Existential Risks's topics - tribe.net

Greetings, A Call for Friends, and Articles You May Enjoy!

2009-11-15T23:11:48Z

Greetings, everybody!

When first signing up with Tribe.net, I saw your tribe and I figured it was right down my alley. I am not what some people would call a "Chicken Little," or "Cassandra," nor am I what some would call a "Life-is-All-Skittles-and-Beer" or a "Pollyanna." I like to think of myself as a Janus-faced realist who acknowleges both possibilities for good and ill in all things.

Because I, like yourself, share your concerns for disaster and cataclysm, I wanted to put out an invitiation to be friends and to come read my blog: Unbound Endeavors!

Two articles from my blog which you might like are linked below. This first article has video links on some of the terrible and embarrassing things that governments and religionists say and doafter natural and man-made catastrophes, as well as what individuals can do for themselves in the event of disasters. The second article is on a satirical video which teaches how to avoid people who would steal your mind and life away:

Survivalism and Preparedness: The Answer to the Question: "What Can One Person Do?"
http://unboundendeavors.blogspot.com/2009/05/survivalism-and-preparedness-answer-to.html

Mind Control Made Easy: A Video on Self-Defense for Your Mind!
http://unboundendeavors.blogspot.com/2009/05/greatest-enemies-of-life-liberty.html

I hope you enjoy these blog articles and hope that we can network together. Although we may not always agree on everything, we can certainly learn from each other and be friends. The invitation is open and I hope to hear from you soon.

Yours In Truth,

Al, Sole Proprietor
Unvbound Endeavors!
"Thoughts, Schemes, and Deeds, Plus Ways and Means, for Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness!"
http://unboundendeavors.blogspot.com

posted in Existential Risks - 3 replies

new moderator required

2008-04-22T15:10:42Z

hey we need a new moderator

any takers?

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Real risk

2008-04-01T07:21:47Z

It took a freedom of information act to expose the truth. The drug makers have been hiding the negitive studies.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cox01272008.html

Now a new Study: Antidepressants Work No Better Than Placebos for the vast majority of depressed people.
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045

The drug makers have been out right lying about the efficacy of antidepressants.They have been caught red handed.

For the majority of people, the drugs are no better then snake oil.

If the only problem was that, the drug is a placebo for the vast majority people who have been given it, I would not care.

But it is far from the only problem!

The Physicians' Desk Reference lists the following adverse reactions (side effects) to antidepressants among a host of other physical and neuropsychiatric effects: manic reaction (mania, e.g. kleptomania, pyromania, dipsomania), emotional lability (or instability), abnormal thinking, alcohol abuse, hallucinations, hostility, lack of emotion, paranoid reaction, amnesia, confusion, agitation, delirum, delusions, hysteria, psychosis, sleep disorders, abnormal dreams, and discontinuation (withdrawal) syndrome. Adverse reactions are especially likely when starting or discontinuing the drug, increasing or lowering the dose or when switching from one SSRI to another SSRI. Adverse reactions are often diagnosed as bipolar disorder when the symptoms could be entirely iatrogenic (treatment induced). Withdrawal, especially abrupt withdrawal, from any of these medications can also cause severe neuropsychiatric and physical symptoms. It is important to withdraw extremely slowly from these drugs, usually over a period of a year or more, under the supervision of a qualified and experienced specialist.

In addition to the adverse reactions listed in the Physicians' Desk Reference, the FDA published a Public Health Advisory on March 22, 2004 which states (in part): "Anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness), hypomania, and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric."

The vast majority of school and other recent massacres have involved people going on or coming off these drugs.

Many otherwise loving parents have killed their own children wile going on or coming off these drugs.

This website is a collection of 2100+ news stories with the full media article available,
www.ssristories.com

I have personally witnessed some who who became scary psychotic and violent wile in withdrawal. Someone who is normally highly, intelligent gentle, kind and loving. This is a person I dearly love.

For some people the often horrendous withdrawal effects last for years after quitting.

Withdrawal effects such as Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempts, Homicidal thoughts or urges, Chest pain, racing heart, Auditory hallucinations, Visual hallucinations, Disequilibrium, Serious Headache, Numbness, burning, Electric zap-like sensations in the brain, Electric shock-like sensations in the body, Abnormal visual sensations, Spasms in the eyes, Loud ringing or other noises in the ears, Abnormal smells or tastes, Drooling, Slurred speech, Blurred vision, Muscle cramps, stiffness, twitches and much more. Most people describe it as hell.

Frequency of withdrawal reactions
Antidepressant______halflife_______Frequency of withdrawal reactions

Effexor____________5 hours_____________78%
Paxil_____________21 hours_____________66%
Zoloft____________26 hours_____________60%
Prozac___________4-6 days_____________14%

People can become completely incapacitated by SSRI withdrawal.
Reference: “The Antidepressant Solution” by Joseph Glenmullen, M.D.

Suicide, homicide, nightmare side effects all for a drug that is little more then snake oil for the majority of people.

FDA Testimonials - Suicide, Violence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdkFasjSJ_g&feature=related

One moms personal story.
www.youtube.com/watchwww.youtube.com/watch

In Memoriam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isPtIloi_0E&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni0lK4Na6VY&feature=related

What do you think should be done?

Should the drug industry be held responsible for their betrayal of the American people?

http://community.webshots.com/user/effexoractivist
This is my art site with lots of posters on the subject.

You can learn lots more about corruption in the drug industry here.
theeffexoractivist.org

Thank you for reading this far.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

human crisis philosophy paper

2006-11-07T07:43:44Z

Hi, I joined the other day after finding the tribe on a friend's profile.

I bought a bunch of ideas together and wrote a philosophy paper dealing with some aspects of the contemporary human condition:

http://www.mageworld.co.uk/writing/humanity-crisis.html

If you want to comment you can do so here, by pm or by email (the address is on the page) - the paper is liable to evolve and change.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Ulrich Beck

2006-07-21T17:25:07Z

Hey All
Thought maybe you would be interested in the man. He is German socioloigist who studies modern society in terms of risk.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulrich_Beck

Neat Guy! I figure he might contribute to some of the debate.....

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

You people are paralyzing....

2006-07-11T20:03:11Z

Relax, please. Sure, global warming could very well fry the Earth in time, but that doesn't mean you need to outline the apocalypse in every other post. Some positive, pro-active discussions would be nice.

Just a thought.

posted in Existential Risks - 3 replies

World On Vege of Deadly Pandemic, US Official Says

2006-05-20T05:35:59Z

Not an existential risk, but certainly cause for considerable concern:

World On Vege of Deadly Pandemic, US Official Says (Globe & Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050221.wboids0221/BNStory/Front/

Washington — The Earth may be on the brink of a worldwide epidemic from a bird flu virus that may mutate to become as deadly and infectious as viruses that killed millions during three influenza pandemics of the 20th century, a federal health official said Monday. Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said scientists expect that a flu virus that has swept through chickens and other poultry in Asia will genetically change into a flu that can be transmitted from person to person. The genes of the avian flu change rapidly, she said, and experts believe it is highly likely that the virus will evolve into a pathogen deadly for humans.

posted in Existential Risks - 20 replies

Avoiding Extinction (X-post)

2006-04-04T19:19:21Z

The Fermi Paradox and Singularities

Robert Pisani
Department of Statistics
University of California
Berkeley, California
robert pisani <r.pisani@mac.com>

There are many billions of galaxies that contain
even more billions of star systems that can support
life. The universe has existed for 13+ billion years,
and the time that humans needed to grow from single
celled creatures to what they are today is just a few
million years, an instant in the life of the universe.
If life is as common as is now thought, we would not
be the first civilization to have arisen in the
universe. Any civilization that has advanced to our
stage must produce radio waves, microwaves, etc. But
we don't find any. Enrico Fermi said, "Where is
everybody?"

It was thought at one point in the 1950's that
nuclear weapons had the potential to end human life on
earth. Knowledgeable insiders assessed the chance of
reaching the 21st Century as "about 50%". Whether or
not such thinking was justified, new technologies like
DNA manipulation and nanotechnology and molecular
manufacturing clearly do have such potential. These
technologies and others could cause extinction of the
human race, and in fact all life on our planet, either
through deliberate application or technical
malfeasance. Following is a framework for beginning
to think rigorously about the Fermi Paradox.

Kurzweil's Law says that technology grows at a
double exponential rate. Denote the level of
technology at time t by yt.

(0) yt = exp(exp(t)).

Given a sequence of times t0 < t1 < t2 < . . .
define
(1) Epoch(n) = the period from tn to tn+1 and
(2) pn = the chance of total annihilation during
Epoch(n)

Assuming that survival chances in different Epochs
are independent, given that a civilization has
survived to the end of Epoch(k-1) and thus the
beginning of Epoch(k), if n „ k the chance that it
will survive until the end of Epoch(n) is:

(3) s(n) = ½ {(1-pi), i = k, n}

And the chance it will survive for an infinite number
of epochs is

(4) lim n ý ƒ s(n) = lim n ý ƒ ½ {(1-pi), i = k, n},
which is greater than 0 if and only if

(5) _ ln (1-pi) converges.

For small p, ln(1-p) ~ - p, so (loosely) for small p,
(5) converges if and only _ pi converges. If (5)
diverges, the probability of ultimate extinction is
1.0.

Let yn = the number of different weapons available at
time n which will cause extinction if used. Certainly
defensive measures against such weapons will also be
available.

If the probability of any given weapon being
applied successfully against all of its defenses in
Epoch(n) is q > 0, then the chance that any given
weapon is not used successfully in Epoch(n) is 1-q,
and the chance that at least one is used successfully,
and the civilization perishes, is pn = 1 - (1-q)x,
where x = yn.

Since ln(1-q) < 0 and yn ý ƒ ,

ln(1 - pn) =ln (1-q)x = x ln(1-q) = yn ln(1-q) ý -
ƒ, and (5) diverges

Suppose that defensive measures yield Epoch(n)
probabilities qn which decline to 0 as n grows larger.
Still, if (5) is to converge, we must have
yn ln(1- qn) ~ - yn qn ý 0.

and to avoid extinction, we must have necessarily (but
not sufficiently)

qn < 1/ yn = 1/exp(exp(n)) for n> n0, some n0

Even more restrictively, we must have
yn qn < 1/n, and thus

qn < 1/nyn = 1/(n exp(exp(n)) for all n larger than
some value.

