Added: 4 years ago
From: TEDtalksDirector
Views: 72,467
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:
see all

All Comments (245)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • apparently 'uuuhhhm' is the new word that must enter this guys sentances

  • This video went viral on Tarawa Atoll

  • by, the world ending i am guessing he means human life stop existing?

    i could listen to this for hours :)

  • But every time we imagine aliens we give them human nature, maybe a species that is more intelligent than ours will be more peaceful, and maybe they wont have the need of invading for resources if they were a more intelligent species? maybe they would have solved that problem before figuring out how to travel between solar systems, or before it would be neccesary to go to war. sorry for my grammar, swedish

  • question: if you had mental health insurance, would the number of depressed people decrease?

  • He forgot the biggest and most likely event, a nuclear war.

  • Successful troll

  • The best part, this makes me almost cry. He said just after 5:35 "we don't really have mental health insurance". I'm sorry if this is off topic, but, it means a lot to me. I am transgender, (one who wants to change sex) and to get sex reassignment surgery I have to pay in full, most likely, because it's not a physical medical problem. My body functions physically well, and the insurance companies don't stop to think of the tiring nightmare I live in mentally. I'm glad someone else noticed that.

  • 420 likes :D

  • @2meorme yes we all know how many likes there are wer can read

  • Petranek sounds like The Hooded claw, from Penelope Pitstop.

  • "we" can't log in the amazon.

    sure buddy, we aren't. the brazilians are.

  • But, did you know that, on average, people get happier when they get older? Number 10 seems very invalid to me. The only reason we have more psychological disease is because we can survive our physiological problems.

  • number 11: Everyone is watching this video.

  • hmm no mentioning of wars? or have I already forgotten that?

  • @rugbyanden Wars will not wipe out civilization. i hope lol.

  • Screw these solutions! These arent logical.

    Ma homeboi jeebus is going to save my ass and cure my sins for all the porn that I watched!

    Morons...

  • In reference to #10, Losing the Will to Live, there is a great deal of cause for concern about the effects that all the mercury we're dumping into our environment is having on us, especially the neurological damage it may be causing (autism, lower I.Q.'s, etc.). One known effect of mercury exposure is depression. Just saying, because Mr. Petranek mentioned the treatments for the depression, but didn't hazard a guess as to the cause.

  • reason No.1 why the world will not end

    Astoid or planet x or nibiru: hmm what planet should i talk

    Pluto: TAKE ME

    Meccury: NO ME

    The World: NO ME

    Astoid or planet x or nibiru: FUCK YOU WORLD, Youre not worth it go kill you,re self

    Humans on the world: What the fuck!

  • How come he didn't mention the chaos dunk or whales on stilts.

  • To anyone interested in this topic: I encourage you to read my original October, 2000 feature from DISCOVER magazine, which this lecture is adapted from.

    And watch for my update--30 Ways the World Could End--coming in the October, 2010 issue of DISCOVER magazine.

  • 6 Hours!? What if we're 6 hours from being directly in the trajectory of another one? I mean, it could be 6 min, or even *BOOOOOOOOOOOOM*-*DEAD*

  • Thumbs up if you think Chuck Norris should be on this list

  • That epidemic he was talking about... How do you spell it?

  • i dint see a nuclear holocaust. i though that might be the most dangerous kind of accident that could happen i know that this is a lil bit old but their are still thousands of bombs that could poison the planet with radiation. nuclear holocaust should have been the #1 disaster.

  • He forgot the mutated cockroaches who ride frogs

    I saw it on television and television NEVER LIES!!!

  • @CallOfDominick FAIRLY ODD PARENTS FOR THE FUCKING WIN =D

  • @feoka hahaha yeah!!!

  • @CallOfDominick do youtube videos lie

  • If De Gray could get his immortality thing going, more people would concern themselves with this stuff. We just assume we'll end up dead, fairly soon, so what's the point of worrying about the big things that may happen in the far off future?

  • But what about gamma-ray bursts?

  • We need to improve our education and spend less on military...and we also need to be less wasteful..i work at a grocery store...and i throw away at LEAST 20 pounds of food away...A DAY!

  • I think its highly possible that there's are either primitive race or a highly evolved aliens as well as microscopic creatures somewhere in the Milky-Way galaxy. If earth humans is destroyed by natural disasters or an object from space we are bound to believe that the universe is teaming with alien life.

    People always find this as a joke and yet we are the aliens living in a planet so isolated from the rest of the universe.

    Why is it funny when a person states that alien life exist?

