Bad News
Sir Frederick
The end of the world is not nigh
23 July 2008
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
Michael Brooks
YOU could be forgiven for thinking that our existence on Earth becomes more precarious by the decade. So breathe a sigh of relief -
we may never have been safer.
Last weekend, experts gathered at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford to discuss the risk of global
"mega-catastrophes". The idea was to leave aside slow-burn disasters such as climate change and global famine and focus on events
that could wipe out hundreds of millions of people, threaten humanity's continued existence on Earth, or at least produce a total
collapse of civilisation. The meeting drew contributions from physicists, sociologists, microbiologists and philosophers. Their
conclusion: leaving aside scenarios that have yet to be imagined, we are at least handling the major concerns well.
First up for consideration was an act of bioterrorism, such as the synthesis and release of a dangerous virus. According to Ali
Nouri of the Science and Global Security programme at Princeton University, such an act is becoming ever more unlikely. That's
because the centralisation and automation of the biotech industry are making it harder for anyone to create a dangerous pathogen or
compound without triggering alarms within the industry, he says. For example, in the US if someone applies to synthesise Ebola
without a licence, they are reported to the authorities.
Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation dedicated to reducing nuclear proliferation, told the meeting
that the threat of nuclear war is lower now than it has been for 15 years. This is down to significant reductions in US and Russian
nuclear arsenals, bans on nuclear testing, the shutdown of weapons material production and consensus between nuclear policy-makers.
The threat of nuclear terrorism has similarly diminished: improved security at nuclear facilities, the removal of fissile material
from vulnerable sites in former Eastern bloc countries, and a tighter grip on smuggling have made it "hard to devise plausible
scenarios for terrorists wiping out humanity with stolen nuclear materials", says William Potter of the Monterey Institute of
International Studies in California. There is still scope for such acts to cause huge loss of life, he says, but the challenge of
preventing nuclear terrorism is "urgent but manageable".
The way of the dinosaurs
How about cosmic threats? Though the danger from asteroid impacts remains, we are getting close to charting all the potential
world-destroying rocks. "We now know there is no asteroid out there remotely like the one that ended the Cretaceous period," says
David Morrison, NASA's leading expert on asteroid threats. "We are not going to go the way of the dinosaurs."
We can be confident that physics won't kill us either: Michelangelo Mangano of the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva in
Switzerland points out that exhaustive investigations mean we can dismiss any claims that the Large Hadron Collider will produce
dangerous particles or black holes when it turns on later this year.
There is one cloud on the horizon. The threat from the H5N1 strain of influenza virus is real, according to John Oxford, a
virologist at St Bartholomew's hospital in London. The density and mobility of modern populations - especially in the western world
- mean that an outbreak could quickly become a major catastrophe. But, he says, governments have taken this possibility seriously
and are well prepared for the worst-case scenario. "We can stop an outbreak for the first time in history," he says.
However, some threats remain unquantifiable. Nanotechnology is one: it is simply too early to say whether anything dangerous enough
to cause a mega-catastrophe might emerge. Another is artificial intelligence. "Intelligence is the most powerful force scientists
have ever tried to tamper with. It could help or it could hurt," says Eliezer Yudkowsky from the Singularity Institute for AI
research based in Palo Alto, California.
的ntelligence is the most powerful force scientists have ever tried to tamper with. It could help or it could hurt燃eassuringly,
humanity's ability to cope with an unexpected major catastrophe has improved vastly in recent years - and not just because of new
technology. According to the geneticist Christopher Wills, in the last century, racial mixing has created a dynamic gene pool that
is accelerating our evolution in a positive manner. This includes throwing up diverse kinds of intelligence in the population, which
will provide a vital resource for the future, he reckons. "We are now beginning to draw on the resources of our gene pool in ways
that could not be imagined a few years ago," he told the assembly. "Our society and our attitudes are changing as a result."
Wills believes it is becoming ever more likely that individuals with new insights or unprecedented charisma will arise in the human
population. He points to Mohammed Yunus, winner of the Nobel peace prize, as someone who fits this model. Yunus's economic
innovations, such as the introduction of micro-credit loans for small Bangladeshi businesses, have transformed his society, Wills
says. "The variation makes it exponentially more likely that someone extraordinary like this will emerge to form a new scientific or
political paradigm," he says. This, Wills says, will get us out of many of the threats we currently face.
If it comes as a surprise that the future is rosier than expected, that is probably because we have misread the times, according to
Jonathan Wiener of Duke University, North Carolina, and president of the Society for Risk Analysis in McLean, Virginia. "There's a
sense that these catastrophic risks are of growing importance, but it's really that, as we solve other risks, these become
relatively more important," he says.
