Anders Sandberg, a friend of the IEET and postdoctoral fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University, recently gave the keynote address at the May 9-12, 2011, Planetary Defense Conference in Bucharest sponsored by the International Academy of Astronautics. He has kindly sent us a summary of encouraging progress documented at the meeting on mapping the trajectories of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and figuring out ways to deflect them if they will hit the Earth.
The EMP-vulnerability of our electric grid, our machines, transportation systems, tools, and homes is probably the most glaring “acute-impact” threat on our horizon.
There have been three great traumas to the psyche: the Copernican, the Darwinian, and the Freudian. I suspect the remaining trauma is that of the Alien.
Peter Dickins has penned a provocative article in the Monthly Review: The Humanization of the Cosmos—To What End? Dickins approaches the subject of space colonization from a decidedly leftist perspective, and is wonders how the process can unfold without the exploitation of humans and the environment.
In science fiction, when humanity is faced with existential crises, we turn to great minds attached to great hearts. While we aren’t under alien attack or facing sentient machines, our world has its own share of problems. Human cognitive enhancement might just be the solution from which all other solutions are born; or maybe it brings too many risks of its own.
Slowly but surely, SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is starting to get the picture: if we’re going to find life out there-and that’s a big if-it’s probably not going to be biological.
(by Milan M Cirković, Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom) We describe a significant practical consequence of taking anthropic biases into account in deriving predictions for rare stochastic catastrophic events. The risks associated with catastrophes such as asteroidal/cometary impacts, supervolcanic episodes, and explosions of supernovae/gamma-ray bursts are based on their observed frequencies. As a result, the frequencies of catastrophes that destroy or are otherwise incompatible with the existence of observers are systematically underestimated. We describe the consequences of this anthropic bias for estimation of catastrophic risks, and suggest some directions for future work. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2010.01460.x
Ordinary citizens today have access to much greater destructive power than ever before, and this may force the evolution of democracy, which has turned somewhat into dogma.
Every asteroid that will ever strike Earth is already out there and already on course to strike Earth. Every future asteroid impact event is already an event in progress.
Millions of potential planet-killers lurk in the Kuiper belt, any one of which could be jostled from its orbit and sent plummeting toward the Earth at any time.
If whatever hit Jupiter last week—and astronomers might never know what it was—had instead struck Earth, it would have caused catastrophic damage to human civilization.
Marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, we present some thoughts on a technoprogressive approach to space policy. One of the IEET’s projects is to begin a discussion among technoprogressives about the parameters of technoprogressive policy ideas, using our “Technoprogressive Policy Wiki”. The policy wiki is outlined, but empty, and we have provided our interns with some parameters for how to begin filling it in. The goal is not to express “the IEET’s position” on any specific topic, but to explore our own internal agreements and diversity about policy topics, while pointing to relevant websites, documents, and policies. Ben’s piece here on space policy was developed after conversation with the executive director, and then review and extension by the IEET Fellows and staff. Like the rest of the wiki we expect it to continually evolve. We present it here for further critique and extension before we add it to the policy wiki. - J. Hughes
As I see it there are three main categories of risk: bio, nano, and AI/robotics. These man-made risks make up the vast majority of the threat magnitude over the coming century and deserve most of the attention.
with co-authors Anders Sandberg and Jason G. Matheny
In the early morning of September 10, the Large Hadron Collider will be tested for the first time amid concern that the device could create a blackhole that will destroy the Earth. If you’re reading this afterwards, the Earth survived. Still, the event provides an opportunity to reflect on the possibility of human extinction. Since 1947, the Bulletin has maintained the Doomsday Clock, which “conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction—the figurative midnight—and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself.” The Clock may have been the first effort to educate the general public about the real possibility of human extinction.
Our global civilization is very fragile, and could crumble under the impact of catastrophic events. Wise use of emerging technologies could make our bodies, our communities and our civilization more resilient, or more vulnerable to collapse.
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Adderall, SETI, Asteroid Impacts and Amazon Tribes
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