arctangent

Software, hardware, wetware

Human Extinction, and the Risks Thereof

A discussion on the risks of human extinction, and some measures that can be taken to mitigate it, aia Slashdot (yeah, ew): http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/resources/publications/2007_orig-articles/2007-10-15-reducingrisk.html

An amusing read, if a bit contentious in places. To quote:

There is currently no independent body assessing the risks of high-energy physics experiments. Posner (2004) has recommended withdrawing federal support for such experiments because the benefits do not seem to be worth the risks.

Risks? What bloody risks? Any Many physicists can will tell you that the chances of a high-energy experiment going pear-shaped in a catastrophic way (in a global sense) is so bloody miniscule as to be next to impossible. If it was easy to destroy a planet, we’d see nature doing it a lot more often by pure random chance.

The rest of the article essentially boils down to an argument that we should do our best to delay extinction by colonising space. I’m convinced!