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

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

No. And certainly not at the moment. I have other, more available challenges that currently occupy my time, although they are down the personal level of impact than the species one.

I do think it's worth spending more than we do on tracking near Earth objects. (There are other likely spin-off benefits on top of the enhanced ability to spot potential collisions.) I don't think it's worth spending much more than we do on imagining ways in which we might all suddenly be wiped out. Schneier puts this well when he talks about movie plot "terrorist" threats increasing their cognitive availability, and hence perceived risk, out of all proportion to their actual risk.

Great writing in that paper, though - "All else being equal, not many people would prefer to destroy the world." is a cracking opener, and it's hard to argue with points like "Risks of human extinction may tend to be underestimated since, obviously, humanity has never yet encountered an extinction event".

It's International Year of Biodiversity, so I can't help but note that we have not encountered a human extinction event, but we have, however, seen the evidence for the extinction of most of the species that have ever existed, and are seeing the evidence of (possibly) the most dramatic extinction event in Earth's history, from the ringside seat afforded to the perpetrator. I do sometimes worry a bit about that.