  • @AlvaroAndfriends "Why is it funny when a person states that alien life exist?"

    To me this is the equivalent of an amoeba assuring itself it is the only organism on the entire planet.

  • @nightmathzombieethan Exactly. With water being one of the most common molecules in the universe, and so much energy and matter out there for billions of years, it should be reasonable to assume that complexity to the point of being "life" has built up somewhere else in the universe, and probably in our galaxy. Very simple life may have even existed in our solar system.

  • grey goo

  • I find the idea of aliens coming to earth ridiculous.

    What I can imagine is that maybe, just maybe, through *immense* progress in technology, human beings would start colonizing other plantets when the earth is gone, other solar systems when the sun is gone, and through a massive coincidence meet other life forms that didn't originate from earth and also happen to be intelligent.

  • @DontTouchMyVicodin:

    Its possible that there might be a highly evolved alien race out there that probably dont know that we exist. If we were to make a space transmitter to tell them that are we here earth might be in danger because they might consider us as a threat or that race of Aliens might be a hostile race that attack for no real reason.

    That's why the world government are afraid to endanger this planet if they even consider making a transmitter to alert other race that we are here.

  • @AlvaroAndfriends hello! they already sent one of those out. its a space probe and it hasnt even left the solar system yet adn its been YEARS. it's greetings in every language known to man

  • A nuclear war would devastate many nations, but I doubt it would cause the extinction of humanity, never mind end the world. Some countries aren't even that near any possible target.

  • Nuclear winter.

  • I'm not an expert but I don't believe a nuclear winter would be prolonged and severe enough in every corner of the globe to wipe us all out. Even if it did, a lot of life would be able to adapt.

  • the end is near

  • not to be a communest but our government has fucked up alot of the world man especaly the two bushes they were serious assholes

  • @MrBleedingbullets Just a few quick questions for you to prove if you actually know anything at all about politics.

    1. Name one policy either of the bushes supported.

    2. Where did you get this information.

  • If its possible to protect a viable small group of people from these calamities using the wealth of the world, then its already being done. The rich elite always survive and have drawn resources for their secret use since millenia. They will have some sort of artificially sustainable environment, probably deep underground or floating in space, that runs on nuclear power. Course the exploited joe will be paying for it, but they gonna die anyway so don't matter lol ;P

  • woah i just searched "ways the world could end" and i got 666,000 responses!!!! OMFG!!!! WE"RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!

    *runs out of room, screaming hystarically*

    jk lol

  • Number 3. Swine flu.

  • flu is actually does very little damage to individuals, but mass chaos on society. the highest "kill rate" of flu was the 1918 spanish flu (which was h1n1, like the swine flu now) killed 2.5% of the population, normal flu kills 0.4%. I'm not saying we should ignore it, i'm saying we shouldn't panic over it

  • "The government is not the solution to our problems, the government is the problem"

    No government can't protect us from any of this and trying will just leave us worse prepared to real dangers...

  • Exactly. Shame almost no one realizes that

  • The population of Earth in 1918 was 1.5 billion. Not 100 million.

  • He said the population of the united states was 100 million but it killed 20 million worldwide.

  • We don't want to get flat-footed again 11/9?

    How many more signs did you want for 11/9???

  • This guy is a fool. Wikipedia: "Extrasolar planets became a subject of scientific investigation in the mid-19th century. Many astronomers supposed that such planets existed, but they had no way of knowing how common they were." Carl Sagan was NOT laughed at for suggesting there were billions he was a very highly respected astronomer. Aliens wanting to suck up our oceans for the hydrogen? Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe! I could go on, but whats the point? What a joke!

  • Carl Sagan was laughed at for many years for being a supporter of SETI years before extra-solar planets were discovered.

    The hydrogen comment was a joke.

  • As for Sagan, you're missing the obvious point. Sagan was NOT laughed at for suggesting there were ES planets. Every REAL astronomer has recognized the possibility since the discovery that stars are suns. And no, the hydrogen comment was not intended to be a joke (unfortunately). This Petranek guy is a joke. I'm an astronomy educator, but you don't need to believe me, just do a little research. Obviously this guy didn't.

  • were all gonna die!!!

  • Fairly obvious don't you think?! :P

  • No nukes? Fail.

  • ugh. i hate when non-scientists try to talk science. you don't know what you're talking about.

  • "ten years ago, you wouldn't have found any astronomers who believed there were any other planets."

    Uh, well, you must not have asked any real astronomers then. You certainly didn't ask me.

