Apocalypse When?: Calculating How Long the Human Race Will Survive
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Apocalypse When? Calculating How Long the Human Race Will Survive Willard Wells Apocalypse When? Calculating How Long the Human Race Will Survive Published in association with PPraxisraxis PPublishiublishingng Chichester, UK Dr Willard Wells Consultant, Applied Physics, Communications ChiefScientist Emeritus, L-3 Photonics Carlsbad California USA SPRINGER±PRAXIS BOOKS IN POPULAR SCIENCE SUBJECT ADVISORY EDITOR: Stephen Webb, B.Sc., Ph.D. ISBN 978-0-387-09836-4 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York Springer is part ofSpringer-Science + Business Media ( springer.com) Library ofCongress Control Number: 2008942384 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing ofthe publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms oflicences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. # Praxis Publishing Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2009 The use ofgeneral descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence ofa speci®c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: Jim Wilkie Project copy editor: Laura Booth Typesetting: OPS Ltd, Gt Yarmouth, Norfolk, UK Printed in Germany on acid-free paper Contents Preface ............................................. ix Acknowledgments ...................................... xiii List of ®gures ........................................ xv List of pictures ........................................ xvii List of tables ......................................... xix List of algebraic symbols ................................. xxi List of abbreviations and acronyms ........................... xxiii About the author....................................... xxv Introduction .......................................... 1 1 Formulation ....................................... 11 1.1 Multiple hazard rates . .......................... 14 1.2 Probability theory: a quick review .................... 18 1.3 Changing hazard rates . .......................... 20 1.4 Posterior probability . .......................... 21 1.5 Principle of indifference . .......................... 25 1.6 Cumulative risk................................. 34 2Con®rmation ...................................... 39 2.1 Bayes' theory ................................. 39 2.2 Statistics of business ®rms ......................... 41 2.3 Statistics of stage productions ....................... 45 vi Contents 2.4 Longevity rank ................................. 52 2.5 Univariate summary ............................. 53 3 Double jeopardy .................................... 57 3.1 A paradox ................................... 57 3.2 Formulation .................................. 58 3.3 An example ................................... 61 3.4 Logic diagram ................................. 64 3.5 Future research ................................ 65 4 Human survivability .................................. 67 4.1 Formulation .................................. 69 4.2 Hazardous development ........................... 73 4.3 Predictor formulation ............................ 81 4.4 Survivability of civilization ......................... 84 4.5 Survivability of the human race ..................... 86 4.6 Summary and current hazard rates .................... 89 4.7 Biases ...................................... 91 5 Apocalypse how? .................................... 93 5.1 Scenarios for extinction ........................... 94 5.2 Wild cards .................................... 105 5.3 Overrated natural hazards ......................... 112 5.4 Triage ...................................... 114 5.5 Re¯ections on this study .......................... 116 5.6 Prospects for a safer world ........................ 117 5.7 Systemic strengths and weaknesses .................... 120 5.8 Second chance? ................................ 123 5.9 Survival habitat ................................ 125 APPENDICES A Survival formula derived from hazard rates ................... 129 A.1 Variable hazard rate ............................. 131 A.2 Unknown vulnerability ........................... 132 B Posterior survivability ................................. 135 C In®nite mean duration................................. 137 D Survival predictor from Bayes' theory....................... 139 D.1 Advance knowledge .............................. 142 D.2 Noninformative prior probability ..................... 145 E Stage productions running on speci®ed dates .................. 147 F Extinction rates of prehistoric taxa ........................ 159 Contents vii G Disaggregated mortality ............................... 163 H Stage productions with dual cum-risks ...................... 167 I Overall plan for survivability calculation ..................... 187 J Multiple hazards .................................... 189 K Cum-risks for man-made hazards ......................... 193 L Statistical weights for hazards ........................... 197 M Extinction thwarted by civilization's collapse .................. 199 N Initial hazard rates................................... 203 References ........................................... 205 Index .............................................. 209 To Judith who encouraged me throughout this project and To the memory of Richard Feynman who taught me to think unconventionally Preface Starting about 1950, our world changed forever. Global population from then until 2000 multiplied by 2.5 and technology surged forward at an unprecedented pace. For some people these developments are a cause for great concern. Sir Martin Rees, England's present Astronomer Royal, thinks this pace may cause a fatal error within a century or two. He has wagered $1000 that a single act of bio-error or bio-terror will kill a million people before 2020. Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, fears that machines will overpower us using cybertechnology that he helped create. Stephen Hawking, renowned physicist and author of A Brief History of Time, thinks we must colonize outer space in order to ensure survival of our species. We are already taking measures to protect ourselves from conspicuous hazards such as global warming and genetic engineering. Hence, the fatal one will most likely be some bizarre combination of events that circumvents normal safeguards. For example, mutant phytoplankton may spread across the oceans and poison the air with toxic gasses. Or a demented trillionaire may imagine God's command to exterminate humanity at all cost, and with his vast resources he may succeed. The chances of these particular hazards are minuscule, but there are hundreds more like them, so the overall risk is considerable. Is there a way to quantify these concerns? We could build survival habitats if a numerical assessment justi®ed the expense. The best numerical data to address this question would be survival statistics for humanoid species throughout our galaxy, especially those on Earth-like planets undergoing a technology surge. However, those data are scarce, so what else can we do? The obvious uninspired approach would make a huge numerical model of our entire world and run thousands of simulations of our future, each with slightly dierent inputs and random events. Statistics of the outcomes would then indicate major threats and the probability of surviving them. Computer programs already simulate gigantic physical systems, for example, world climate. The Club of Rome has made and operated a huge numerical model of the world's economy. An essential x Preface missing piece is a numerical model for human behavior, but even that may be available in ®fty years. If current trends continue, computer capability will have increased many thousandfold by then! Would such simulations yield credible estimates of the ultimate risk? Not likely. History does not provide disasters of this magnitude to use as test cases. If it did, we could pretend to live in an earlier time and then run the program to ``predict'' events comparable to those that have actually happened. Such test runs would help us adjust parameters in the prediction program and correct ¯aws. In particular, the program must randomly inject rare events, tipping points, and extraordinary genius with some frequency, but that frequency must be adjusted. Otherwise, the rarities occur too often or too seldom. We might try to calibrate by using records of lesser historical disasters. However, few if any extant reports of those early disasters include enough details to initialize a simulation. Thes obstacles may be insurmuntable. If we somehow get a credible simulation, it may indicate an urgent need for harsh reforms that oend almost everybody: levy heavy taxes on consumption of natural resources, especially fossil fuels; impose compulsory birth control; and so on. The public reaction to this report would itself make an interesting subject for a world simulation. One can imagine the repercussions: Special interests hire scientists to ridicule the world model. The simulation team is branded as alarmists trying to in¯ate their importance. The public is helpless because the simulation's ¯ow chart alone is too complex for any individual to grasp. Even dedicated