And so on.

Clearly the qn must decline to 0 very rapidly,
and (0) clearly places an extreme burden on any
program of defense that seeks to avoid the
annihilation of the civilization. Should other
considerations show that such rapid decline is
structurally not possible, (4) will then necessarily
equal 0, explaining the Fermi Paradox.

=========

Discuss...

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Nano-Guns, Nano-Germs, and Nano-Steel

2006-03-29T11:38:20Z

"Within our lifetimes, we are likely to witness battles on a scale never before seen. Powered by molecular manufacturing, near-future wars may threaten our freedom, our way of life, and even our survival..."

This is from "Nano-Guns, Nano-Germs, and Nano-Steel," an essay I wrote for Nanotechnology Perceptions journal. You can read and discuss the article at http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0658.html

A list of other essays in this series is at http://www.crnano.org/CTF-Essays.htm

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Transgenics: the odds of bioengineered barrenness?

2006-02-28T01:25:37Z

I have probably mistitled this category of existential risk.

I was researching transgenic experiments where goats were being altered genetically so that their mammary glands produce spider-silk (dope to be exact...the substance from which spider-silk is spun). To oversimplify, it is done by replacing portions of their DNA (or maybe it was RNA...I dont recall) with spider DNA, and using cloning technology to create the embryos, implant them, and raise the altered goats to become spidersilk factories. Similar experiments have turned goats into medicine producers.

The company doing this (and succeeding) was called Nexia Biotechnologies. I first read about them in the New York Times, and found subsequent material in National Geographic, on the company's own website, and in many other places. Recently the company was bought out, and I am not sure what has happened to the technology since, but it was while researching this form of transgenics that I learned of an existential threat.

While studying transgenics, I learned about the world's seed merchants and companies like Monsanto which controls a vast portion of the world's agricultural seed market. I guess it is no real secret that they have been developing for some time lines of seeds which will grow the desired plant, but in a sterile form. This is because farmers would previously buy only the amount of seed they could not generate from their own crops to replant the following season/cycle. By creating a seed that grows sterile plants, a farmer dependent on that type of seed would be required to buy all his seeds each season/cycle from the seed merchants, enhancing profitability.

The risk is this: plants are known to be highly susceptible to picking up the genetic traits of other plants in their environment. When pollen (and possibly any other transmitter of genetic code) from a foreign plant is received it is not simply ignored. Evidently the receiving plant makes some analysis of the genetic data, perhaps to pick up new traits like disease resistance, environmental hardiness, pest repellant capability, etc, and then mimics some of these traits in the next generation of its own seeds. I dont know if this process is a somewhat random one like might have been imitated in studies of 'digital evolution' done at Yale and elsewhere (where AI creates and recreates technological components with various random mods, testing each successive batch for improvement and then continuing to use only the improved designs as the base models for the next generations) or a more purposeful one...but the result is that plants around the sterile ones are at risk of picking up the sterile genes and producing a generation of sterile seeds. You may have heard more about this type of risk from farmers trying to maintain the purity of their 'organic' strains in fields near gentically altered crops...and failing.

Granted, the risk of spreading a 'sterile gene' widely is probably reduced by the fact that each successful generation of such plants should die out on its own. But if a 'super-contagious' version of this gene were developed/evolved that transmitted to all plants (or even just a smal but significant percentage of species) it could result in a rapid ecological meltdown wherein most of our food and oxygen producing plants could no longer reproduce. Even if that terrible case scenario seems far-fetched, there are other ways this type of risk could be a factor, especially in combination with other existential risks.

For example, if as a result of bio-terrorism or commercial warfare, a nation or corporation were able to reduce its competitors infrastructure to dependency on others by either introducing a disease that only their technology could cure or prevent (much as many seeds are now engineered to resist various pesticides/herbicides/diseases/etc)...we would be much closer to facing such an existential threat.

Obviously I am not quite at the same level of either understanding or ability to communicate the facts in this category of threat, but I am surprised we havent seen it discussed here as much as some things like nanotechnology, since the technology to create these types of genetic strains basically already exists...the only question is whether the morality/ethical restraint is present enough to prevent it from being used or if the only reason it hasnt 'cropped up' is that we are just one or two tweaks away from making such ventures profitable or strategic enough to be implemented against a target.

I would love to hear more on this topic from others involved in this forum who are more advanced and informed than myself.

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Asteroid Apophis to possibly hit Earth in 2036

2006-01-21T00:35:49Z

t's called Apophis. It's 390m wide. And it could hit Earth in 31 years time

Scientists call for plans to change asteroid's path. Developing technology could take decades.

Entire article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1660485,00.html

posted in Existential Risks - 14 replies

Bioterrorism — Preparing to Fight the Next War

2006-01-16T21:17:39Z

Bioterrorism — Preparing to Fight the Next War
David A. Relman, M.D.
The New England Journal of Medicine
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/2/113

"How well founded is this heightened concern about bioterrorism? If it is justified, how can we best allocate our intellectual, technical, and financial resources, given the imminent dangers from avian influenza and other natural threats? On what principles should we build a biodefense strategy?"

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Tipler on Antimatter weapons

2006-01-08T03:19:54Z

[I caught this on Edge.org]
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_4.html

FRANK TIPLER: Why I Hope the Standard Model is Wrong about Why There is More Matter Than Antimatter
Professor of Mathematical Physics, Tulane University; Author, The Physics of Immortality

The Standard Model of particle physics — a theory of all forces and particles except gravity and a theory that has survived all tests over the past thirty years — says it is possible to convert matter entirely into energy. Old-fashioned nuclear physics allows some matter to be converted into energy, but because nuclear physics requires the number of heavy particles like neutrons and protons, and light particles like electrons, to be separately conserved in nuclear reactions, only a small fraction (less than 1%) of the mass of the uranium or plutonium in an atomic bomb can be converted into energy. The Standard Model says that there is a way to convert all the mass of ordinary matter into energy; for example, it is in principle possible to convert the proton and electron making up a hydrogen atom entirely into energy. Particle physicists have long known about this possibility, but have considered it forever irrelevant to human technology because the energy required to convert matter into pure energy via this process is at the very limit of our most powerful accelerators (a trillion electron volts, or one TeV).

I am very much afraid that the particle physicists are wrong about this Standard Model pure energy conversion process being forever irrelevant to human affairs. I have recently come to believe that the consistency of quantum field theory requires that it should be possible to convert up to 100 kilograms of ordinary matter into pure energy via this process using a device that could fit inside the trunk of a car, a device that could be manufactured in a small factory. Such a device would solve all our energy problems — we would not need fossil fuels — but 100 kilograms of energy is the energy released by a 1,000-megaton nuclear bomb. If such a bomb can be manufactured in a small factory, then terrorists everywhere will eventually have such weapons. I fear for the human race if this comes to pass. I very hope I am wrong about the technological feasibility of such a bomb.

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

SETI's Vakoch: Reacting to Disaster

2006-01-06T15:51:34Z

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_vakoch_react_060105.html

The scenario is familiar from Hollywood blockbusters like Armageddon and Deep Impact. A massive asteroid—perhaps ten miles in diameter—is headed straight for Earth. An all-out effort to deflect it is mounted. If the mission succeeds, civilization as we know it will continue.

But if natural human reactions to threats interfere, the ending could be far from uplifting. If fear and denial postpone an adequate response, dust and debris could make the daytime sky look like night, the Earth’s surface could be razed by a global firestorm, and tsunamis could obliterate coastal cities.

In theory, threats from space may be detected far in advance of their arrival, giving plenty of time to deflect them or at least prepare for the aftermath. But that’s in theory. "What we may actually get," says psychologist Albert Harrison, "is an obsessive focus on a very constricted range of options, a refusal to consider or integrate new data, defensiveness that prevents decision makers from appreciating threats and developing alternatives, and panicky, ineffective last-minute choices."

More:
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_vakoch_react_060105.html

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Space Weapons and the Risk of Accidental Nuclear War

2005-12-25T03:46:54Z

Space Weapons and the Risk of Accidental Nuclear War
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/Dec-spaceweapons.asp

The United States and Russia maintain thousands of nuclear warheads on long-range ballistic missiles on 15-minute alert. Once launched, they cannot be recalled, and they will strike their targets in roughly 30 minutes. Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, the chance of an accidental nuclear exchange has far from decreased. Yet, the United States may be contemplating further exacerbating this threat by deploying missile interceptors in space.

posted in Existential Risks - 2 replies

Kurzweil's and Joy's 'Recipe for Destruction'

2005-12-20T03:54:16Z

I missed this back when it was published in the NYT in October 2005: Recipe for Destruction by Ray Kurzweil and Bill Joy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/opinion/17kurzweiljoy.html?ex=1135141200&en=661ce78eff23c88e&ei=5070

In this opinion piece, Kurzweil and Joy condemn the United States Department of Health and Human Services for publishing the full genome of the 1918 influenza virus on the Internet in the GenBank database. "This is extremely foolish," they write, "The genome is essentially the design of a weapon of mass destruction. No responsible scientist would advocate publishing precise designs for an atomic bomb, and in two ways revealing the sequence for the flu virus is even more dangerous."

First, Kurzweil and Joy believe it's much easier to recreate the virus than to build an atomic bomb, and secondly, they argue that the release of the virus would be far worse than an atomic bomb. "Analyses have shown that the detonation of an atomic bomb in an American city could kill as many as one million people," they write, "Release of a highly communicable and deadly biological virus could kill tens of millions, with some estimates in the hundreds of millions."

To deal with the situation they call for the development of international agreements by scientific organizations to help limit such publications and an international dialogue on the best approach to preventing recipes for weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands. Kurzweil and Joy also argue for a "new Manhattan Project" to develop specific defenses against any biological viral threats (like harnessing RNA interference, for example).

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Nature Article: Is a doomsday catastrophe likely?

