1 in 7 People Think the End of the World is Nigh

[billy]

Believe is an awfully stretchy word, and facts don't give a damn about opinion polls.

Billy,

You're ignoring the fact that most people want to live. The chances of someone getting control of enough nukes to wipe humankind off the planet and actually being allowed to use them in such a way to commit planetary suicide are fairly remote. Even someone like Hitler only wanted to conquer the world, not destroy it. That a suicidal megalomaniac and ability to wipe out the human race will coincide is pretty remote. For the world to end, and we really mean humans end, there would probably need to be a mass extinction event such as a large rock hitting the earth (remote), or a worldwide plague that has 100% kill rate (also remote), or some unknown biological process that enters into run away mode and wipes out all the breathable air (possible, but would take much more time than a year). Most likely is a large gamma ray burst close by. It's possible, but I doubt the Mayans could have predicted it. However, I am willing to take bets on the occurrence. What kind of odds are you giving. I'll put a million on it not happening, and give a hundred to 1 odds.

Dale

i id cheat a bit and said "life as we know it"
as for the bet, it would be rather dumb to bet on it happening, so i'll pass
what i'm implying is this, two states go to war, their actions specially if nukes are involved could affect other states. who in turn retaliate.

if lest say, isreal decide to blitz iran because it feel under imminent threat of being over run through bomb or personal, (which is not implausible) they would think twice at total destruction of iran. sides get taken things get out of hand. when the usa nuked japan, it was the onlt country with nukes hence no retaliation. if the germans had the capability it would have definitely nuked the uk, and japan the usa. all it takes is a trigger. while i'm not saying it will happen, i'm saying it could. beside that we have other wmd that abound over the planet. it isn' that far fetch that some man made pathogen escapes and destroys mankind "as we know it" most of what we have runs because of communication systems, knock those out and industry becomes sluggish, trade slows down enough to cause major crisis, people decide enough is enough lines, a few e.m. pulses could virtually wipe out telecommunication we rely to much on modern technology. it would be like going into the dark ages. some of the experiments at the quantum level could create all kinds of wierd shit, black holes. to much anti matter, dark matter etc.