[ggreer]

To summarize: At this point, humanity is its own greatest extinction risk. If we don't destroy ourselves in the next century, we will almost certainly inherit the stars.

For a much deeper treatment of this subject, I recommend Global Catastrophic Risks, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan Ćirković. The overarching point is straightforward (see the paragraph above), but the details of each threat are interesting on their own.

1. http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostrom...

[ProAm]

Humans will most definitely be the cause of human extinction on planet Earth. I would put my money on Homo sapiens not making it another million years on the surface of the planet.

[visakanv]

Homo sapiens reached anatomical modernity about 200,000 years ago and began to exhibit behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.

I suspect that our descendants 1,000,000 years from now wouldn't consider themselves Homo sapiens- primitive, brutish creatures. (Consider how we feel about our ancestors from as recently as 50,000 years ago.)

[infectoid]

> Consider how we feel about our ancestors from as recently as 50,000 years ago.

Or a few thousand years ago for that matter.

I think the social landscape with look and feel a lot different in the next 100 years.

[ekianjo]

> Or a few thousand years ago for that matter.

Actually we can relate very well with the concerns of people from a few thousands years ago. Writings from ancient Rome, from ancient Greece are still very contemporary in many, many ways.

[kamaal]

A million years is too far. Even if it doesn't happen by then, we are going to run out of energy, get killed by super bugs or hit by a asteroid.

The threat of human driven human extinction is more on the lines of a mutually assured destruction, weaponized nanotechnology or genetic engineering, irreversible climate conditions, over population of the planet etc.