Ways in which Earth may win the Galactic Darwin Award. Background of Earth's version: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards)
- LHC decides to experiment with mini black-holes, which turns out don't stay mini.
- Elect Sarah Palin, and give her and her family inadvertent access to The Red Button.
- Differently-Staffed Repeat of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
- (Thank You, Mr. Petrov! A true hero.)
- There have been other similar close calls. I don't know if we are lucky or a product of the AnthropicPrinciple.
- SETI or NASA probes notify galactic terrorists of our existence by sending a friendly "Hello". The terrorists may be offended by nude images on Pioneer 10 or 11's "Hello" plate, or believe the Voyager song samples are "works of the devil".
- Some dumbass Sheldon-wannabe discovers in their garage that they can create a new universe out of a vacuum...with the side-effect of destroying anything within a few light-years.
- Inadvertently allowing AI to take control by using its own efficiency in R&D to outsmart us: TheSingularity
Non-Qualifying Honorable Mentions:
- LHC discovers that we live in a "false vacuum" by triggering the true vacuum - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum
- Disqualified because if true, there would be no galactic authority left to hand out the prize
See also: LessonsFromFailure
CategoryWhimsy, CategoryFuture