Global Catastrophic Risks Edited by Nick Bostrom Milan M. Cirkovic OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Contents Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................10 Martin J. Rees. Foreword ........................................................................................................................11 Contents ..................................................................................................................................................15 1. Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkoviс. Introduction.............................................................................23 1.1 Why? .............................................................................................................................................23 1.2 Taxonomy and organization..........................................................................................................24 1.3 Part I: Background.........................................................................................................................27 1.4 Part II: Risks from nature...............................................................................................................31 1.5 Part III: Risks from unintended consequences..............................................................................32 Part I. Background.......................................................................................................................................43 2. Fred C. Adams . Long‐term astrophysical processes..........................................................................43 2.1 Introduction: physical eschatology ...............................................................................................43 2.2 Fate of the Earth............................................................................................................................43 2.3 Isolation of the local group ...........................................................................................................45 2.4 Collision with Andromeda ............................................................................................................45 2.5 The end of stellar evolution ..........................................................................................................46 2.6 The era of degenerate remnants ..................................................................................................47 2.7 The era of black holes...................................................................................................................48 2.8 The Dark Era and beyond .............................................................................................................49 2.9 Life and information processing....................................................................................................50 2.10 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................50 Suggestions for further reading ..........................................................................................................51 References...........................................................................................................................................51 3. Christopher Wills. Evolution theory and the future of humanity .......................................................54 3.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................54 3.2 The causes of evolutionary change...............................................................................................54 3.3 Environmental changes and evolutionary changes ......................................................................55 3.3.1 Extreme evolutionary changes...................................................................................................56 3.3.2 Ongoing evolutionary changes...................................................................................................57 3.3.3 Changes in the cultural environment.........................................................................................59 3.4 Ongoing human evolution.............................................................................................................62 3.4.1 Behavioural evolution ................................................................................................................63 3.5 Future evolutionary directions......................................................................................................66 Suggestions for further reading ..........................................................................................................68 4. James J. Hughes. Millennial tendencies in responses to apocalyptic threats.....................................72 4.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................72 4.2 Types of millennialism...................................................................................................................72 4.3 Messianism and millenarianism....................................................................................................74 4.4 Positive or negative teleologies: utopianism and apocalypticism ................................................74 4.5 Contemporary techno‐millennialism ............................................................................................75 4.6 Techno‐apocalypticism..................................................................................................................77 4.7 Symptoms of dysfunctional millennialism in assessing future scenarios .....................................79 4.8 Conclusions....................................................................................................................................80 Suggestions for further reading ..........................................................................................................80 5. Eliezer Yudkowsky. Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgement of global risks ......................85 5.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................85 1: Availability.......................................................................................................................................85 2: Hindsight bias..................................................................................................................................86 3: Black Swans .....................................................................................................................................87 4: The conjunction fallacy ...................................................................................................................88 5: Confirmation bias............................................................................................................................90 6: Anchoring, adjustment, and contamination ...................................................................................92 7: The affect heuristic..........................................................................................................................94 8: Scope neglect ..................................................................................................................................95 9: Calibration and overconfidence......................................................................................................96 10: Bystander apathy ..........................................................................................................................98 A final caution .....................................................................................................................................99 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................................100 6. Milan M. Cirkovic. Observation selection effects and global catastrophic risks.............................106 6.1 Introduction: anthropic reasoning and global risks ....................................................................106 6.3 Doomsday Argument ..................................................................................................................112 6.4 Fermi's paradox...........................................................................................................................113 6.5 The Simulation Argument ...........................................................................................................118 6.6 Making progress in studying observation selection effects........................................................119 7. Yacov Y. Haimes. Systems‐based risk analysis ................................................................................121 7.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................121 7.2 Risk to interdependent infrastructure and sectors of the economy ..........................................122 7.3 Hierarchical holographic modelling and the theory of scenario structuring ..............................123 7.4 Phantom system models for risk management