Kill all humans

So, there are fictitious characters who try to eradicate humanity for whatever reason.

How would a realistic character, in the world as we know it, go about doing so?

I don't think nukes will suffice, and no individual could make such weapons by themselves anyway.

What about spreading a disease? That doesn't seem to cut it either since many dangerous diseases have already hit humanity and were unsuccessful.

I'll think of one later

Definitely a lab-created disease.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

It's really hard to do anything alone, especially wiping out humanity.

I don't think there's any realistic way that an individual person could achieve that. It's hard enough for entire terrorist organizations to put a significant dent in the population.

Terrorist are not interested in eradicating humanity.

What kind of disease? If it kills anyone infected it won't spread, and people will find a vaccine sooner or later, no?

To do something like this you'll need secrecy. The more people in on it the less secret it gets.

edited 27th Jun '11 2:08:03 PM by Kolikeos

I'll think of one later

A terrorist group could be, potentially, interested in wiping out humanity.

If you can build a Cobalt bomb, then you may be able to do it.

Try to provoke a nuclear war. Maybe steal a nuke and shoot it off, framing one country for attacking another (during the Cold War it'd be US and Russia, but now there are many more options). If they could drag us into a nuclear World War Three, we'd stand a high chance of wiping ourselves out.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

Hmmm... I wonder if Al-Queda frequents the site.

"Hey, Abdul! Those wacky Westerners put up a new funny picture!"

"Oh, that good! When we get around to it, maybe we no kill these Tropers."

"Hey, look, Abdul! They post idea for colbat bomb!"

"Totally cool. We thank them by giving them oppintunity to do whatever."

engineer airborne aids.

unleash samples of smallpox and anthrax to all regions of the world.

kolikeos; no, good diseases are highly contagious and have a dormant period before they start showing symptoms and kill.

edited 27th Jun '11 2:11:50 PM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Individually go from house to house and stab everybody.

I have friends in the knife business.

It will be done.

There's no way for an individual to wipe out humanity. Even a nuclear war back in the 1980s wouldn't have killed everybody.

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It would make life difficult for the survivors.

Even if a nuclear war did start, not every place where humans live will get its share of bombs, so not everyone will die.

Is that even possible with today's science? Ain't there vaccines against those? If not, doesn't the distributor risk dieing of those diseases long before successfully distributing them all over the world? And where would one get samples anyway?

I'll think of one later

A pandemic will still leave tons of people alive. Heck, even if you go the fake vaccine route like in Rainbow Six, it won't get everyone.

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Yes, I know that. My point is that terrorists are interested in killing people. Granted, it's a means to an end, but it is something that they try to achieve. And the number of people they're interested in killing is extremely low compared to the number of humans that exist. And yet they don't have a perfect success rate. Because killing large amounts of people without much manpower or resources is hard.

Maybe some lab-egineered highly contagious disease that has decades of latency.

Better yet, multiple diseases.

Yes. So what you need to do is not actually tell anybody that you're trying to wipe out humanity. Instead, get various parties in on plans that are designed to help achieve their agendas in theory, but which in practice are liable to have side-effects which, combined with the side effects of the other parties you're helping, will decrease humanity's chances. Work with the warmongers to cause wars. Work with the corporations to get standards wrt product safety and pollution loosened. Support the causes of the most ambitious terrorists. Provide funding and weapons to all the fringe crazies out there with a deranged vision for the world and a poorly thought out plan to impose it on the world.

edited 27th Jun '11 2:44:32 PM by Tongpu

I'm saying bioengineering multiple contagious diseases, followed by global thermonuclear war just to be sure that everyone is dead.

Of course, to kill all humanity you would have to kill yourself, which means that it would be fairly difficult to verify whether you succeeded in your goal. Mankind is very hard to get rid of.

Assuming it's possible to engineer such a disease, you won't be able to test it. The most likely candidates for testing would be cute fluffy lab animals that don't live for decades.

Bioengineering diseases looks like the favored extinction method so far I see. We'll need a lab with some sophisticated equipment, which means someone will have to supply the equipment and build the lab, and so the existence of the lab won't be a secret. Can the purpose of the lab be kept a secret? Won't the government of whichever country it's in want to regulate whatever's going on there?

Manipulating the world towards a war seems too unpredictable to me. You'll be arrested for supplying weapons to terrorists, the big governments are not likely to go to war anyway, and like we said above, even if a war starts it's too unpredictable to wipe out everyone.

True. Whichever method is used, you'll either die from your own extinction method, or you'll die before the extinction happens (in the case of a disease that takes its time to wipe out humanity)

I'll think of one later

The problem is, eliminating the vast majority of humanity should be relatively easy for someone with enough power and resources. But no matter what method you choose and how much destructive power you possess, it is nearly impossible to wipe those last pesky survivors, the ones who isolate themselves in mountain camps or nuclear submarines or some secluded island, UNLESS you manage to fuck the world up so badly that repopulation is impossible. Then you just have to wait for the survivors to stop living.

This is why a disease may be preferable. If it infects animals as well, the survivors are likely to catch it from them at some point. And the survivors may have already been infected by the time they isolate themselves. Of course, that requires that the disease could spread all over the world in the first place, say if it's airborne and waterborne and can infect most animals.

I'll think of one later

Thread Hop: I still think an airborne sterility virus is the way to go. Particularly if you release it in a third world country where it's likely to go undetected for a very long time.

Fight smart, not fair.

The problem with diseases is that a tiny fraction of the population will always have random immunity.

Also, diseases tend to mutate themselves into reduced lethality over time.

edited 28th Jun '11 6:50:05 AM by storyyeller

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