  • well 15-20 years ago by now eh? They only discovered a planet about 5 years ago. -shrug- I dunno but given the size of the universe I would have guessed there would be a planet somewhere.

  • Leftist Crap.Only 2 of the 10 ways are legitimate and tractable concerns.

  • 10 Depression?Get rid of the war on drugs.All our depression cures have always existed.

    9.Alien Invasion?Traveling millions of light years to harvest hydrogen (the most abundant element) or just to kill us does not seem like a superior intelligence.

    8.Ecosystem collapse.Possible concern.

    7.Particle accelerator ending the world? So highly improbable,there are better odds of tossing ten 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles and expecting them to be solved

    6.Biotech disaster.Possible concern.

  • 5.Magnetic pole reversal.Well,we can't do anything about that,and the ozone layer is recovering.

    4.Superflares.Escape to Mars?What an idiot!Like Mars is out of reach of superflares.

    3.Global epidemic.His answer is to stop antibiotics to animals.This stupidity is self evident.

    2.

  • 2.Rogue Black Hole.Life will die out before this is even a remote possibility.

    1.Asteroid crash.A concern,yes.But don't rely on government funding to get it right.

  • I dont mean to be a smart ass but, A giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth...and maybe the universe.

  • That last message was in response to TiaSaysSo

  • With nano or even femto-second decays of said Black holes,that fear is highly unwarranted.

  • those black holes you speak of are expected, but they are also expected to be very small and disappear within ten seconds.

    so there is no real threat

  • Ummm, How do you know that the particle accelerator won't cause a problem such as the world ending? I'm gonna go look more in to it.

  • About at 10:00 you the guy speaking is just awesome. You say we as humans to survive need to do this and that to get our azz out to space to expand, more or less as humans have done throughout our known history on Earth already. And therefore to keep Ourselves alive, thriving we must keep expanding, but out through space. I like that. I believe that. No need to wait, let's go. *uck what the Earth's population is, does or not, Let's go.

  • Hopelessness....... I think is a tool.... It's like being called a dummy...or sorts..... "you can't, you'll fail, ect."... A tool of real azz holes that are truly self defeating others along with themselves...

  • Well, it all looks pretty damn hopeless to me.

  • I have been told that the world will end as a result of a solar flare

  • wow.. this guy is a clown

  • because it doesnt fit into your world view?

    caveman.

  • Uh. I'm pretty sure that nuclear holocaust should be somewhere on this guys list. Like maybe near the number one spot? Just a thought...

  • I dont know.... we did, after all, get past the Cold war without a nuclear war. I think the MAD concept is quite solid

  • well what about countries getting pist off at other countries and start nucking? ooooor a enternal melt down inside of the earth

  • Well, I must agree with you at that, but it won't be long before we won't have that much food anymore, if they are going to use bioethanol world-wide, and people keep getting fatter and fatter, they will need more food.

  • how did he get a 29 min video

  • set your profile to "guru" and your videos last as long as you like (to some extent).

    beware, if its not teaching something, youtube may remove it.

  • actually pretty true. its predicted that the population of earth in 2050 will be over 9 billion. if we think earth is cramped now, just wait until then. should be interesting to leave the next generation or 2 to deal with these problems

  • Well, maybe ur right about the space on the map, but overpopulation means that we will eventually run out of food, water, and other supplies too. It's not just a matter of space. Also, if the ice-caps melt, there will be much less space too. So yes, we do actually have an over population-problem...

  • true, but provided the availability of everything at the moment stays the same, it could take a really long time. in developed countries such as the US and much of europe, we have a surplus of stuff. in the US alone, we have more than 5 times the food we need.

  • But a lot of that food is actually grown and produced elsewhere.

    Holland is a great example of this: it produces a lot of food, but uses seven time its land area outside the country to achieve this.

    We have outsourced a lot of our energy- and resource gathering. How long can we do this, if the general affluence and population booms more than this? Already we're using 1,2 times the resource capacity of earth.

  • woot. Already at 6.7 billion ;)

  • Can you like write it in the description? I really dont want to watch the whole thing (<<im lazy). lol

  • the world will end by a mass jack off spree where everyone will jizz blocking out the sun thus making atmosphere freeze some how and then sperm iscicles will come falling down at high speeds killing us all !!!! TO MEXICO MY GOOD PEOPLE!!

  • Yeah, it's true.