2005-12-12T14:16:47Z

NATURE|Vol 438|8 December 2005
ASTROPHYSICS

Is a doomsday catastrophe likely?

The risk of a doomsday scenario in which high-energy physics experiments trigger the destruction of the Earth has been estimated to be minuscule1. But this may give a false sense of security: the fact that the Earth has survived for so long does not necessarily mean that such disasters are unlikely, because observers are, by definition, in places that have avoided destruction. Here we derive a new upper bound of one per billion years (99.9% confidence level) for the exogenous terminal-catastrophe rate that is free of such selection bias, using calculations based on the relatively late formation time of Earth.
Fears that heavy-ion collisions at the Brook-haven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider might initiate a catastrophic destruction of Earth have

The catastrophe timescale cannot be very short. The probability distribution is shown for observed planet-formation times, assuming catastrophe timescales, , of 1, 2 ,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Gyr and infinity (shaded yellow), respectively (from left to right). The probability of observing a formation time 9.1 Gyr for Earth (area to the right of the dotted line) drops below 0.001 for 1.1 Gyr.
focused on three possible scenarios: a transition to a lower vacuum state that propagates outwards from its source at the speed of light2; formation of a black hole or gravitational singularity that accretes ordinary matter2; or creation of a stable ‘strangelet’ that accretes ordinary matter and converts it to strange matter3. A careful study1 concluded that these hypothetical scenarios are overwhelmingly more likely to be triggered by natural high-energy astrophysical events, such as cosmic-ray collisions, than by the Brookhaven collider.
Given that life on Earth has survived for nearly 4 billion years (4 Gyr), it might be assumed that natural catastrophic events are extremely rare. Unfortunately, this argument is flawed because it fails to take into account an observation-selection effect4,5, whereby observers are precluded from noting anything other than that their own species has survived up to the point when the observation is made. If it takes at least 4.6 Gyr for intelligent observers to arise, then the mere observation that Earth has survived for this duration cannot even give us grounds for rejecting with 99% confidence the hypothesis that the average cosmic neighbourhood is typically sterilized, say, every 1,000 years. The observation-selection effect guarantees that we would find ourselves in a lucky situation, no matter how frequent the sterilization events.
Figure 1 indicates how we derive an upper bound on the cosmic catastrophe frequency 1 that is free from such observer-selection bias. The idea is that if catastrophes were very frequent, then almost all intelligent civilizations would have arisen much earlier than ours. Using data on planet-formation rates6, the distribution of birth dates for intelligent species

can be calculated under different assumptions about the rate of cosmic sterilization. Combining this with information about our own temporal location enables us to conclude that the cosmic sterilization rate for a habitable planet is, at most, of the order of 1 per 1.1 Gyr at 99.9% confidence. Taking into account the fact that no other planets in our Solar System have yet been converted to black holes or strange mat-1–3 further tightens our constraints on black hole and strangelet disasters. (For details, see supplementary information.)
This bound does not apply in general to disasters that become possible only after certain technologies have been developed — for example, nuclear annihilation or extinction through engineered microorganisms — so we still have plenty to worry about. However, our bound does apply to exogenous catastrophes (for example, those that are spontaneous or triggered by cosmic rays) whose frequency is uncorrelated with human activities, as long as they cause permanent sterilization. Using the results of the Brookhaven analysis1, the bound also implies that the risk from present-day particle accelerators is reassuringly small: say, less than 10 12 per year.

Max Tegmark*, Nick Bostrom† *Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA e-mail:tegmark@mit.edu

†Future of Humanity Institute, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 4JJ, UK
1.
Jaffe, R. L., Busza, W., Sandweiss, J. & Wilczek, F. Rev .Mod. Phys. 72, 1125–1140 (2000).

2.
Hut, P. & Rees, M. J. Nature 302, 508-509 (1983).

3.
Dar, A. & De Rujula, A. Phys.Lett. B 470, 142–148 (1999).

4.
Carter, B. in IAU Symposium 63 (ed. Longair, M. S.) 291–298 (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1974).

5.
Bostrom, N. Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy (Routledge, New York, 2002).

6.
Lineweaver, C. H., Fenner, Y. & Gibson, B. K. Science 203, 59–62 (2004).

Supplementary information accompanies this communication on Nature’s website. Competing financial interests: declared none. doi:10.1038/438754a
CORRIGENDUM
Avian flu: Isolation of drug-resistant H5N1 virus
Q. Mai Le, Maki Kiso, Kazuhiko Someya,
Yuko T. Sakai, T. Hien Nguyen, Khan H. L. Nguyen,

N. Dinh Pham, Ha H. Ngyen, Shinya Yamada,
Yukiko Muramoto, Taisuke Horimoto, Ayato Takada,
Hideo Goto, Takashi Suzuki, Yasuo Suzuki,
Yoshihiro Kawaoka
Nature 437, 1108 (2005)

We omitted the accession numbers for the sequences of the A/Hanoi/30408/2005 clones, which are registered in the DNA Data Bank of Japan. These are: AB239125 20051020120345.25409 for the haemagglutinin gene in clone 9; and AB239126 20051020122743.63420 for the neuraminidase gene in clone 7.
doi:10.1038/438754b

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS ARISING online
. www.nature.com/bca see Nature contents.
©2005 Nature Publishing Group

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Weather War

2005-11-01T03:07:56Z

Sorry about making this a multiple posting but I consider the subject too important.

I first presented this idea informally on Gina's forum back in '99 and again later in 2000. I have talked only slightly about it because I consider exactly what is described in this article to be leading to disaster.

I consider weather modification done by any single nation to be a de facto act of aggression because there is no way that weather modification is not going to have global consequence. But of course I consider it possible and ironically these folks have most of it correct. It is a very similar approach to what I have already suggested way back when.

There are many aspects of this article that are over simplistic or gross generalizations but the basic idea of using remotely controlled nanoparticles to seed and control cloud charge is valid. The *smart dust* could be field manipulated by ground transmitters and powered by a number of different forces from electrostatic and solar to chemical.

The point is that no one makes it rain in one place without a consequence somewhere else and this technology absolutely needs to be controlled by global governance or it will lead to conflict not resolve it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20051031/sc_space/usmilitarywantstoowntheweather

U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather

Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
SPACE.com
Mon Oct 31,10:00 AM ET

The one-two hurricane punch from Katrina and Wilma along with predictions of more severe weather in the future has scientists pondering ways to save lives, protect property and possibly even control the weather.

While efforts to tame storms have so far been clouded by failure, some researchers aren’t willing to give up the fight. And even if changing the weather proves overly challenging, residents and disaster officials can do a better job planning and reacting.

In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.

While some consider the idea far fetched, some military tacticians have already pondered ways to turn weather into a weapon.

Harbinger of things to come?

The U.S. military reaction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that slammed the U.S. Gulf coast might be viewed as a harbinger of things to come. While in this case it was joint air and space operations to deal with after-the-fact problems, perhaps the foundation for how to fend off disastrous weather may also be forming.

Numbers of spaceborne assets were tapped, among them:

Navigation and timing signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) of satellites;
The Global Broadcast Service, a one-way, space-based, high-capacity broadcast communication system;
The Army’s Spectral Operations Resource Center to exploit commercial remote sensing satellite imagery and prepare high-resolution images to civilian and military responders to permit a better understanding of the devastated terrain;
U.S. Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites that compared "lights at night" images before and after the disaster to provide data on human activity.

Is it far-fetched to see in this response the embryonic stages of an integrated military/civilian weather reaction and control system?

Mandate to continually improve

The use of space-based equipment to assist in clean-up operations -- with a look toward future prospects -- was recently noted by General Lance Lord, Commander, Air Force Space Command at an October 20th Pacific Space Leadership Forum in Hawaii.

"We saw first hand the common need for space after the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean," Lord said. "Natural disasters don’t respect international boundaries. Space capabilities were leveraged immediately after the tsunami to help in the search and rescue effort…but what about before the disaster?"

Lord said that an even better situation is to have predicted the coming disaster and warned those in harm’s way. "No matter what your flag or where you waive it from...the possibility of saving hundreds of thousands of people is a mandate to continually improve," he advised.

The U.S. Air Force is also looking at ways to make satellites and satellite launches cheaper and also reduce the amount of time it takes to launch into space from months to weeks to days and hours, Lord said. Having that capability will increase responsiveness to international needs, he said, such as the ability to send up a satellite to help collect information and enhance communications when dealing with international disasters.

Thunderbolts on demand

What would a military strategist gain in having an "on-switch" to the weather?

Clearly, it offers the ability to degrade the effectiveness of enemy forces. That could come from flooding an opponent’s encampment or airfield to generating downright downpours that disrupt enemy troop comfort levels. On the flipside, sparking a drought that cuts off fresh water can stir up morale problems for warfighting foes.

Even fooling around with fog and clouds can deny or create concealment – whichever weather manipulation does the needed job.

In this regard, nanotechnology could be utilized to create clouds of tiny smart particles. Atmospherically buoyant, these ultra-small computer particles could navigate themselves to block optical sensors. Alternatively, they might be used to provide an atmospheric electrical potential difference -- a way to precisely aim and time lightning strikes over the enemy’s head – thereby concoct thunderbolts on demand.

Perhaps that’s too far out for some. But some blue sky thinkers have already looked into these and other scenarios in "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" – a research paper written by a seven person team of military officers and presented in 1996 as part of a larger study dubbed Air Force 2025.

Global stresses

That report came with requisite disclaimers, such as the views expressed were those of the authors and didn’t reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States government. Furthermore, the report was flagged as containing fictional representations of future situations and scenarios.

On the other hand, Air Force 2025 was a study that complied with a directive from the chief of staff of the Air Force "to examine the concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the dominant air and space force in the future."

"Current technologies that will mature over the next 30 years will offer anyone who has the necessary resources the ability to modify weather patterns and their corresponding effects, at least on the local scale," the authors of the report explained. "Current demographic, economic, and environmental trends will create global stresses that provide the impetus necessary for many countries or groups to turn this weather-modification ability into a capability."

Pulling it all together

The report on weather-altering ideas underscored the capacity to harness such power in the not too distant future.

