An existential risk is a global catastrophic risk that threatens to exterminate humanity or severely curtail its potential. Existential risks are unique because current institutions have little incentive to mitigate them, except as a side effect of pursuing other goals. There is little to no financial return in mitigating existential risk. Bostrom (2001) argues that because reductions in existential risks are global public goods, they may be undervalued by the market. Also, because we have never confronted a major existential risk before, we have little to learn from, and little impetus to be afraid.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
State of Existential Risk in 2007
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Interesting summary, but I think it's a pipe dream to hope that politicians ( let along the general public) could ever be convinced that it's worth spending money on programs to mitigate these threats. Look at how hard it is talking about any price tag associated with global warming. People are suffering from doom-fatigue now in any case. Most people will shrug their shoulders and go "well what can we do?"
Creating a backup of our civlization on the moon or mars is the only sure defense against existential threats. There's no way to stop science, and no way to get the scientific community to universally agree on codes of ethics, which many researchers consider anathema to intellectual inquiry in any case.
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