science

The thing is, we assuredly have a lot of great filters between who we are now and Q-continuum or whatever enlightened existence we imagine as a goal.

We obviously have some tragedy of the commons problems, and fail to regard everyone in our civilizations of hundred of millions as fellow and equal human beings. Either we figure out how to overcome these sociological problems, or we die out. Depletion of resources, warfare-driven holocaust and contamination by pollution are some of the less exciting filters, but they're recurring.

I suppose if we try some geoengineering and it leads to disaster then we can say we killed ourselves by big science experiment. Though black holes or strangelets would have been cooler.