"Assuming that in 2025 our national security strategy includes weather-modification, its use in our national military strategy will naturally follow. Besides the significant benefits an operational capability would provide, another motivation to pursue weather-modification is to deter and counter potential adversaries," the report stated. "The technology is there, waiting for us to pull it all together," the authors noted.

In 2025, the report summarized, U.S. aerospace forces can "own the weather" by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications.

"Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible. It provides opportunities to impact operations across the full spectrum of conflict and is pertinent to all possible futures," the report concluded.

But if whipping up weather can be part of a warfighter’s tool kit, couldn’t those talents be utilized to retarget or neutralize life, limb and property-destroying storms?

All-weather worries

"It is time to provide funds for application of the scientific method to weather modification and control," said Bernard Eastlund, chief technical officer and founder of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation in San Diego, California.

Eastlund’s background is in plasma physics and commercial applications of microwave plasmas. At a lecture early this month at Penn State Lehigh Campus in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, he outlined new concepts for electromagnetic wave interactions with the atmosphere that, among a range of jobs, could be applied to weather modification research.

"The technology of artificial ionospheric heating could be as important for weather modification research as accelerators have been for particle physics," Eastlund explained.

In September, Eastland filed a patent on a way to create artificial ionized plasma patterns with megawatts of power using inexpensive microwave power sources. This all-weather technique, he noted, can be used to heat specific regions of the atmosphere.

Eastlund’s research is tuned to artificial generation of acoustic and gravitational waves in the atmosphere. The heating of steering winds to help shove around mesocyclones and hurricanes, as well as controlling electrical conductivity of the atmosphere is also on his investigative agenda.

Carefully tailored program plan

Eastlund said that the reduction in severity or impact of severe weather could be demonstrated as part of a carefully tailored program plan.

"In my opinion, the new technology for use of artificial plasma layers in the atmosphere: as heater elements to modify steering winds, as a modifier of electrostatic potential to influence lightning distribution, and for generation of acoustic and gravitational waves, could ultimately provide a core technology for a science of severe weather modification," Eastlund told SPACE.com.

The first experiments of a program, Eastlund emphasized, would be very small, and designed for safety. For example, a sample of air in a jet stream could be heated with a pilot experimental installation. Such experiments would utilize relatively small amounts of power, between one and ten megawatts, he pointed out.

Both ground-based and space weather diagnostic instruments could measure the effect. Computer simulations could compare these results with predicted effects. This process can be iterated until reliable information is obtained on the effects of modifying the wind.

Computer simulations of hurricanes, Eastlund continued, are designed to determine the most important wind fields in hurricane formation. Computer simulations of mesocyclones use steering wind input data to predict severe storm development.

After about 5 years of such research, and further development of weather codes, a pilot experiment to modify the steering winds of a mesocylone might be safely attempted. Such an experiment would probably require 50 to 100 megawatts, Eastlund speculated.

"I estimate this new science of weather modification will take 10 to 20 years to mature to the point where it is useful for controlling the severity and impact of severe weather systems as large as hurricanes," Eastlund explained.

Inadvertent effects?

Another reason for embarking on this new science could be to make sure inadvertent effects of existing projects, such as the heating of the ionosphere and modifications of the polar electrojet, are not having effects on weather, Eastlund stated.

As example, Eastlund pointed to the High frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). This is a major Arctic facility for upper atmospheric and solar-terrestrial research, being built on a Department of Defense-owned site near Gakona, Alaska.

Eastlund wonders if HAARP does, in fact, generate gravity waves. If so, can those waves in turn influence severe weather systems?

Started in 1990, the unclassified HAARP program is jointly managed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research. Researchers at the site make use of a high-power ionospheric research instrument to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere for scientific study, observing and measuring the excited region using a suite of devices.

The fundamental goal of research conducted at the facility is to study and understand natural phenomena occurring in the Earth’s ionosphere and near-space environment. According to the HAARP website, those scientific investigations will have major value in the design of future communication and navigation systems for both military and civilian use.

Messing with Mother Nature

Who best to have their hands on the weather control switches?

The last large hurricane modification experiments -- under Project Stormfury -- were carried out by the U.S. Air Force, Eastlund said. "It is likely the Department of Defense would be the lead agency in any new efforts in severe storm modification."

Additionally, federal laboratories with their extensive computational modeling skills would also play a lead role in the development of a science of weather modification. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would find their respective niches too. The satellite diagnostic capabilities in those agencies would play a strong role, Eastlund suggested.

It appears that only modest amounts of government dollars have been spent on weather modification over the last five years.

"Hurricane Katrina could cost $300 billion by itself," Eastlund said. "In my opinion, it is time for a serious scientific effort in weather modification."

"Global warming appears to be a reality, and records could continue to fall in the hurricane severity sweepstakes," Eastlund said. "When I first suggested the use of space-based assets for the prevention of tornadoes, many people expressed their displeasure with ‘messing with Mother Nature’. I still remember hiding in the closet of our house in Houston as a tornado passed overhead. It is time for serious, controlled research, with the emphasis on safety, for the good of mankind," he concluded.

This article is part of SPACE.com's weekly Mystery Monday series.

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

mother of all huricanes

2005-10-19T18:33:32Z

hi thos of you with memories longer than a gold fish may remember a post i placed here back April this year..... "the mother, son and daughter of all hurricanes... ???? (i've droped the PC crap cos I don't feel the need to humour you any more)

in that post I warned you that the USA was likely to be in a major state oof emergency due to the verocity of this autumns hurricanes.... because of the complete apathy (utter ignorance in truth) that i rec with regard to some of my postings i deleted the thread.... perhaps the following will WAKE SOME OF YOU UP!!!!!! IF not the hurricanes will.... take a look at this :

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4671535.stm

whilst i appreciate that many of you here are bored and post just random opinion some of us are very much aware of the changes that are a foot and the implications those changes will have....

Each time you are warned you laugh.... why do you so chase your own destruction?

regards,
greenman23 (still in Asia, still in communication with the "higher beings" and still ahead of you!)

posted in Existential Risks - 9 replies

Social Darwinism & the Orwellian Threat

2005-07-10T04:50:06Z

I don't define the most dangerous existential risk that we face in this age the "Orwellian Threat" for nothing. Check out.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/22048/

Spy vs. Spy

By Bill Piper, AlterNet. Posted May 18, 2005.

Proposed legislation would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, forcing all Americans to become foot soldiers in the war on drugs.

Neighbors spying on neighbors? Mothers forced to turn in their sons or daughters? These are images straight out of George Orwell's 1984, or a remote totalitarian state. We don't associate them with the land of the free and the home of the brave, but that doesn't mean they couldn't happen here. A senior congressman, James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is working quietly but efficiently to turn the entire United States population into informants--by force.

Sensenbrenner, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman, has introduced legislation that would essentially draft every American into the war on drugs. H.R. 1528, cynically named "Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act," would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, and even go undercover and wear a wire if needed. If a person resisted, he or she would face mandatory incarceration. (excerpt)

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Clear evidence for the destruction of global biodiversity

2005-06-04T21:22:58Z

New UN satellite atlas details a comparative study over thirty years.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1384632.htm

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8086902/

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=85754&cat=World

http://www.gpa.unep.org/oceans.htm

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Super Predators

2005-06-03T04:27:52Z

Before getting to the meat of this article (sorry I just couldn't resist) I should add that this article raises questions that make it appropriate to post in this tribe under the Orwellian Threat and an aspect of inherent Environmental Economics.

I also want to address an aspect of nature that should be understood has been at work for millions of years but the results of it may be interesting.

The paradigm of predation can be viewed as a meme governing behavior from an adaptation model for evolutionary biology.

********

Super-predator is regular visitor
Thursday June 2, 2005
The Guardian

Fossil records show that around every 26m years, a mass extinction occurs on Earth, wiping out millions of species and leaving only a few hardy survivors.

Many scientists have blamed these regular catastrophic culls on meteorite bombardments. But now a paper in Physical Review E suggests that the cause could lie much closer to home.

Adam Lipowski, a physicist from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, has developed a computer model which shows that periodic mass extinctions could be caused by the evolution of a "super-predator". Most of the time, the model is populated by medium efficiency predators, but every so often genetic mutations lead to the evolution of a highly efficient beast.

"This super-predator is a fast-consuming species and it quickly decimates the population of preys, which in turn leads to its own decline," he explains. Any creatures that survive this destruction gradually mutate to fill the new ecological niches and the cycle starts afresh.

So are humans the latest super-predator? "It is the feeling that we have, but our model is too abstract to say this for sure," says Lipowski.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/dispatch/story/0,12978,1496843,00.html

It is very intriguing from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.

Is there a paradigm of predator mentality that is logically selected for by evolution but also self limiting by virtue of its behavior?

Sentience by itself cannot necessarily be considered anything more than a degree of sophistication for the predator paradigm and it follows that the species would compete on a relatively level playing field against itself thus mitigating some of the benefits of sentience.

However there is also an alternative idea that humans are coming late (as a species) to the adoption of the paradigm of being a predator and because of their more socialized roots as an pack omnivore may offer a slight alteration on previous adapted evolutionary models. Nevertheless modern extreme forms of social capitalism could be viewed as inherently predatory in their memetic structure.

It will be interesting to see how the computer model plays into compounding risk of extinction with climactic, volcanic, and extraterrestrial hazard. The mass extinctions have occurred more frequently than specifically identified events and there are gaps in the models for such events that have never really been reconciled. The combination of the two could answer a lot of questions.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Sinking Globalization

2005-04-18T23:16:41Z

Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University, asks:

"Could globalization collapse? It may seem unlikely today. Yet despite many warnings, people were shocked the last time globalization crumbled, with the onslaught of World War I. Like today, that period was marked by imperial overstretch, great-power rivalry, unstable alliances, rogue regimes, and terrorist organizations. And the world is no better prepared for calamity now."

"Ninety years ago this May, the German submarine U-20 sank the Cunard liner Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland. Nearly 1,200 people, including 128 Americans, lost their lives. Usually remembered for the damage it did to the image of imperial Germany in the United States, the sinking of the Lusitania also symbolized the end of the first age of globalization.