This gradual erosion of the things to worry about poses a new problem for scientists. According to sociologists and cultural
historians at the meeting, it has created a heightened religious and cultural focus on apocalyptic scenarios - a focus that
scientists are tempted to share. Researchers are given disproportionately large policy, publishing and funding incentives to look at
catastrophe, rather than at more likely but less dramatic scenarios, says Dave Frame of the University of Oxford's Centre for the
Environment. This means there is a disproportionate amount of research into - and publicity for - spectacular possibilities. That's
no surprise to Yudkowsky, who told the meeting that many studies have shown that we are unable to think rationally about the end of
humanity. "Things outside the human experience send our minds into a different mode of thinking," he says.
Nick Bostrom, the meeting organiser, says this is just one reason why the conference was important: the full spectrum of
catastrophic risk has never been properly assessed. "The very biggest questions, the things that can fundamentally change humanity,
have until now been the subject of speculation by journalists and retired physicists," he says. "By gathering academic researchers,
you get the ability to compare which are most serious, and mitigate them."
From issue 2666 of New Scientist magazine, 23 July 2008, page 8-9
Who foots the bill?
If you think your insurance premiums are high, consider the travails of companies involved with biotech or nanotechnology. Getting
insurance for the worst-case health or environmental disaster that their products may cause can be a real struggle.
That is because insurers cannot work out what they should charge. "We have no way of estimating what the frequency or severity of
losses might be, so our approach is the same as with nuclear, biological and chemical warfare: we exclude them," says Peter Taylor,
a researcher at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute and a consultant to Lloyd's of London.
Taylor reckons this could stymie the development of vital new technologies. He wants governments to underwrite extremely large but
unlikely events. With the worst-case scenarios taken care of, the industry can begin the process of setting and annually adjusting
premiums to cover its insurance needs. This, he says, will also encourage people to monitor their working practices. Because risks
and incidents are reassessed every year, and the incentives are financial, insurance is a powerful motivator in the business world.
"Insurance is a great way of helping industry regulate its behaviour," Taylor says.
turtoni
> http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19926663.900-the-en...
I'll capitalize if you fix your line length to 76 characters.
Yes. Bad news; since most people suck.
Literally!
Sir Frederick
>
>
>I'll capitalize if you fix your line length to 76 characters.
>
>Yes. Bad news; since most people suck.
>
>Literally!
Sorry! I just paste them the way I copy them.
As it is I must pay good money to have full access
to the magazine, print and online.
--
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
******************************************
"I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe."
- Leo Rosten
******************************************
turtoni
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:50:05 -0700 (PDT), turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
>
> >I'll capitalize if you fix your line length to 76 characters.
>
> >Yes. Bad news; since most people suck.
>
> >Literally!
>
> Sorry! I just paste them the way I copy them.
> As it is I must pay good money to have full access
> to the magazine, print and online.
> --
> Frederick Martin McNeill
> Poway, California, United States of America
> ******************************************
> "I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe."
> - Leo Rosten
> ******************************************
you're not following. i could copy the same text and have it wrap
around neatly with a line length set to 76.
"YOU could be forgiven for thinking that our existence on Earth
becomes more precarious by the decade. So breathe a sigh of relief -
we may never have been safer.
Last weekend, experts gathered at the Future of Humanity Institute at
the University of Oxford to discuss the risk of global "mega-
catastrophes". The idea was to leave aside slow-burn disasters such as
climate change and global famine and focus on events that could wipe
out hundreds of millions of people, threaten humanity's continued
existence on Earth, or at least produce a total collapse of
civilisation. The meeting drew contributions from physicists,
sociologists, microbiologists and philosophers. Their conclusion:
leaving aside scenarios that have yet to be imagined, we are at least
handling the major concerns well.
First up for consideration was an act of bioterrorism, such as the
synthesis and release of a dangerous virus. According to Ali Nouri of
the ..."
Sir Frederick
You're better than me.
turtoni
I'm better than everybody. There's the rub.
Especially when you imagne that there is noone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpCSxRVL8Y
Line lengths to 76.
bigfl...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
So THATS why you always challenge me. A solipsist wih a superiority
complex..:-)
B
turtoni
>> Especially when you imagne that there is noone.
aka trying to be humorous.
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpCSxRVL8Y
i just throw that in to disturb tooly.
>> Line lengths to 76.
>
> Brian:
> So THATS why you always challenge me.
I and others have been pointing out that your POV's are extremely
subjective and therefore often pretty much meaningless to the reader..
> A solipsist wih a superiority complex..:-)
"Humility is the defining characteristic of an unpretentious and
modest person, someone who does not think that he or she is better or
more important than others. Synonym: humble
The term "humility" is derived from the Latin word "humilis", which is
translated not only as humble but also alternatively as "low", or
"from the earth". Because the concept of humility addresses intrinsic
self-worth, it is emphasized in the realm of religious practice and
ethics where the notion is often made more precise and extensive.
Humility as a religious or spiritual virtue is different from the act
of humiliation or shaming though the former may follow as a
consequence of the latter."