  • hey, did they found some black holes?

    the experiments are up since one week

  • if u believe in him just to save your ass, i don't think jesus is going to be too happy about u when he comes back. Do you believe out of fear? hopefully your god isn't so silly as to be fooled by a pity human as yourself. Oh and good try invoking pascals wager, you have just proved you lack of reasoning skill to this whole community, Good Job! wikipedia false dichotemy

  • all i can do is tell u. if u dont want to believe, im sorry. all i can do is pray. God is real, Heaven is real, unfortunatly so is hell. lets think of it from a scientific view. they say that the big band sparked the universe. if so , where did the matter that started the big bang come from?? look search for " 23 minutes ion hell " its a book, might be something about it on youtube.

  • better question.. why do you say it does exist? Because you read it in a book written 2000 years ago by people who had absolutely no understanding of the world? jesus is coming back? LOL ok buddy!!! you keep thinking those delusional thoughts. good luck with life.

  • why would u take that chance?

    what if he is real? and he is coming back?

    and those who don tbeleive in Him, will not inheareth the Kingdom of God ( in the BIble )

    i mean thats not a chance worth taking

  • pretty risky, considering you're choosing only one of thousands of mutually-exclusive beliefs on this planet. i guess you were pretty lucky that the correct one was the one your parents spoon-fed you, huh? go you!

  • haha true, but were a long ways away from that ever happening

  • your right, but maybe we can find a civilization that can help us, or maybe they'll find us....

  • We can terraform mars, ive spoken to a scientist before about this and its true, if humanity wants to survive, we need to start colonizing the galaxy asap

  • Jesus s coming back

  • You're weird.

  • cause my spelling sucks i know, im only 13 :P

  • quite a mouthful for a 13 year old, you have a great mind

  • um, thank you. and it makes me sick to hear them laughing like that! those people who laugh will most likely be the very first to go and they will deserve it. they need to open theire ears and eyes to their surroundings. they should be smart enough to realize the lies that lay right in front of their noses!

  • ...this, but that particle accelorator has been used before. just be careful, and dont trust the government. they tell us all about it in hidden messages. they're saying that its all our fault for breathing but the universe has climate changes. its normal and not our fault. other planets are heating up just like earth. im not saying that we're helping this mess, but its not all our fault. the government is all staged crap and i dont believe anything they say... oh nd btw dont go correcting me...

  • the us is nothing but lies!

    george bush is in the skull and bones secret society!!! have you seen the dollar bill tricks??? look it up. you're carrying uccult signs with u every day. this is all just the government playing with our minds and who knows why? the government planned the terrorist attacks. it all makes sense. im not going to explain all this and go into the numbers but dont trust the government. it's nothing but lies. and btw, they dont want you to know...

  • lol why has this comment got -3? LOL

  • mars has sufficient gravity to hold an atmosphere, however, it lacks a strong enough magnetic field to keep the atmosphere from being stripped away by solar wind.

  • Big wigs are too greedy and shortsighted to actual fix these problems. I believe in mankind's potential for the Good, but I know that our egos are eating us alive.

  • I am scared of aliens. What should I do? =(

  • Die Quietly and Swiftly.

  • it shows he hasn't done serious research on most of the subjects he's referring to, especially particle accelerators and the LHC.

  • my money's on the aliens

  • Steven Hawkings has stated (in another ted talk) that the possibility of alien life in an area that can impact us is negligible. There is no alien life (at least none civilized enough to produce radio waves) within several hundred light years. He further goes on to state that an alternative theory is that alien civilizations destroy themselves. So even if there were an alien civilization they'd have to travel hudreds of times the speed of light to reach us. That is unlikely, if not impossible.

  • He seems extremely ignorant of some very basic things. Like his comment about there not being "anything to push against" in space, and implying that this means we couldn't use nukes to alter the trajectory of comets or asteroids. That's the kind of thing people used to worry about BEFORE we sent rockets into space, and even then they were ridiculed by those who actually understood newtons laws. Today there's really no excuse for anyone to make such silly statements.

  • How come he missed the Rapture?

  • because the rapture doesnt exist

  • Bill Bryson was right when he said that Americans don't get irony.

  • Yeah and his next door nieghbours 'drove' to theirs for dinner, i luaghed so hard at that bit.

  • Human survival depends on colonizing space asap. EOS.

  • too much "fear mongering" for my taste.

  • This is exactly the right kind of "fear mongering". He isn't scaring you into voting for him, or approving a bill...

  • This is alarmist. Particle Collider Mishap? Really? Biotech Mishap? Really? The LHC, look it up, has some of the best particle physicists in the world working on it. They know the risks, and they're not worried. Biotech is hugely regulated. These, I think, should never be discussed without showing that ALL of them have EXTREMELY low probabilities measured in millionths of a percent. I bet you none of this happens, and tomorrow you can give me money when we're not all dead.

