"thunder" wrote

"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of
it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the
sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or
soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as
this planet is concerned. ... The same will be true of other planetary
systems. On each of
them there will be one chance, and one chance only." (Hoyle, 1964)

We didn't know about astroid impacts and calderas back in '64. The
Yellowstone Caldera will force a restart long before all the resources are
gone. The last such event, only a third the size, knocked the human
population back to about 2000. This will be 3-4X worse but given our
technology even more will survive, perhaps as many as 100,000. There'll be
plenty for those few.