So it’s the year 2012 and the world doesn’t seem like ending any time soon (despite what people think the Mayans may have thought. I reckon they were just interrupted by the Spanish turning up and starting to rape and pillage everything in sight, Europeans are pricks, fact.) However, as shitty as it is, the world will end one day. Now I’ve consulted the internet and she reliably informs me that these are the most likely ways in which it will happen. Enjoy?
5. Singularity 
Singularity is the idea that us stupid humans will one day invent an artificial intelligence that far surpasses ours, such as the infamous Skynet of the Terminator films. Truth be told it isn’t anywhere near as ludicrous as it sounds. We already have computers that far exceed the mathematical capabilities of any human being on the planet. Two things are required for shit to get real though, first the AI needs to be self aware and then it also needs to be able to have the ability to improve and replicate itself. With these perfect conditions reached it is more than likely the robots will turn on their human creators seeing them as the biggest threat to their existence and most likely trying to exterminate them. It’s gunna be ages till that happens though isn’t it? Oh, wait… we’re fucked.
4. Nuclear War
I know you’re probably thinking ’They’ve been going on about nukes for like, almost 50 years now and still nothings happened, get over it!’ But it’s still very possible that a nuclear warhead could fuck up your day very soon. So why is this? Russia and America have been stripping back their insanely huge collection of city erasers for years now and research is coming closer to creating solid and competent anti-nuke defences. However it looks like there could be a few new players in the ‘Let’s stop ourselves annihilating the human race’ game soon and they’re likely to have slightly more itchy trigger fingers. North Korea and Iran to be more exact. Despite North Korea’s hilarious failed ‘satellite’ (test missile) launch recently they’re trying, hard. Add to this the fact that Iran is currently enriching shit loads of Uranium and shows no sign of stopping, no matter how nicely the US and UK ask, the future starts look a bit more burny and mushroom cloudy.
3. The Sun
Believe it or not, the sun doesn’t really like us. It fires radiation in our direction constantly, tries to cook us with it’s insane heat and tries to fry our electrical systems with solar flares. It just so happens it is one of the most important factors in making this little rock we call home habitable however. For how much longer though? Scientists at Washington University have worked out that, just like everything, a planet has a use by date and Earth is over halfway towards its own. They believe that there’s a billion year window of habitability for Earth before, due to it’s age and the power of the chemical reactions going on in its core, the Sun expands and swallows our planet whole. Or, because scientists are so sure about these things, the Sun may collapse in on itself and disappear forever, leaving the Earth to freeze over and drift listlessly through space for eternity. So in summary we want the sun to stay exactly where and exactly like it is if we don’t want to die a horrible protracted death.
2. Asteroids
You guys seen Armageddon and Deep Impact right? I’m not even gunna pretend otherwise to you, if a meteor that huge was heading to Earth it would result in one of those films endings. Which one it would be depends on a shit tonne of factors of course but truth be told we’re pretty defenceless against asteroid bombardment. There’s one coming as well, making it’s slow intimidating advance through the inky blackness of space, called 2011 AG5 and it’s said to arrive in 2040. It carries with it 625 – 1 odds that it will land on your new car, or hover pad or whatever the hell it is we’ll be driving in 30ish years time. Now I know that’s hardly a dead cert and it is a while away yet but when you’re watching a 70 foot tidal wave rushing towards you up the street you cannot say I didn’t warn you.
1. Humans 
‘Look at that cute little face, those chubby little baby cheeks, those happy eyes, that cheeky smile with that tiny bit of dribble going down his chin probably because he’s hungry or something, what a little cherub!’ is what you’re thinking right? Well you’re wrong, so very, very wrong. This child, or one like it, could be your undoing because lets be honest the biggest threat to us and our world is, well, us. It’s more by luck than judgement that we’ve made it this far really. We continue to push the limits of what we safely know, from inventing insanely dangerous weaponry (see number 4) to running the risk of creating a black hole in an underground tunnel just so we can find out what some particles look like. I am a strong believer in the fact we’ll push it too far and invent or destroy something far too important and that it will turn around and bite us in the arse. If that fails however we will continue to do what we do best as a race, consume and fuck. If we continue to consume and fuck at the rate we are consuming and fucking we will run out of stuff to consume and places to put what’s created when we fuck (that sweet little fella up there ↑.) With no more food and no more room we’ll all die. Simples.
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