The risk of extinction of humanity underestimated?

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Christophe
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The risk of extinction of humanity underestimated?




by Christophe » 13/03/12, 20:32

Does humanity underestimate the risk of its own extinction?

Once is not custom, this post will not describe a discovery published recently in a review. Over the course of my various readings, over the past few weeks, I have picked up a few puzzle pieces and I have noticed that they fit together rather well, that there was a guiding idea behind them. It started at the end of 2011 in Durban, with the new failure of the international community to agree on limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Then there was this announcement, at the end of December, of the creation by researchers of mutant avian influenza viruses, capable of being transmitted more easily between infected humans. Announcement followed, first of all, by a debate on whether it was very relevant to publish the methods with which the biologists had modified the H5N1, then by the more pragmatic question: can the ordinary terrorist easily achieve it?

Then there was another announcement, on January 12, more ritualistic this one, but also more discreet: that of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announcing that the clock of the end of the world which, since 1947, symbolically warns the humanity when it takes steps towards its extinction or reassures it when it takes measures to move away from it, was advanced one minute towards midnight. It is now 23:55 pm on this clock and this progression of the large hand has been justified by the lack of progress in limiting both nuclear proliferation and greenhouse gas emissions. The statement read: "The world community may be near a point of no return in its efforts to prevent disaster due to changes in Earth's atmosphere. The International Energy Agency predicts that" Unless societies begin, over the next five years, to develop alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, to rising sea levels, to the disappearance of island nations and increased ocean acidification. " It is not without a certain irony that another piece of information, directly linked to this one, came out a few days ago and I gave it, as a foundry, in one of my weekly selections: never, Over the past 300 million years, the oceans have not been as acidic as they are today. Despite its importance, the news did not seem to move anyone ...

At the very moment when many books are being published on the theme "2012, year of the end of the world predicted by the Mayan calendar" (I was amazed to see a whole table of works at FNAC on this subject), the men playing at frightening oneself knowing full well that it is nonsense, we sweep under the carpet the real reasons for worry. Hence the question that makes the title of this post: is humanity underestimating the risk of its own extinction by failing to address the problems that threaten it or by risking to bring down technologies of mass destruction between? malicious hands? I obviously do not have the answer and I leave it to everyone to think about it, but I wanted, to finish this post unlike any other, to mention the interview, in The Atlantic, with Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, who teaches at the University of Oxford, directs the Institute for the Future of Humanity there and is pictured at the top of this page.

With a background in physics, neuroscience and the philosophy of science, Nick Bostrom does not necessarily have the typical profile of the philosopher as we usually imagine him. He has worked a lot on the concept of "existential risk", in the sense of a disaster scenario leading "either to the total destruction of all intelligent life on Earth, or to a permanent paralysis of its development potential". In this interview, he is therefore not interested in the distant consequences of global warming, but, considering that this twenty-first century will be crucial for humanity due to the rapid development of new technologies, the risks that the latter will present in a very near future to us: "In the short term," he said, "I think several developments in the fields of biotechnology and synthetic biology are quite disconcerting. We are in the process of acquiring the capacity to create modified pathogens. and the blueprints of several pathogenic organisms are in the public domain: you can download from the Internet the genetic sequence of the smallpox virus or that of the Spanish flu. So far, the ordinary citizen only has their graphic representation on the Internet. screen of his computer, but we are also developing more and more efficient machines synthesizing DNA, which can take one of these digital plans and manufacturereal strands of RNA or DNA. Soon these machines will be powerful enough to recreate these viruses. So you already have some sort of predictable risk and if, then, you start modifying these pathogens in different ways, you see a dangerous new frontier appear. In the longer term, I think that artificial intelligence, once it has acquired human and then superhuman capacities, will bring us into an area of ​​major risk. There are also different kinds of population control that concern me, things like surveillance and psychological manipulation with drugs. "

When the reporter asking him why the risk of a major slippage is estimated at one or two in ten over the course of the century, which is a lot, Nick Bostrom has this response: "I think that which leads to that is the feeling that humans are developing these very powerful tools (...) and that there is a risk that something will go wrong. If you go back with nuclear weapons, you find that to manufacture an atomic bomb, you needed rare raw materials like enriched uranium or plutonium, which are very difficult to come by. But suppose there was a technique that allowed you to make a nuclear weapon by baking sand in a microwave or something. If that had been the case, where would we be now? Presumably once that discovery was made, civilization would have been doomed. make one of these discoveries, we put our m ain in a big urn full of bullets and we shoot a new bullet: so far we have taken out white and gray bullets, but maybe next time we will shoot a black bullet, a discovery that means disaster . At the moment, we don't have a good way to put the ball back in the ballot box if we don't like it. Once the discovery has been published, there is no way to "unpublish" it. "

Nick Bostrom is absolutely not opposed to technology: on the contrary, he is a big supporter of transhumanism. Simply, he is campaigning for us to keep control. Control of our technologies, our planet, our future. Because the extinction of man is not the only risk we run. The other face of existential risk is the total disappearance of freedoms on a planetary scale: "One can imagine the scenario of a totalitarian global dystopia. Once again, it is linked to the possibility that we develop technologies that will make it much easier for oppressive regimes to eliminate dissidents or monitor their populations in order to achieve a stable dictatorship, rather than those we have seen throughout history that have ended up being overthrown . " George Orwell and his 1984 are not far off.

Pierre Barthélémy


Source: http://passeurdesciences.blog.lemonde.f ... xtinction/
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dedeleco
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by dedeleco » 13/03/12, 21:05

It is above all, 75000 years ago after the eruption of Toba, that humanity was almost extinct, with around a thousand survivors, that humanity risked extinction, rather than now with 7 billion humans.

