write a feature for a newsletter about "humanity"
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Answer:
An existential catastrophe would obliterate or severely limit the existence of all future humanity.
As defined by Nick Bostrom at Oxford University, an existential catastrophe is one which extinguishes Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently destroys a substantial part of its potential. As such it must be considered a harm of unfathomable magnitude, far beyond tragedy affecting those alive at the time. Because such risks jeopardize the entire future of humankind and conscious life, even relatively small probabilities, especially when seen statistically over a long period of time, may become significant in the extreme. It would follow that if such risks are non-trivial, the importance of existential catastrophes dramatically eclipse most of the social and political issues that commonly ignite our passions and tend to get our blood boiling today.
Ignoring global risks makes sense in some situations. If there is good scientific evidence that the risks are just too remote to worry about, for example. Or if the costs of prevention were just too absurd. But too often denial is based on ideological blinders (God will provide, the free market will provide, nature will provide), fatalism ("what will be will be"), apathy, or narrow-minded ignorance of the history of life on our planet. 99.9% of all species on Earth that ever lived are extinct. Earth has encountered repeated mass extinctions. The Permian-Triassic extinction event destroyed over 90% of all species. After the volcanic super-eruption in Toba, Indonesia about 70,000 years ago, the human species literally teetered on the brink of extinction with, according to some estimates, only about five hundred reproducing human females remaining in the world. We cannot extrapolate from our very narrow time frame perspective and conclude that future risks are negligible.
One would think that if we are mobilized to fight for issues that affect a relatively small number of people, we would have an even stronger moral and social emotional motivation to prevent potential catastrophes that could kill or incapacitate the entire human population. But there are significant psychological barriers to overcome. People who would be emotionally crushed just hearing about a tortured child or animal may not register even the slightest emotional response when contemplating the idea that all human life may one day become extinct. As Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote, "The challenge of existential risks to rationality is that, the catastrophes being so huge, people snap into a different mode of thinking."
There are psychological barrier of perceived powerlessness. Avoidance of difficult issues may be an understandable psychological defense mechanism. But the results can be maladaptive and catastrophic. There are also significant ideological barriers to overcome. For some, a belief in an afterlife of any sort may provide false reassurance. Millennialism -- the belief that the world as we know it will be destroyed and replaced with a perfect world -- takes various forms, from Christian movements based on the Book of Revelations to Al Qaeda beliefs rooted in Islamic thought involving Jihad. From certain theological perspectives global catastrophes are brought about by divine agency as just punishment for our sins. A believer of apocalyptic visions might judge such an event as, on balance, good.
Explanation:
Answer:
An existential catastrophe would obliterate or severely limit the existence of all future humanity. As defined by Nick Bostrom at Oxford University, an existential catastrophe is one which extinguishes Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently destroys a substantial part of its potential. As such it must be considered a harm of unfathomable magnitude, far beyond tragedy [...]