NASA is pursuing a new space telescope tailored to spotting potentially hazardous asteroids.
If you are a Lifeboat subscriber or have been reading these pages for awhile, you may know why it’s called “Lifeboat”. A fundamental goal of our founder, board, writers and supporters is to sustain the environment, life in all its diversity, and—if necessary—(i.e. if we destroy our environment beyond repair, or face a massive incoming asteroid), to prepare for relocating. That is, to build a lifeboat, figuratively and literally.
But most of us never believed that we would face an existential crisis, except perhaps a potential for a 3rd World War. Yet, here we are: Burning the forests, killing off unspeakable numbers of species (200 each day), cooking the planet, melting the ice caps, shooting a hole in the ozone, and losing more land to the sea each year.
Regading the urgent message of Greta Thunberg, below, I am at a loss for words. Seriously, there is not much I can add to the 1st video below.
Information about climate change is all around us. Everyone knows about it; Most people understand that it is real and it that poses an existential threat, quite possibly in our lifetimes. In our children’s lives, it will certainly lead to war, famine, cancer, and massive loss of land, structures and money. It is already raising sea level and killing off entire species at thousands of times the natural rate.
Continue reading “Greta Thunberg: Most Important Message Ever” »
Prof. Steve Fuller is the author of 25 books including a trilogy relating to the idea of a ‘post-’ or ‘trans-‘human future, and most recently, Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Age.
During this 2h 15 min interview with Steve Fuller we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the social foundations of knowledge and our shared love of books; Transhumanism as a scientistic way of understanding who we are; the proactionary vs the precautionary principle; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the Omega Point; Julian and Aldous Huxley’s diverging takes on Transhumanism; David Pearce’s Hedonistic Imperative as a concept straight out of Brave New World; the concept and meaning of being human, transhuman and posthuman; humanity’s special place in the cosmos; my Socratic Test of (Artificial) Intelligence; Transhumanism as a materialist theology – i.e. religion for geeks; Elon Musk, cosmism and populating Mars; de-extinction, genetics and the sociological elements of a given species; the greatest issues that humanity is facing today; AI, the Singularity and armed conflict; morphological freedom and becoming human; longevity and the “Death is Wrong” argument; Zoltan Istvan and the Transhumanist Wager; Transhumanism as a way of entrenching rather than transcending one’s original views…
Continue reading “Prof. Steve Fuller on Transhumanism: Ask yourself what is human?” »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c4cv7rVlE8
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, superintelligence risks, and the reversal test.
This is the first Russian x-risks newsletter, which will present news about Russia and global catastrophic risks from the last 3 months.
Given the combination of high technological capabilities, poor management, high risk tolerance and attempts to catch up with West and China in the military sphere, Russia is prone to technological catastrophes. It has a 10 times higher level of aviation catastrophes and car accidents than developed countries.
Thus it seems possible that a future global catastrophe may be somehow connected with Russia. However, most of the work in global catastrophic and existential risk (x-risks) prevention and policy efforts are happening in the West, especially in US, UK and Sweden. Even the best policies adopted by the governments of these countries may not help if a catastrophe occurs in another country or countries.
AN ASTEROID which came crashing into Earth and NASA had no idea it was coming reiterates the need to keep a closer eye on the sky in case a massive space rock comes hurtling towards our planet.
Circa 2017
In a recent article for Skeptic, Michael Shermer (the magazine’s founding publisher) put forth an argument for “why AI is not an existential threat,” where “AI” stands for “artificial intelligence” and an “existential threat” is anything that could cause human extinction or the irreversible decline of civilization.
North Korea has miniaturised nuclear warheads and made them small enough to fit on ballistic missiles, Japan believes.
Tokyo defence chiefs warn in a new white paper that North Korea’s military activities pose a ‘serious and imminent threat’.
Continue reading “Japan warns North Korea now has miniaturized nukes” »
A MASSIVE asteroid comparable to the massive space rock which brought the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth to an end is hurtling towards Earth, and scientists have confirmed it is “potentially hazardous”.
