laslty i think its a stretch to think that we will be around for 100 million years - at least in this sort of form -esp since as a species humans have changed drastically over just the last 50,000 - as it stands we will have a hard time in just the next century due to our population and the lack of fresh water which will impact everything greatly in just the next few decades
saying that we are survivable from some natural disaster is crazy - a good solar flare can put the whole planet back to the 18century - a meteor with an approach from behind the sun could give us weeks not years to prepare for doom -
at lets not even dwell on the ridiculous storms we about to have for this winter or the draught we have been suffering for the last 4 years
nature can kick our ass
I think the piece states that we can be around for half a billion years, which I also agree is overly optimistic but a 100 million years doesn't seem impossible given what we've accomplished so far. The odds are not in our favor but alas to be human is to beat odds, and we've been doing it for several millennia.
I'd like for you to expand on your solar-flare sending us back to the 18th century assertion though. I thought that was an interesting claim that bears attention.
Where meteors are concerned, sure the piece showed us that the "dino killer" was estimated to only be around 5-15 km (or 3-10 miles) in diameter, and what killed the Dinosaur was mostly the debris affecting the food chain. But I think it's a stretch to presume that we'd be killed off just like the dinosaurs if we should ever suffer an asteroid of the same size.
After all, we're most likely smarter than Dinosaurs had ever hoped to be and thus more adaptable. And being smaller and less instinctive about what foods we need to survive gives us yet another major advantage over the big homies that went extinct. We also mustn't forget that Dinosaurs didn't have the knowledge to build environments where temperatures could be regulated. And indeed our body temperature possibly allows us to fare climate instability better than Dinosaurs in the first place I believe. We also don't need the same amount of nutrition as dinosaurs in order to survive, and we reproduce at quite a fast pace.
And even with all our advantages over dinosaurs, some of them have still managed to survive until today...I'm just saying dinosaurs couldn't adapt at all (except for a rare few and bio-adaptation), since eating and roaming was all they did, but we can. Sure nature can kick our ass in many ways, but we can adapt to it just as well as some of the most adaptable creatures.
I'm wary about Apophis for sure, which may hit in 2036 but I don't think it's gonna do us great damage necessarily.
