>>13548076There is an old Indian story which tells of how one can succumb to nothing at all. Back then and even now, poisonous snakes are a great fear and the people take many precautions to not step or cross their path. For one bite and it's over as there is no antidote nor doctor that could help you. Guaranteed death and the fear of this death is ingrained in everyday practices such as looking out for suspicious vines, coils, checking shoes and all the prudent actions one would expect to avoid such a fate.
One night, an old man goes out to the outhouse (or probably some open field) to go to the bathroom. His vision is going, but still he makes sure to check and has the fear of snakes still ingrained in him from birth. Once he's finished, he mistakes a coil of rope that he had overlooked for a snake. It strikes such fear into him that he has a heart attack and dies.
A snake did not kill the old man, nor did anything actually physical kill him. It was his own fear that got the better of him and he essentially killed himself.
That is the only way I see that humanity destroys itself. Their own fear that was taught to them from birth will get the better of them. They will either burn themselves out in an over prudent manner, wasting resources on a shadow like the villages practices of checking vines and coils. Or they will arbitrarily cause themselves to suicide from the mere projection of fear, a paper tiger that causes them to abandon it all.