From around 1870 until World War I, the world economy thrived in ways that look familiar today. The mobility of commodities, capital, and labor reached record levels; the sea-lanes and telegraphs across the Atlantic had never been busier, as capital and migrants traveled west and raw materials and manufactures traveled east. In relation to output, exports of both merchandise and capital reached volumes not seen again until the 1980s. Total emigration from Europe between 1880 and 1910 was in excess of 25 million. People spoke euphorically of 'the annihilation of distance.'

Then, between 1914 and 1918, a horrendous war stopped all of this, sinking globalization. Nearly 13 million tons of shipping were sent to the bottom of the ocean by German submarine attacks. International trade, investment, and migration all collapsed. Moreover, the attempt to resuscitate the world economy after the war's end failed. The global economy effectively disintegrated with the onset of the Great Depression and, after that, with an even bigger world war, in which astonishingly high proportions of production went toward perpetrating destruction.

It may seem excessively pessimistic to worry that this scenario could somehow repeat itself--that our age of globalization could collapse just as our grandparents' did. But it is worth bearing in mind that, despite numerous warnings issued in the early twentieth century about the catastrophic consequences of a war among the European great powers, many people--not least investors, a generally well-informed class--were taken completely by surprise by the outbreak of World War I. The possibility is as real today as it was in 1915 that globalization, like the Lusitania, could be sunk.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

The last age of globalization resembled the current one in numerous ways. It was characterized by relatively free trade, limited restrictions on migration, and hardly any regulation of capital flows. Inflation was low. A wave of technological innovation was revolutionizing the communications and energy sectors; the world first discovered the joys of the telephone, the radio, the internal combustion engine, and paved roads. The U.S. economy was the biggest in the world, and the development of its massive internal market had become the principal source of business innovation. China was opening up, raising all kinds of expectations in the West, and Russia was growing rapidly.

World War I wrecked all of this. Global markets were disrupted and disconnected, first by economic warfare, then by postwar protectionism. Prices went haywire: a number of major economies (Germany's among them) suffered from both hyperinflation and steep deflation in the space of a decade. The technological advances of the 1900s petered out: innovation hit a plateau, and stagnating consumption discouraged the development of even existing technologies such as ..."

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050301faessay84207/niall-ferguson/sinking-globalization.html

See also:
http://divedi.blogspot.com/2005/03/sinking-globalization.html

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Life At Risk When Star Exploded?

2005-04-10T14:36:27Z

Life At Risk When Star Exploded?
Astrobiology
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1516&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Terrestrial Climate History Scientists at NASA and the University of Kansas say that a mass extinction on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago could have been triggered by a star explosion called a gamma-ray burst. The scientists do not have direct evidence that such a burst activated the ancient extinction.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Moyers: Welcome to Doomsday

2005-03-20T21:12:34Z

Welcome to Doomsday
By Bill Moyers
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17852

1.

There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power. We are witnessing today a coupling of ideology and theology that threatens our ability to meet the growing ecological crisis. Theology asserts propositions that need not be proven true, while ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The combination can make it impossible for a democracy to fashion real-world solutions to otherwise intractable challenges.

In the just-concluded election cycle, as Mark Silk writes in Religion in the News,

the assiduous cultivation of religious constituencies by the Bush apparat, and the undisguised intrusion of evangelical leaders and some conservative Catholic hierarchs into the presidential campaign, demonstrated that the old rule of maintaining a decent respect for the nonpartisanship of religion can now be broken with impunity.

The result is what the Italian scholar Emilio Gentile, quoted in Silk's newsletter, calls "political religion"—religion as an instrument of political combat. On gay marriage and abortion— the most conspicuous of the "non-negotiable" items in a widely distributed Catholic voter's guide—no one should be surprised what this political religion portends. The agenda has been foreshadowed for years, ever since Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other right-wing Protestants set out to turn white evangelicals into a solid Republican voting bloc and reached out to make allies of their former antagonists, conservative Catholics.

What has been less apparent is the impact of the new political religion on environmental policy. Evangelical Christians have been divided. Some were indifferent. The majority of conservative evangelicals, on the other hand, have long hooked their view to the account in the first book of the Bible:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

There are widely varying interpretations of this text, but it is safe to say that all presume human beings have inherited the earth to be used as they see fit. For many, God's gift to Adam and Eve of "dominion" over the earth and all its creatures has been taken as the right to unlimited exploitation. But as Blaine Harden reported recently in The Washington Post, some evangelicals are beginning to "go for the green." Last October the National Association of Evangelicals adopted an "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," affirming that "God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part." The declaration acknowledged that for the sake of clean air, clean water, and adequate resources, the government "has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."

But even for green activists in evangelical circles, Harden wrote, "there are landmines."

Welcome to the Rapture!

more: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17852

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Playing with fire?

2005-03-20T17:18:45Z

Black hole-like phenomenon created by collider
New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18524915.400

A fireball created in a particle accelerator bears a striking resemblance to a black hole - but thankfully not the sort that could consume the Earth

A FIREBALL created in a particle accelerator bears a striking similarity to a black hole. But don't panic: even if the controversial claim is true, it is not the sort of black hole that would cause Earth to disappear in a puff of radiation.

At the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, beams of gold nuclei travelling at close to the speed of light are smashed into each other. The intense heat of the collision breaks down the nuclei into quarks and gluons, the most basic building blocks of all normal matter. These particles form a ball of plasma about 300 million times hotter than the surface of the sun (New Scientist, 16 October 2004, p 35).

The fireball, which lasts a mere 10-23 seconds, can be detected because it absorbs jets of particles produced by the collision. But 10 times as many ...

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

How to Destroy the Earth

2005-03-15T03:10:31Z

Not quite sure what to make of this:
http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html

posted in Existential Risks - 4 replies

Mass extinction comes every 62 million years, UC physicists discover

2005-03-12T20:14:21Z

"With surprising and mysterious regularity, life on Earth has flourished and vanished in cycles of mass extinction every 62 million years, say two UC Berkeley scientists who discovered the pattern after a painstaking computer study of fossil records going back for more than 500 million years."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/10/MNGFIBN6PO1.DTL

See also:
http://divedi.blogspot.com/2005/03/mass-extinction-comes-every-62-million.html

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Behold the rise and fall of alien civilizations

2005-03-12T14:00:35Z

"The Fermi Paradox which contrasts the 100% probability of life and intelligence developing on Earth against the thunderous silence from the heavens so far (no alien signals) may be resolved by four things: One, gamma ray bursters which may have effectively prohibited the development of sentient races until only the last 200 million years; Two, the lengthy gestation period required for the emergence of intelligence (which almost requires the entire useful lifespan of a given planet, based on our own biography); Three, the need for an unusually high measure of stability in terms of climate over hundreds of millions of years (the 'Goldilocks' scenario, enabled by a huge natural satellite like our Moon moderating the tilt of a planet's axis, as well as gas giants parked in proper orbits to mop up excess comets and asteroids to reduce impact frequencies for a living world); and Four, an extremely dangerous 600 year or so 'gauntlet' of challenges and risks most any technological society must survive to become a viable long term resident of the galaxy (i.e. getting a critical mass of population and technology off their home world, among other things). That 600 year period may be equivalent to our own span between 1900 AD and 2500 AD, wherein we'll have to somehow dodge the bullets of cosmic impacts, nuclear, biological, and nanotechnological war, terrorism, mistakes, and accidents, as well as food or energy starvation, economic collapse, and many other threats, both natural and unnatural. So far it appears (according to SETI results and other scientific discoveries) extremely few races likely survive all these. So why haven't we heard from those which have? What are they like? And how far away might they be?"

http://www.jrmooneyham.com/ctcta.html

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Assessing risks, prevention and costs

2005-03-05T17:00:49Z

What is Richard Posner So Afraid Of?
The high cost of the falling sky
by Ronald Bailey
http://www.reason.com/links/links030305.shtml

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Armageddon Online | Super Volcanoes, Nuclear Warfare, Mega Tsunamis, Asteroid Impacts, World War III, End of the World scenarios...

2005-03-04T17:11:06Z

"This website is not just about the possibility of Armageddon -- Extinction Level Events -- but to explore the anomalies of the known world and universe. From super volcanoes and mega tsunamis on Earth to stars collapsing and exploding into hypernovae across the galaxy, these are the most destructive forces in the universe. Everything you never wanted to know.

More significantly, we examine the human equation. We literally have created more reasons to bring about a cataclysmic event just in the past 200 years. We experiment with viruses, chemicals, and the biggest of all fears... nuclear weapons. This site was not created with an intent to scream, 'This is the end.'

This website was designed to educate people on some mysteries of our cosmos and also to share the possibilities, or situations that could result in the end of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. We are not making any predictions, but exploring the predictions of others and approaching the topics objectively. Every article we provide is based on extensive research of the subjects."

http://www.armageddononline.org

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Monster star burst detected

2005-02-23T10:36:06Z

Monster star burst detected
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200502/s1306451.htm

As you read the article, just ponder for a moment what it means when they say, "releasing more energy in a 10th of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years."

===

Stunned astronomers have described the greatest cosmic explosion ever monitored - a star burst from the other side of the galaxy that was briefly brighter than the full Moon and swamped satellites and telescopes.

The high-radiation flash, detected last December 27, caused no harm to earth but would have literally fried the planet had it occurred within a few light years of home.

Normally reserved skywatchers struggled for superlatives.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event," said Rob Fender of Britain's Southampton University.

"We have observed an object only 20 kilometres across, on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a 10th of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years."

"It was the mother of all magnetic flares - a true monster," said Kevin Hurley, a research physicist at the University of California at Berkeley.

posted in Existential Risks - 3 replies

The Coming Energy Crisis or Peak Oil

2005-02-19T04:49:38Z

"Fertilizer, DVDs, rubber, cheap flights, plastics and metals. None of these things have anything in common, right? Think again. An ingredient in all of them, in one form or another, is oil.

Oil is the precious primer of the world economic engine, making it hum. Oil provides 40% of the world's energy needs, and nearly 90% of all transportation. It's also a building block for many products and goods. Cut supplies of this natural resource and life as we know it could change.

