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00:00 For 300,000 years, the human species has had a reasonably good run, but do you ever feel
00:07 like our days could now be numbered?
00:11 Like we've ridden our luck to get to this point and that, at some point in the future,
00:16 that luck is sure to run out.
00:20 There have been doomsday predictions peddled for pretty much all of recorded history, but
00:26 some demand more attention and concern than others.
00:32 This is Unveiled, and today we're taking a closer look at the future events that really
00:38 could kill us all.
00:41 Do you need the big questions answered?
00:44 Are you constantly curious?
00:46 Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one, and ring the bell for
00:51 more thought-provoking content.
00:54 For today's video, we're going to look at broad topics; technology, nature, and war,
01:00 but through the lens of particular examples.
01:04 These are predictions, models, and theories as to what might be awaiting us just over
01:10 the horizon.
01:11 So, let's get into it.
01:14 First off, technology, which we've been riding on the coattails of for decades now.
01:19 Of course, the advent of new technology is not a new thing in itself.
01:25 Whole civilizations have risen and fallen based on their tech and innovation.
01:30 However, by almost all measures, the 21st century has witnessed a boom.
01:36 From computing, to AI, to quantum processing.
01:40 From mobile, to smart, to augmented technology.
01:44 So much so that, by now, the looming concept of "the singularity" is quite well-known.
01:51 But actually, the sentient robot apocalypse isn't all we need to worry about, according
01:57 to some.
01:58 So-called "cybergeddon" could take various forms in the future.
02:03 For example, some envisage an eventual total lack of privacy as a result of our current
02:09 digital reliance, resulting in everyone knowing everything about one another.
02:14 Right down to passwords, account numbers, how you vote, the websites you visit, the
02:19 things you buy, etc.
02:21 On one level, this would be intrusive and maybe embarrassing.
02:26 On another, it could lead to blackmail, to the breakdown of law and order, to the manipulation
02:33 of medical records, to the grounding of airplanes, to the crashing of airplanes.
02:39 From some perspectives, it might be that we don't even get to the more traditional AI
02:45 singularity, where the machines just do away with us.
02:49 Instead, nefarious actors will have targeted, say, the banks long before then, and wrought
02:55 economic collapse, leading to starvation, riots, disaster, and death.
03:02 Or hacktivists will break into smart cities, locking up the roads, putting a stopper in
03:07 the energy supply, leading again to riots, disaster, and potentially death.
03:13 The fear is that today's convenience in these matters, the connectivity that we all
03:18 now enjoy, could one day come at a cost, and a grave one.
03:25 Globalization and the digital age has linked us all together, and usually for the better.
03:31 But is the web of modern humankind also more susceptible to being wiped out in one?
03:37 Let us know your take in the comments.
03:39 We've seen similar concerns entrench themselves into how we face up to the natural world as
03:46 well.
03:47 There are certain scenarios that we're all vulnerable to.
03:50 The big ones include an asteroid strike and the eruption of a supervolcano.
03:56 Astronomers, including a dedicated team at NASA, keep a watchful eye on the space rocks
04:02 in our solar system, and some are more concerning than others.
04:08 For example, a currently far-off asteroid named 101-955 Bennu has, according to NASA,
04:16 a 1 in 1,800 chance of impact between the years of 2178 and 2290.
04:25 With 2182, billed as the most likely of all.
04:29 Although, at less than a mile wide, Bennu shouldn't really kill us all, only some
04:36 of us.
04:37 In fact, at present, there's no known and incoming asteroid that would wipe the whole
04:43 of humanity.
04:44 Although, there have also been plenty of occasions even in the recent past when an undetected
04:50 asteroid has flown by Earth without prior warning, so there's always a chance of a
04:57 surprise event.
04:59 With regards to supervolcanoes, the odds are also fairly low.
05:04 While the numbers can be crunched to show that the most famous of all, Yellowstone,
05:09 is overdue for an eruption, it's also true that volcanoes are rarely so predictable.
05:16 Fueled by the vast and enigmatic convection processes within our planet's burning mantle,
05:22 no one can say with certainty exactly when any one mountain will blow.
05:28 And regardless, by some measures, Yellowstone still has another 100,000 years to go before
05:34 it could truly be considered "late" anyway.
05:39 Nevertheless, if it were to explode to its absolute highest potential, then it really
05:45 could kill us all.