  • You're an idiot cruel. You're saying that it is absoulutely impossible for something to go wrong in a scientific experiment because a computer says, the chance of something going wrong has a low percantage? Don't be so naive... Ever hear the expression, "Nothing is perfect because we're human"?

  • I'm not saying that at all. I'm suggesting that people who actually know what the risks are aren't concerned; but people who have no idea what the risks are- other than that they exist- seem to be worried.

    I would like to point out that your "rebuttal" comes 4 days after I said it wouldn't happen.

  • In what way is biotech hugely regulated? GMO doesn't need to pass FDA tests, nor is it labeled in consumer products in the US. Unless you mean it's regulated by patent laws to make sure the profits stay with the big ag companies, then yeah, it's regulated...

  • Norman Borlaug.

  • That's fear mongering. Genetically Engineered crops are regulated by the FDA and the EPA, at LEAST. Each regulatory agency looks at different aspects of how the genetic modifications interact with people and the environment.

  • qwe

  • I'm putting my money on number 8.

  • 1. religion.

  • Mental health insurance? Are you kidding me? Subsidies for big pharma, the solution? WTF does ozone depletion have to do with a diminished magnetic field? The H-field protects us only from *charged* particles, while ozone mainly blocks *uncharged* high energy photons. Am I missing something here?

    Also: no mention of GRBs or of robots taking over?

  • Most of the things were ridiculous and the solutions were even dumber. Nationalize everything, that'll help it!

  • 28:00 cool!its like Armageddon

  • What about humans blowing eachother up...

    to be honest i think the biggest threat to human survival is a nuclear world war...

  • Nuclear war due to religion.

  • Nuclear war due to people even existing.

  • People do have a tendency to screw things up...

  • nuclear war due to religion. what the hell does religion have to do with war heads. im not religious but what you said make no sense. if anything most nuclear weapon are own by people who dont believe in god. stop attacking religion if you cant make a good statement

  • Most people of political influence in america are...? Christian, or religiously affiliated.

    Extremists in all religions go farther than those in other groups almost exclusively.

  • nuclear war for the last drop of oil...

  • So true XD

  • He did not mention on Gamma Ray Bursts

  • All of that stuff is sooo true!

  • Good video

    Most likely probably would be asteroid imo

  • Great talk.

  • that was a real interesting seminar.

  • very pursuasive, but these situations he sketches are much more complicated. but it's good of him to focus attention on the things that are easily forgotten, just because the problem is not in sight right now and here.

  • #8 Most of the "mass extinctions" are calculated, not observed. Observed rates of extinction are about 1 species a year, not 10k. Of course we should manage our resources wisely, but the people who say crazy things about mass extinctions are not in a position to make wise management decisions.

  • #9-See my first comments on this thread for my objection to plans to negotiate our way out of trouble with alien life. Additionally, I deny that one can reasonably talk of the chances of life in the Universe when one does not know how life originates. More planets does not necessarily mean more chance of life.

  • #10 - Curing the depression of someone who has no future does not solve his problem. Just because the homeless man living alone under a bridge is singing happy songs to himself does not mean that his life is good.

  • How do you plan to negotiate with beings of whom you know nothing? We don't know their values, motivations, fears, inhibitions, morals, drives, needs, desires, aversions, strengths or weaknesses. Knowing nothing about them, any negotiation or plan for it would be pathetic.

  • hey captain happy lets be friends.... ... ...

  • I think everyone in the world should see this movie.. -.-

  • Zombies.

    I guarantee it. :)

  • Hah! Max brooks wet dream. xD

  • this puts things in perspective

    5 stars!

  • i think his 10 is the one that gonna make the world collapse...the will to survive..

  • a micro black hole would collapse at the speed of light. But if an atom entered it then it would convert into pure energy and it wouldn't collapse. If a chain of particles are shot into one it could grow. I think it would take an exponential growth of particles being shot into it.

    A particle collision isn't going to cause this disaster. But it could be done.

    Be careful who you let play around with the accelerator's.

  • if u are refferring to the bible, read the mark of the beast. everyone will get a mark, that mark is the bar codes the government are thinking of placing on every human on earth. or armageddon

  • We are the aliens

  • Perhaps that all started when we began cooking our food. hehe

    We have been running ever since. If you counted the life forms in your body you are less then 1/2 human by count and if you were 100% human you would die soon after. Our genome is about the size of a worms.

    There is no need to run into the night from simple facts.