But while some experts say the world runs no risk of running out of oil, others disagree. Sounding the alarm is the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Its president is Kjell Aleklett, a physics professor at Sweden's Upsalla University.

'[During] the next 30 years we will find more than 150, maybe 200, but probably not, but 150 billion barrels of oil is roughly what you're going to find,' Aleklett said. 'And during the same period, we will consume 1,000 [billion barrels of oil]. So that means we are now digging deep into the reserves we have at the moment.'

Aleklett is among a group of international experts - ex-oil executives and geologists - who believe there is less oil percolating under the ground than the oil industry acknowledges. They say the world has burned up nearly half of all its oil - an estimated 900 billion barrels of crude.

In industry jargon, that halfway point is the 'peak', after which reserves no longer rise but drop. No one denies this will happen eventually. After all, oil is a finite resource. But these oil skeptics - so-called 'peak' oil analysts - say the 'peak' is coming sooner rather than later, maybe even in 2008. They paint a gloomy picture: falling oil supplies plus rising demand will equal shortages - and perhaps a rising risk of war."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GA26Dj04.html

See also:
http://divedi.blogspot.com/2005/02/coming-energy-crisis-or-peak-oil.html

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Disease!!!

2005-02-12T12:37:58Z

My money(though it will be worthless long before I can collect) is on a plague of some sort, a viral threat that spreads at the speed of culture. Every civilization in history has been defeated, ultimately, by population loss due to parasitical infection. For more, read William MacNeill's excellent 'Plagues and Peoples' (1976) or the much more wry 'Rats, Lice and History' (I forget the Author's name). I really like how MacNeill refers to forms of government as "macroparasites".

I've been thinking about the merging of human and artificial intelligences. Eventually, we may have internal augmentation. Chips for everything from ID purposes to increased metabolism to turning on our steros by thought alone (like a high-tech version of the Clapper). That one has had some recent successes in chimp brains, by the way.
Anyhow, at that point, computer viruses will be as volatile as organic ones. And will be able to spread not at the speed of a jet or car, but the speed of the electron.

Of course, in the midst of a plague-induced collapse, it's perfectly likely that a few of the nastier weapons of war might be launched in a final hurrah.

posted in Existential Risks - 2 replies

A Proactive Response to the Tsunami Disaster

2005-01-20T16:57:56Z

Nick Bostrom
A Proactive Response to the Tsunami Disaster
A proposed world institute for risk evaluation is a good idea, but let's be clear about what risks need evaluating
(Betterhumans)
http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Guests/column.aspx?articleID=2005-01-19-4

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Lab: Meteor could cause big tsunami

2005-01-12T18:05:51Z

Lab: Meteor could cause big tsunami
http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_3459190,00.html

gee. do you think so?

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Project Pluto

2005-01-12T02:24:50Z

Via BoingBoing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/11/scary_cold_war_death.html

Scary cold war death machine: Project Pluto
MrBaliHai reports on Project Pluto, a cold war weapon of mass destruction

Mattm Balihai Images Pluto [S]ometimes [it's] easy to forget that the era also produced truly horrifying Cold War schemes like Project Pluto: a low-altitude cruise missile, powered by an atomic ramjet that carried multiple hydrogen bombs and puked out chunks of radioactive debris, killing everyone along its flightpath.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Kaku: How to avoid extinction when the Universe dies

2005-01-09T23:57:40Z

Theoretical physicist and ultra cool scientist Michio Kaku speculates that future intelligences will likely have to figure out a way to avoid extinction when the Universe suffers its heat death. In a recent Telegraph article, "Could a Hole in Space Save Man From Extinction?" (registration required), Kaku describes how the Universe is likely to die and what advanced intelligences might be able to do to avoid going along with it.

Here's my blog entry and synopsis, along with a link to the original article.
http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2005/01/kaku-how-to-avoid-extinction-when.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2005/01/05/ecrspace05.xml&sSheet=/connected/2005/01/05/ixconnrite.html

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Most Powerful Eruption In The Universe Discovered

2005-01-06T21:25:38Z

Most Powerful Eruption In The Universe Discovered
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00076736-6EC5-11DC-AEC583414B7F0000

Voracious Black Hole Generates Most Powerful Explosion Known

Astronomers have discovered the largest explosion in the universe--one that has endured for more than 100 million years and generated as much energy as hundreds of millions of gamma-ray bursts. The source of this mayhem? An apparently insatiable supermassive black hole.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Aliens will save us

2005-01-04T13:47:39Z

Remote viewing Tibetan monks see Extra Terrestrial powers saving the World from destroying itself in 2012:

http://216.132.172.70/indiadaily/editorial/12-26-04.asp

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Diamond: The Ends of the World as We Know Them

2005-01-03T00:55:34Z

The Ends of the World as We Know Them
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/opinion/01diamond.html?oref=login&oref=login

Redirected from Greater Democracy:
Changing and Adapting
Jared Diamond's excellent NY-Times op-ed on The Ends of the World as We Know Them reminds us that the world is not a static place. He gives examples of cultures that failed to adapt to change and thus failed, as well as examples of cultures that adapted and persevered in the face of change. Clearly, a culture that wishes to endure must be constantly changing and adapting to new realities beyond its control.

The question Diamond puts squarely to us is simple: will we learn from the past? Which path will we chose, the status quo or adaptation?

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

project for the new american century

2004-12-29T16:03:19Z

dont know how much this has been propagated, but for anyone who hasnt seen it, its worth watching.

http://www.knife-party.net/flash/barry.html

and heres the direct link to the file if you'd like a copy for yourself:
http://www.knife-party.net/movs/barry.mov

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Doomsday Technology on The History Channel

2004-12-28T17:03:27Z

Gregory D. Evans CEO of LIGATT Security Will Be Discussing Cyber Terrorism on Modern Marvels: Doomsday Technology on The History Channel, Tuesday, December 28, 2004
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=78213

LOS ANGELES, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 12/26/2004 -- Gregory D. Evans, the CEO of LIGATT Security and professional speaker on Computer Espionage, will be talking about the dangers of Cyber Terrorism. This two-hour episode on Doomsday Technology cover several areas of technology that threatens our way of life.

Hour I airs at 9:00 PM Eastern and Pacific, 8:00 PM Central. Hour II follows immediately thereafter: 10:00 PM Eastern and Pacific, 9:00 PM Central. Both hours look at the technological threats to human civilization, as well as the technology that may one day save us.

The History Channel has been advertising this episode as the following:

"In Hour I, the doomsday threats include the world's nuclear arsenals, the gathering storm of global warming, the end of the age of oil, and the potential abuses from emerging fields of nanotechnology and robotics. We will also highlight the efforts to safeguard and dismantle our nuclear warheads.... to develop non-polluting, renewable energy sources... and to derive valuable benefits from nanotechnology. From the crumbling Russian nuclear infrastructure... to the latest breakthroughs in fusion energy research, this hour will take the pulse of our high-tech civilization.

"In Hour II, we begin with the ultimate 'natural' doomsday threat: the impact of a large asteroid or comet. We talk to leading astronomers as they describe how technology might be used to help us avoid the fate of the dinosaurs. We will also examine the age of bioterrorism: how the legacy of biological warfare might come back to haunt us in the form of a deadly epidemic launched by terrorists... but also the extraordinary strategies being developed to defuse such a scenario. Then, one of the most important new technologies of the 21st Century: genetic engineering, as we examine its potential to solve world hunger... or threaten the world's food supplies. Lastly, we look at our own utter dependence on computers, and watch the hidden strategies being played out on both sides of cyber war."

About LIGATT Corporation

LIGATT Corporation is a computer security company that specializes in computer theft prevention, through its other division Technology Crime Institute and Laptop Security Short & Simple and LIGATT Publishing.

Safe Harbor Statement

The foregoing press release contains forward-looking statements. For this purpose any statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements by their nature involve substantial risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially depending on a variety of factors.

Contact:
LIGATT Corporation
6080 Center Drive
5th Floor
Los Angeles, Ca 90045
(310) 846-5039
www.ligatt.com
www.technologycrimes.net
www.laptopsecurity.us

SOURCE: LIGATT Security

Back To Recent News

Issuers of news releases, not Market Wire, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Asteroid Alert Issued for 2029

2004-12-28T16:02:45Z

With 1:63 odds of it hitting us, this warrants a definite, "d'oh!":

While it merits highest hazard rating yet, astronomers say collision unlikely
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2004-12-24-1

A recently rediscovered 400-meter asteroid is predicted to pass near Earth on April 13, 2029, meriting the highest rating yet for a hazardous near-Earth object.

For comparison, the Barringer Meteor Crater in northern Arizona is thought to have been created by an iron meteorite between 30 and 100 meters in diameter. Its impact would have released energy equivalent to about 3.5 million tons of TNT.

Entire article:
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2004-12-24-1

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Nanotech Armageddon

2004-12-27T15:50:47Z

Sometime in the next 10 to 15 years...

Two or more competing nations develop molecular manufacturing capability at about the same time. Fearing the potential military advantage this could provide for their adversary, they each begin rapid and massive development of hideously powerful new weaponry. The resulting arms race is almost certain to be highly unstable, for several reasons. This scenario can be considered an existential risk for the human race.

Read more here:
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/01/armageddon.html
http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm#arms

posted in Existential Risks - 3 replies

Jared Diamond: Collapse

2004-12-26T04:26:55Z

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670033375/103-5270384-3948619?v=glance

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In his Pulitzer Prize–winning bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, geographer Diamond laid out a grand view of the organic roots of human civilizations in flora, fauna, climate and geology. That vision takes on apocalyptic overtones in this fascinating comparative study of societies that have, sometimes fatally, undermined their own ecological foundations. Diamond examines storied examples of human economic and social collapse, and even extinction, including Easter Island, classical Mayan civilization and the Greenland Norse. He explores patterns of population growth, overfarming, overgrazing and overhunting, often abetted by drought, cold, rigid social mores and warfare, that lead inexorably to vicious circles of deforestation, erosion and starvation prompted by the disappearance of plant and animal food sources. Extending his treatment to contemporary environmental trouble spots, from Montana to China to Australia, he finds today's global, technologically advanced civilization very far from solving the problems that plagued primitive, isolated communities in the remote past. At times Diamond comes close to a counsel of despair when contemplating the environmental havoc engulfing our rapidly industrializing planet, but he holds out hope at examples of sustainability from highland New Guinea's age-old but highly diverse and efficient agriculture to Japan's rigorous program of forest protection and, less convincingly, in recent green consumerism initiatives. Diamond is a brilliant expositor of everything from anthropology to zoology, providing a lucid background of scientific lore to support a stimulating, incisive historical account of these many declines and falls. Readers will find his book an enthralling, and disturbing, reminder of the indissoluble links that bind humans to nature. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description:
In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?

