Human Survival Problems

Human survival problems are the most complex problems imaginable to humans. They are characterized in terms of two types of threats to survival: natural and artificial.

The Natural Threats

Let us start with the natural threats. The most obvious natural threat comes from the sun which is heating up over time and will eventually burn out, making life on earth uninhabitable along the way. We can be reasonably certain about this because the sun is a star similar to numerous other stars in the universe, and behaves similar to these other stars which heat up and burn out over time. By observing other stars at different points in their life cycle, we can predict the life cycle of the sun with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

See the following chart showing the life cycle of the sun, from its formation as a baby star to its death as white dwarf, approximately 13 billion years later. We can see that, unfortunately, life on earth has a limited time. We can also be reasonably certain that humans are going to need to colonize space, which is an extremely complex problem.

Other natural threats include space objects such as meteors and asteroids, which can harm the earth and its atmosphere upon impact. And there is also the threat of a pandemic of infectious disease that can quickly spread around the world. The Coronavirus pandemic of 2019-2020 illustrates the devastating impact of a pandemic. A more severe virus could cause human extinction, thereby making pandemics an urgent survival problem.

The Artificial Threats

Now for the artificial threats. The most obvious artificial threat is the social problem of human conflict around the world, which manifests itself in terms of war and violence. These conflicts could escalate and lead to self-destruction of the human species. Most scientists agree that the threat of nuclear war is the single greatest threat to humans.

Implications of Human Extinction

Human extinction would be the most catastrophic event imaginable to humans. There are four primary implications:

1. an inconceivably large number of human lives would be lost by not being born
2. the significance of the lives of all the billions of people alive today would be lost
3. the significance of the lives of all the billions of our ancestors would be lost
4. everything in history associated with being human, including all culture, all art, and all science would be lost.

If one is not convinced of the importance of human survival from a strictly rational point of view, then one should be convinced from a strictly emotional point of view. Everyone should be convinced from both rational and emotional points of view. Despite all the problems we hear about in the news each day, there are no other problems more serious than human survival problems.