Jared Diamond's opus:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670033375/002-7637468-5634447?v=glance&n=283155

The end of the world will be gods fault for putting holy things of 3 the magor religions in the same place.

heh- not to mention all the oil...

Disease, no doubt.
Overpopulation + poverty + famine + migration + mobility + bio industry

Do the math dude!

The flu or something else is coming!!

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIEEEEEE!!!!!

"Peak Oil?"

Most uses of oil can be taken over by biofuel (except maybe plastics), and besides, there is no convincing estimate of just how much oil is left.

"WW 4:War Of The Wankers (bush vs bin laden)?
WW 4:War Of Power (bush vs Iran)?"

Neither is strong enough to challenge the First World in an all-out conflict. Hopefully Europe's fear of all-out war will keep things quiet and the US can just keep pumping resources into hopeless guerilla conflicts all over the world.

"Overpopulation + poverty + famine + migration + mobility + bio industry"

None of them unsolvable with the right population. A lot of the Golden Billion has intentionally moved into uninhabitable areas (Las Vegas; Perth). Poverty - the people for whom this is a real problem have no opportunity to do anything about it. Famine - we produce enough food today to satisfy twice the world population, and if we are really in a tight spot we'll start making GM supercrops. Migration will become less widespread due to communications (you can be a part of the US economy from Bangalore). Etc, etc.

"None of them unsolvable with the right population."

Agreed, but will they be solved? I expect combinations of those problems (bio-industry + migration = new fast spreading virus) to become big problems.

"A lot of the Golden Billion has intentionally moved into uninhabitable areas (Las Vegas; Perth)."

Yep, with money and resources you can make a home anywhere. But those places are not sustainable in the long run. There's no balance, you need to keep adding resources to these places to keep them inhabitable.

We're living in an artificial equilibrium that will inevitably tip over one way or the other. Ofcourse it will hurt the poor and weak the hardest, but that's life.

(Don't talk to me about life, you hate it or you ignore it )

The equilibrium has been around for aroun 7000 years at least, what makes you think it'll tip over? :)

exponential growth of population

"what makes you think it'll tip over? :)"

is that some kind of trick question?

heres another:  what do you think is different about now from 7000 years ago?

anything occur to you?  any small alterations in the landscape that might have altered the balance of life on this planet?

anything at all?

The landscape of the planet had been altered much more than it is now with the start of the Industrial Revolution. For example much of the industrial north of England was known as "black country", as there was so much soot in the air it was perpetually dark. (Also see: Los Angeles.)

We fucked the planet in the 1800s and things have been getting better since.

what rubbish.  we fucked incredibly small parts of the country in 1800, and have been fucking up progressively larger parts ever since.

how much of the rain forest was chopped down in the 1800?

where 'country' is defined as meaning 'the entire world' of course.

Hey! I resent that! The Black Country, as Simon will probably confirm, if I remember rightly about the area that he lives in, is the Midlands, not the faffing North.

I thought anything above Cambridge was the North? :P

Bubba? Pass me m' gun, Bubba.

I'm with Geert-Jan Thomas --
I think a plague (like Stephen King's "Captain Tripps") is the most likely scenario.

The Black Death in Europe of 1348 killed off over a third of the population in about a 2 year timespan. 

And this is when the population wasn't mobile (peasants, tied to the land).  Imagine a pandemic's progress when it can hop a jetliner and be in Singapore or New York in less than 12 hours.

Then again, in 1948 we didn't have Domestos. ;)

Kills all known germs!

Also: that's a Tom Clancy book.

exponential population growth? bollucks.

The UN predicts a topping off of the pop around 2050 at 10 billion. It is likely to decrease after that. We passed the inflection point some time ago.

>> Kills all known germs! <<

It's the unknown ones that will get us.

Yay 12 Monkeys!