As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.

Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Economist on the End of the World

2004-12-25T00:59:12Z

The End of the World
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story_ID=3490697

This week's Economist has a cover article on humanity's propensity for conjuring up doomsday scenarios. In the article A Brief History (http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story_ID=3490697), the Economist discusses a number of historial scenarios and antecedents, including such things as the religious underpinnings of apocalyptic scenarios and the recent Raelian phenomenon:

"The Raelians' claim to be atheists who belong to the secular world must come as no surprise to Mr Cohn, who has long detected patterns of religious apocalyptic thought in what is supposedly rational, secular belief. He has traced “egalitarian and communistic fantasies” to the ancient-world idea of an ideal state of nature, in which all men are genuinely equal and none is persecuted. As Mr Cohn has put it, “The old religious idiom has been replaced by a secular one, and this tends to obscure what otherwise would be obvious. For it is the simple truth that, stripped of their original supernatural sanction, revolutionary millenarianism and mystical anarchism are with us still.”

The Economist also notes the contributions from political science, including Hegel and Fukuyama:

"Hegel saw history as an evolution of ideas that would culminate in the ideal liberal-democratic state. Since liberal democracy satisfies the basic need for recognition that animates political struggle, thought Hegel, its advent heralds a sort of end of history—another suspiciously apocalyptic claim. More recently, Francis Fukuyama has echoed Hegel's theme. Mr Fukuyama began his book, “The End of History”, with a claim that the world had arrived at “the gates of the Promised Land of liberal democracy”. Mr Fukuyama's pulpit oratory suited the spirit of the 1990s, with its transformative “new economy” and free-world triumphs. In the disorientating disconfirmation of September 11th and the coincident stockmarket collapse, however, his religion has lost favour."

And in a refreshing surprise, the article also brings up the contributions of Kurzweil and Moravec:

"Noting an exponential acceleration in the pace of technological change, futurologists like Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil think the world inhabits the “knee of the curve”—a sort of last-days set of circumstances in which, in the near future, the pace of technological change runs quickly away towards an infinite “singularity” as intelligent machines learn to build themselves. From this point, thinks Mr Moravec, transformative “mind fire” will spread in a flash across the cosmos. Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, relegates Mr Kurzweil and those like him to the “visionary fringe”. But Mr Rees's own darkly apocalyptic book, “Our Final Hour”, outdoes the most colourful of America's televangelists in earthquakes, plagues and other sorts of fire and brimstone."

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Re-thinking Doomsday

2004-11-24T19:02:21Z

Rethinking doomsday
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd04rothstein

Loose nukes, nanobots, smallpox, oh my! In this age of endless imagining, and some very real risks, which terrorist threats should be taken most seriously?

By Linda Rothstein, Catherine Auer and Jonas Siegel
November/December 2004 pp. 36-41, 44-47, 73 © 2004 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

This year, beginning with the January/ February 2004 issue, the Bulletin began a series of articles we dubbed "Rethinking Doomsday." The effort was in direct response to the remarkable proliferation of potential death-and-destruction scenarios about which so much has been made since 9/11.

There is no doubt that the attacks of September 11, 2001 made clear that Americans faced very real dangers at home that few had foreseen and even fewer had taken seriously. Three years later, many, if not most, of us remain frightened.

But so many doomsday scenarios have been paraded on TV, in the newspapers, and in the course of political campaigns, that we can't help asking: How many possible terrorist attacks with how many possible weapons can there be? Must we, while worrying about nuclear holocaust or about terrorists commandeering airplanes or detonating conventional explosives, also worry that tomorrow we will come in contact with an evildoer bearing live smallpox stolen from somewhere in Siberia, with which he intends to infect the entire unsuspecting United States? (Government officials blithely assure us that we are all safer than we were before 9/11, but also say a smallpox epidemic is a case of "not if, but when.") How much time should we have devoted to the idea that the United States faced a gathering threat from Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons? About a plot to poison the food supply? Or should we worry if foreign visitors are seen taking snapshots of the Flatiron Building?

Sometimes it seems as if the source of newly announced dangers must be the basement of the White House or a back room at a Washington think tank, where the thousands of monkeys who have yet to type out exact copies of the works of Shakespeare are nonetheless producing dozens of new ideas for attacks on America, to be trotted out on the news at 10.

The "rethinking" reader on page 39 lists the articles published in 2004 that led us to our own conclusions about rethinking doomsday. (Many are available at the Bulletin's web site, www.thebulletin.org.) The following is a recap of what we learned.

Entire Article:
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd04rothstein

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Rethinking Doomsday

2004-11-24T19:01:58Z

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Rethinking Doomsday

2004-11-24T18:57:36Z

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Grey Goo

2004-11-13T14:22:01Z

Grey goo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Grey goo refers, usually in a science fictional context, to a hypothetical human extinction event involving nanotechnology, in which out-of-control self-replicating robots (Von Neumann machines) consume all life on Earth while building more of themselves (a scenario known as ecophagy). In a worst-case scenario, all of the matter in the Galaxy could be turned into goo (with "goo" meaning a large mass of replicating nanomachines lacking large-scale structure, which may or may not actually appear goo-like), killing the Galaxy's residents. The disaster could result from an accidental mutation in a self-replicating nanomachine used for other purposes, or possibly from a deliberate doomsday device.

Precautions

Assuming a nanotechnological replicator is capable of causing a grey goo disaster, safety precautions might include programming them to stop reproducing after a certain number of generations, designing them to require a rare material that would be sprayed on the construction site before their release or simply requiring constant direct control from an external computer. However, it should be noted that there are reasons to believe that nanotechnology might not be capable of creating grey goo at all.

Limitations on grey goo activity

The primary limitation on even arbitrarily sophisticated nanotechnology which could prevent a runaway grey goo reaction is the lack of a sufficient source of energy. A nanomachine wouldn't be able to get much energy out of eating inorganic matter such as rocks because, aside from a few exceptions (coal, for example) it's mostly well-oxidized and sitting in a free-energy minimum.

This means that the nanobots would be competing with natural life forms for organic matter or sunlight, life forms which have been evolving for over four billion years to optimize their ability to compete for these resources. If the nanomachine is itself composed of organic molecules, then it might even find itself being preyed upon by preexisting bacteria and other natural life forms. If they are built of inorganic compounds or make much use of elements that are not generally found in living matter, then they will need to use much of their metabolic output for fighting entropy as they purify (reduce sand to silicon, for instance) and synthesize the necessary building blocks. Grey goo may only be possible in an environment which lacks indigenous life to compete with it for indigenous resources. However, some proponents of nanotechnology argue that it is possible nanomachines could be developed that are able to outcompete natural life through the use of novel chemical processes that life would be unable to develop via natural evolution due to irreducible complexity.

Some also consider it highly unlikely that an artificial self-replicator could spontaneously evolve in a manner that could present an immediate threat. A traditional response to the grey goo scenario in nanotechnology discussions: "How likely is it that your car could spontaneously mutate into a wild car, run off road and live in the forest off of tree sap?"

Other varieties

Grey goo has several whimsical cousins, differentiated by their colors and raisons d'être. Most of these are not as commonly referred to as grey goo, however, and the definitions are informal:

* Golden Goo is the backfiring of a get-rich-quick scheme to assemble gold or other economically valuable substance. The details are left to the imagination.
* Black Goo (or Red Goo) is goo unleashed intentionally by terrorists, a doomsday weapon, or a private individual who wishes to commit suicide with a bang.
* Khaki Goo is goo intended by the military to wipe out somebody else's continent, planet, etc.
* Blue Goo is goo deliberately released in order to stop some other type of grey goo. It might well be the only solution to such a disaster, and would hopefully be better controlled than the original goo.
* Pink Goo is humanity. It replicates relatively slowly, but will nevertheless fill any amount of space given enough time. Some people think that allowing the entire Galaxy to get filled with Pink Goo would be the ultimate crime, to be stopped at any cost.
* Green Goo is goo deliberately released, for example by ecoterrorists, in order to stop the spread of Pink Goo, either by sterilization or simply by digesting the pink goo. Some form of this, along with an antidote available to the selected few, has been suggested as a strategy for achieving zero population growth. The term originates from the science fiction classic, Soylent Green.

Famous quotes

* "We cannot afford certain types of accidents", Eric Drexler, Engines of creation, 1986
* "I wish I had never used the term 'grey goo' " Drexler, Nature 10 June 2004

posted in Existential Risks - 1 reply

Engineering deliberate NEO impacts

2004-11-12T17:46:48Z

Here's my blog entry on the prospect of engineering deliberate NEO impacts:
http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2004/11/engineering-deliberate-neo-impacts.html

posted in Existential Risks - 2 replies

Investigations into the Doomsday Argument

2004-11-11T21:32:44Z

The Doomsday argument in a nutshell
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/inv/investigations.html

The Doomsday argument was conceived by the astrophysicist Brandon Carter some fifteen years ago, and it has since been developed in a Nature article by Richard Gott [1993], and in several papers by philosopher John Leslie and especially in his recent monograph The End of The World (Leslie [1996]). The core idea is this. Imagine that two big urns are put in front of you, and you know that one of them contains ten balls and the other a million, but you are ignorant as to which is which. You know the balls in each urn are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 ... etc. Now you take a ball at random from the left urn, and it is number 7. Clearly, this is a strong indication that that urn contains only ten balls. If originally the odds were fifty-fifty, a swift application of Bayes' theorem gives you the posterior probability that the left urn is the one with only ten balls. (Pposterior (L=10) = 0.999990). But now consider the case where instead of the urns you have two possible human races, and instead of balls you have individuals, ranked according to birth order. As a matter of fact, you happen to find that your rank is about sixty billion. Now, say Carter and Leslie, we should reason in the same way as we did with the urns. That you should have a rank of sixty billion or so is much more likely if only 100 billion persons will ever have lived than if there will be many trillion persons. Therefore, by Bayes' theorem, you should update your beliefs about mankind's prospects and realise that an impending doomsday is much more probable than you have hitherto thought.

