It's the end of the world as we know it

[ciphergoth]

The technical term for a risk that could destroy the whole future of humanity is an "existential risk".

Wikipedia on existential risk

Nick Bostrom: "Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors."

Eliezer Yudkowsky, Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks [PDF]

Google search

Do you worry about the end of the world?

Comments

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

I assume that people will become extinct at some point, and it doesn't unduly bother me, though part of me thinks it would be cool if we made it off the planet by then. I try only to concern myself with risks that are caused by humans or that we stand a reasonable chance of preventing, so I think it's worth putting some research into how to redirect an asteroid, and I don't think it's a good idea to develop technologies that could wipe out a significant proportion of human in a war, for instance.

On the other hand I am not even a teeny bit worried about the large hadron collider.

[emanix.livejournal.com]

www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com (http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/)

[emanix.livejournal.com]

(Note, if you're geeky, worth checking out the source code too)