05:47 There's a video dedicated to this on our channel, so be sure to check that out next.
05:52 In terms of a massive disaster that the world could throw at us tomorrow, perhaps that's
05:57 the most reportedly imminent Cascadia earthquake.
06:02 While for decades, it's been all eyes on the more southerly San Andreas fault line,
06:08 with the big one touted with almost every passing year, experts agree that actually,
06:14 the greatest risk of damage lies further north, in and around the westernmost part of the
06:20 US-Canadian border.
06:23 This is the Cascadia subduction zone, where the oceanic Juan de Fuca plate is sliding
06:29 beneath the continental North American plate.
06:32 There is massive pressure building up here, with the highest predictions warning of magnitude
06:38 9.0 earthquakes and tsunamis that could be more than 100 feet high.
06:44 While perhaps not quite such a global event as an asteroid or supervolcano, a Cascadia
06:51 quake would be catastrophic for the US western seaboard, and with lethal rippling effects,
06:58 sent out across the Pacific Ocean.
07:00 But lastly, we have war to worry about.
07:04 In general, war seems an unfortunate inevitability in human society.
07:09 Statistics vary, but in all versions of the data we see, that in the last 3,000 years
07:15 or so, only around a couple hundred have been technically war-free.
07:21 True peace on Earth just isn't something we see very often.
07:25 What's concerning, then, is that if that fact continues, then, well, we're in big
07:32 trouble.
07:33 The prospect of nuclear war has, of course, hovered over us since the end of the last
07:38 World War, World War II.
07:40 But actually, even plain nuclear is a thing of the past today.
07:46 While almost all future predictions do concede that the global nuclear arsenal is still the
07:53 primary powder keg should we want to destroy ourselves, with around 10,000 active nukes
07:59 on the planet right now, it's no longer quite so simple as just hitting the big red
08:05 button to launch an attack.
08:07 Instead, many versions of World War III foretell of a hybrid war, guided in particular by insidious
08:15 cyber tactics.
08:17 These again are essentially computer hacks, but on a terrifying scale, with fears that
08:23 the controls to any one nation's nuclear motherlode could now quite easily be overridden
08:29 and redistributed by an aggressor.
08:32 Certain countries have spent decades building these weapons and stashing them away, but
08:38 control of them might now be lost in moments.
08:42 Really, this is the ultimate nightmare of a hybrid war.
08:47 But there are other ways in which it could play out.
08:50 According to NATO, hybrid warfare entails an interplay or fusion of conventional as
08:56 well as unconventional instruments of war and tools of subversion.
09:01 The concept has been criticized due to its seeming vagueness, but one interpretation
09:06 of it is that states can and will fight and dismantle other states as though from afar.
09:14 There might not be physical battles, and there might not even be a clear declaration of war
09:20 - but it will still be possible to bring a nation down by other means.
09:26 By say, the directed spread of disinformation, by the manipulation of another's elections,
09:32 or again, by anonymously hacking and destroying key bits of infrastructure.
09:38 At its heart, a hybrid war is all about creating a breakdown of trust between any one state
09:45 and its people, turning humankind against one another, inciting chaos.
09:51 According to NATO, this translates into the perilous erosion of the core values of coexistence,
09:58 harmony, and pluralism in and amongst democratic societies, as well as the decision-making
10:04 capability of the political leaders.
10:07 When that happens, it could be said that a war has been fought and won without the risk
10:13 or spectacle of a traditional physical conflict.
10:17 And, in the minds of some, the international landscape could be embroiled in a hybrid war
10:24 or the beginnings of one as we speak, with NATO concluding that "public trust in the
10:31 US has declined from 73% in the 1950s to 24% in 2021."
10:38 Similarly, in Western Europe, trust levels have been steadily declining since the 1970s.
10:44 So, what's your verdict?
10:47 Which of these areas of concern is most likely to catch up with us first?
10:51 Some kind of tech glitch with wide-reaching implications?
10:55 A monster natural disaster, the like of which could potentially kill off all or most of
11:01 humankind?
11:03 Or the quiet outbreak of a hybrid war, which even the world's best military strategists
11:09 are still trying to truly get their heads around?
11:12 Or actually, is there something else that you think we should all be paying even more
11:19 attention to?
11:20 For now, those are the events that could kill us all.
11:36 you