[ExI] biggest threats to humanity: was RE: new term

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat

Subject: Re: [ExI] new term

 

>…Geez - sapiosexual was just a little joke (though it was used in a book I read - also tongue in cheek.)

…

>…Loosen up out there!    bill w

 

Nevah gonna happen Billw.  People seem to be a bit on edge these days.  I can’t understand why.  Perhaps because we are suddenly facing three simultaneous existential risks to humanity, I don’t know.

 

Here's a fun mental exercise however (if we define “fun” very broadly.)  Rank the biggest threats to humanity and culture by one’s own reasoning.  For instance:

 

Planet-busting virus: with Covid-19, the whole world was introduced to the notion that lethal viruses could be evolved by selective breeding.  We know there are people in this world with radical green notions, such as humans are a cancer on the planet, and it would be a good thing if most of us perished.  Oy freaking vey.  We now have access to a virus with the furin cleavage sites already optimized for being contagious to humans.  Any yahoo can get a bunch of bats and start breeding it up to be worse than it is.  Shit.

 

Nuclear warfare: never thought I would see that one pushed way back into distant second, did we?  All those damn missiles are still there, and they are still loaded.  We have had them as long as I have been on this planet however, and we managed to not nuke ourselves, so I am optimistically placing that lower in risk.

 

AGI killing everyone: I would put that down in third, well down the risk scale for wiping out humanity.  It could do some really bad things to modern civilization perhaps, by taking down the power grid and communications grid.  Society cannot operate without those.  For starters, all trade comes to an abrupt halt.

 

Other thoughts?

 

Note that none of those three destroy all of humanity.  In all three scenarios, worst case even, much of Africa mostly goes on about its business scarcely knowing anything really bad happened.

 

spike

 

 

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