Man resisted a strong warming 15000 to 8000 years ago with a rise of the seas of 120m, and therefore he will resist a rise of 70m from the oceans, melting all of Antarctica, burning all fossil fuels at his disposition !!

We risk more the extinction of many animal and plant species than human extinction !!

We falsely have the idea of ​​being able to destroy humanity with weapons of mass destruction, such as viruses and microbes, AIDS, smallpox, various flu, etc., which are everywhere, while humanity has already resisted with far fewer humans.
Last edited by dedeleco the 13 / 03 / 12, 21: 09, 1 edited once.
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by Ahmed » 13/03/12, 21:05

Quite astonishing document, that one judges it: the author wonders about the lack of lucidity of his contemporaries on a possible disappearance of humanity due to elevation of the rate of CO2 or viral danger triggered voluntarily!
No doubt the increase in greenhouse gases is worrying, especially since the media coverage of which it is the subject is inversely proportional to the measures taken to remedy it, probably the emergence of a virus, as the cause whether natural or not, is a serious possibility ... however this focusing is a truncated and very reducing vision of reality.
It suggests, in hollow, a harmonious overall functioning, only endangered by poorly controlled, isolated factors and as "parasites".
What constitutes the real threat is much more massive: the religion which blinds us with its redemptive eschatology contains in its excesses (ie its perfect realization) the reasons for our annihilation.
Each small accomplishment, each new devotion, constitutes one more step in the direction of the abyss: compared to this, the rate of CO2 seems very ridiculous for who knows how to keep it.
Of course, such a questioning of all of our beliefs is unthinkable, so the fight against global warming, as derisory as it may be, remains the only possible window ... in order to create a diversion. :frown:
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by Leo Maximus » 13/03/12, 21:47

dedeleco wrote:... Man withstood a strong warming 15000 to 8000 years ago with a rise of the seas of 120m, and therefore he will resist a rise of 70m from the oceans...

Man will resist but all our nuclear power plants will be drowned? Very very good news! :D
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by bidouille23 » 14/03/12, 01:35

the man will not resist his own bullshit !!! that could be another title :)

Dedelco if "We risk the extinction of many animal and plant species more than human extinction !!" ok but then if the proportion of animal and plant species is such that we can no longer eat or drink, what becomes of man ????


A yes I know a wolf for the man so he finished eating himself!

Ahmed you summarize a bit quickly you're a pranksters;) you should never believe a pranksters;). not without joking, "a possible disappearance of humanity due to an increase in the level of CO2 or viral danger triggered voluntarily" that's not all, look at the progress in nanotechnology, look at IBM with their quantum computer which begins to emerge his nose very slowly but which begins, looks at the stupefaction of the masses with a simple telephone called phone (I saw on arte a researcher who made scanners of an iphone owner, balance sheet at the level of the brain there are the same reactions that when we are in love : Shock: ), look at our transgenic plants, look at the wheat which has mutated as well as many other cereals, nuclear accidents hidden or not (1957 accident in Kychtym in the USSR for example), look at the processor with 12 hearts I think including one to repair the others etc etc etc, well all that put end to end I see there largely what to achieve the extinction of the human race unfortunately.

when read Asimov, aldous huxley (the best of all worlds), there is a lot of things that we find now as current, look at Nautilus for example it looks like the basics of psycho history, the various and varied cachets will end up giving birth has drugs which can replace the holidays;), etc etc.
Man is quite capable of bringing about his own extinction, he has largely the capacities and the power, just the spark or the black bullet as it is said.

imagine a second, researchers create nanoparticles that have the function of reproducing (they do only that but it does), a quantum computer will eventually see the light of day, it will be endowed with capacity going beyond the mind human and from afar, the cyborgs are starting to see the light of day, the net is already there which reread millions of computers between them, put it all together and reread it all with a black ball, there's enough to make a film have probably all seen at least one liver right?

this little text makes me think of another text, even if they are only bullshit when the source it deserves to be read I think because it can give you something to think about despite the side as who would say religious :)

http://www.syti.net/Prophetie.html

I like the end :) .
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by Janic » 14/03/12, 13:17

humans need to reassure themselves to avoid depression. The question is: will we reach a point of no return or is this point already exceeded?
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by sen-no-sen » 14/03/12, 13:59

Disappearance of humanity is not necessarily synonymous with cataclysms.
Humanity may be ended willingly.
The temptation scientist to want to change the man, and the technical advances ceaselessly more attractive will lead some time to a choice cornelian: to remain simple human or to become trans-human with the increased faculties.
Let us also not forget that each time an animal or vegetable species disappears, it is a part of us that goes out, because everything is linked, we are therefore at the beginning of the end ...
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by bidouille23 » 14/03/12, 15:37

We have always been at the beginning of the end, but the end is also the beginning of another possible;), the end is not in itself inevitable ...
are we at the point of no return the point is vague, the return of what to or ???

Everyone will find their answers if they seek them, and those who do not seek them will accept that of others who will probably not suit them, will therefore be their end of non-choice and the beginning of reflection for them ...

The man has in him everything, and all the means, he misses the certain will have more than others and the bottom apply to the large number who undergoes, maybe he must stop undergoing simply and start to stop believing , started looking for information quite frightening, some will say yes but in all this we no longer live !!! well if we live but differently.

everything is linked without time we are only one together .... yes but what ??? ;)
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by Ahmed » 14/03/12, 17:49

Hey, Bidouille23, I may summarize a little quickly, but you don't read everything!
A prankster, prankster and a half! : Cheesy:
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by Janic » 14/03/12, 19:29

are we at the point of no return the point is vague, the return of what to or ???
this expression is used when for example a train arrives near its stop and the distance is too short to be able to stop in time. or some other way, too late to reverse.
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