archive

Preparing for the end times

Johannes Gabriel (IAFI): A Scientific Enquiry into the Future. Max Range and Mikael Sandberg (Halmstad): “Civilizations” and Political-Institutional Paths: A Sequence Analysis of the MaxRange2 Data Set, 1789 – 2013. Greg Miller on how people 100 years ago thought we’d be living today. The Global Priorities Project is a joint research initiative between the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford and the Centre for Effective Altruism; it attempts to prioritise between the pressing problems currently facing the world in order to establish in which areas we might have the most impact. From The Conversation, Anders Sandberg on the five biggest threats to human existence; and from human extinction to super intelligence, futurists Anders Sandberg and Andrew Snyder-Beattie explain. Two attempts to read the future for humanity: Caspar Henderson reviews Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom (and more) and A Rough Ride to the Future by James Lovelock. George Dvorsky on 10 horrifying technologies that should never be allowed to exist. Oxana Timofeeva on the end of the world — from apocalypse to the end of history and back. Apocalypse soon: Sophie McBain on the scientists preparing for the end times. Disaster porn, for once for real: What are the odds, in this tiny sliver of decades at the leading edge of history, when we're finally able to have some inkling of what's going on in near space, that we're actually finding out about some real global catastrophe that had any real chance of happening? Nick Beckstead on a relatively atheoretical perspective on astronomical waste: “Affecting long-run outcomes for civilization is overwhelmingly important”. David Barrowclough (Cambridge): Making the Past: Prospective Memorialization and the Creation of Myth (“This article explores how we might use artistic representations to protect future 5 generations from the dangers inherent in the burial of radioactive waste”.) A handy guide for rebooting civilization: Linda Besner reviews The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch by Lewis Dartnell.