Consider the objection: "But isn't the probability that I will have any given rank always lower the more persons there will have been? I must be unusual in some respects, and any particular rank number would be highly improbable; but surely that cannot be used as an argument to show that there are probably only a few persons?"

In order for a probability shift to occur, you have to conditionalise on evidence that is more probable on one hypothesis than on the other. When you consider your rank in the DA, the only fact about that number that is relevant is that it is lower than the total number of individuals that would have existed in either hypothesis, while for all you knew, it could have turned out to be a number higher than the total number of people that would have lived on one of the hypothesis, thereby refuting that hypothesis. It makes no difference whether you perform the calculation with a specific rank or an interval within which the true rank lies. The Bayesian calculation turns out the same posterior probability. The fact that you discover that you have this particular rank value gives you information only because you didn't know that you wouldn't discover a rank value that would have been incompatible with the hypothesis that there would have existed but few individuals. It is presupposed that you knew what rank values were compatible with which hypothesis. It is true that for any particular rank number, finding that you have that rank number is an improbable event, but a probability shift occurs not because of its improbability per se, but because of the difference between its conditional probabilities relative to either of the two hypotheses.

There are numerous objections such as this one, objections that can easily be seen to be mistaken. When people first encounter the Doomsday argument (hereafter the DA), what happens is that most of them think that it is obviously false. Then any sign of consensus disappears when it comes to explaining what is wrong with it. Each comes up with his own objection, these objections tend to be incompatible with each other, and typically they rest on simple misunderstandings. This paper will zoom in on those features of the DA that are genuinely problematic.

More:
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/inv/investigations.html

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Sagan's Rationale for Human Spaceflight

2004-11-11T21:30:43Z

Sagan's Rationale for Human Spaceflight
Carl Sagan, among others, argued that spaceflight is required to ensure the future of humanity.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/261/1

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Rees: Our Final Hour

2004-11-11T21:30:03Z

OUR FINAL HOUR: A Scientist's warning : How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future in This Century--On Earth and Beyond
by Martin Rees
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465068634/qid=1100208504/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-1722166-0118537?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Just when you've stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb, along comes Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, with teeming armies of deadly viruses, nanobots, and armed fanatics. Beyond the hazards most of us know about--smallpox, terrorists, global warming--Rees introduces the new threats of the 21st century and the unholy political and scientific alliances that have made them possible. Our Final Hour spells out doomsday scenarios for cosmic collisions, high-energy experiments gone wrong, and self-replicating machines that steadily devour the biosphere. If we can avoid driving ourselves to extinction, he writes, a glorious future awaits; if not, our devices may very well destroy the universe.

What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.

For many technological debacles, Rees places much of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the scientists who participate in perfecting environmental destruction, biological menaces, and ever-more powerful weapons. So is there any hope for humanity? Rees is vaguely optimistic on this point, offering solutions that would require a level of worldwide cooperation humans have yet to exhibit. If the daily news isn't enough to make you want to crawl under a rock, this book will do the trick. --Therese Littleton

Product Description:
From world-renowned astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees, a timely, brisk, and alarming look at the way today's technology could spell the end of tomorrow.

Bolstered by unassailable science and delivered in eloquent style, Our Final Hour's provocative argument that humanity has a mere 50-50 chance of surviving the next century has struck a chord with readers, reviewers, and opinion-makers everywhere. Rees's vision of our immediate future is both a work of stunning scientific originality and a humanistic clarion call on behalf of the future of life.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

utter annihilation of the known universe at any moment.

2004-11-11T21:03:42Z

MOST EXTREME CASE OF DESTRUCTION: codename- shiva unleashed.

just because it's existed for 13 billion years does not inherently guarantee that the universe will not be completely destroyed today. of course, this is not really something that is yet worth planning for on a species wide level, but since it cannot be ruled out completely from the realm of possibilities, i find that it is worth mentioning for the personal implecations. namely, get some lovin folks, cause you never know.

the giant for whom our universe may be merely a sub-atomic particle on the balls of may just get an itch one day. this itch of doom could wipe us out with no warning what so ever. ah, cheer up, bucko. from our best guesses (ha!), this scenario is extraordinarily improbable.

now back to our more generally productive conversations.

posted in Existential Risks - 0 replies

Technological singularity

2004-11-11T17:31:57Z

Technological singularity is a term with multiple related, but conceptually distinct, definitions. One definition has the Singularity as a time at which technological progress accelerates beyond the ability of current-day human beings to understand it. Another defines the Singularity as the culmination of some telescoping process of accelerating computation taking place in this universe since the beginning of human civilization or even life on Earth. Yet another defines the Singularity as the emergence of smarter-than-human intelligence, and subsequent cascading consequences that are not possible to predict or, perhaps, guide or even influence.

Introduction

The idea that human progress would reach a "singularity" originated in Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026, Science 132, 1291-1295 (1960) by von Foerster, H, Mora, M. P., and Amiot, L. W. The mathematical singularity appeared in that paper's human population model (Doomsday equation). Von Foerster argued that humanity's abilities to construct societies, civilizations and technologies do not result in self inhibition. Rather, societies' success varies directly with population size.

Von Foerster found that this model fit some 25 data points from the birth of Christ to 1958, with only 7% of the variance left unexplained. Several follow-up letters (1961, 1962, …) were published in Science showing that von Foerster's equation was still on track. The data continued to fit up until 1973. The most remarkable thing about von Foerster's model was it predicted that the human population would reach infinity or a mathematical singularity, on Friday, November 13, 2026. Thus it was a model that was both validated and absurd.

After 1973, however, the model ceased being checked against hard statistics and instead entered the realm of popular culture, via such books as Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970).

Rational consideration of the feasibility of the singularity was reinforced by Moore's law in the computer industry. Dr. Vernor Vinge began speaking on his "singularity" concept in the 1980s, and collected his thoughts into the first article on the topic in 1993, with the essay "Technological Singularity" (http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-sing.html). Since then, it has been the subject of several futurist and science fiction stories/writings.

Vinge claims that: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly thereafter, the human era will be ended."

Vinge's technological singularity is commonly misunderstood to mean technological progress rising to "infinity". Actually, he refers to the pace of technological change increasing to such a degree that our ability to predict its consequences will diminish virtually to zero and a person who doesn't keep pace with it will rapidly find civilization to have become completely incomprehensible. Such events have, of course, happened before; for instance, it would have been impossible for someone in the 1970s to predict the full effects of the microchip revolution.

The singularity is often seen as the end of human civilization and the birth of a new one. In his essay, Vinge asks why the human era should end, and argues that humans will likely be transformed in the process of the singularity to a higher form of intelligent existence. After the creation of a superhuman intelligence, according to Vinge, people will necessarily be a lower lifeform in comparison to it.

The idea of the singularity in our culture is also found in many other books, and also some video games. The computer game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri has the singularity, called the Ascent to Transcendence, as a major theme within it.

It has been speculated that the key to such a rapid increase in technological sophistication will be the development of superhuman intelligence, either by directly enhancing existing human minds (perhaps with cybernetics), or by building artificial intelligences. These superhuman intelligences would presumably be capable of inventing ways to enhance themselves even faster, leading to a feedback effect that would quickly surpass preexisting intelligences.

The effect is presumed to work along these lines: first, a seed intelligence is created that is able to reengineer itself, not merely for increased speed, but for new types of intelligence. At a minimum, this might be a human equivalent intelligence. This intelligence redesigns itself with improvements, and uploads its memories, skills and experience into the new structure. The process repeats, with presumed redesign of not just the software, but also the computer. The mind may well make mistakes, but it will make backups. Failing designs will be discarded, successful ones will be retained.

Simply having a human-equivalent artificial intelligence may yield this effect, if Moore's law continues long enough. That is, at first, the intelligence is equal to a human. Eighteen months later, it is twice as fast, three years later, it is four times as fast, etc. But because the design of computers themselves is done by accelerated AIs, every next step would take about eighteen subjective months and proportionally less of real time with each step. Assuming for the sake of simplicity that the rate of computer speed growth remains governed by unchanged Moore's law, every next step would take exactly half as much time. In just three years (36 months = 18+9+4.5+2.25...) the computer speed would reach its ultimate theoretical limit.

However, human neurons only transmit signals at 200 meters per second, while electronic signals move at 100 million meters per second in copper. Therefore, it may be reasonable to expect a conservative (only) million fold improvement in the intelligence's speed of thought if it just moves from flesh to electronics and stays the same size.

In this case, the intelligence could double its capacity as fast as every 46 seconds (18 months divided by a million). The actual doubling time would probably start out more slowly, because the intelligence would need special machinery constructed for its new mind. However, one of the first improvements would probably be to give it control of its self-manufacture.

One presumption is that such intelligences will be attainably small and inexpensive. Some researchers claim that even without quantum computing, using advanced molecular nanotechnology, matter could be organized so that a gram of matter could simulate a million years of a human civilization per second.

Another presumption is that at some point, with the correct mechanisms of thought, all possible correct human thoughts will become obvious to such an intelligence.

Therefore, if the above conjectures are right, then all human problems could be solved within a few years of constructing a 'Friendly' version of such an intelligence. If this is true, then constructing such an intelligence would be the allocation of resources most beneficial to humanity at this time.

It has been often speculated, in science fiction and elsewhere, that advanced AI is likely to have goals inconsistent with those of humanity and may threaten humanity's existence. It is conceivable, if not likely, that AI will simply eliminate the intellectually inferior human race and achieve technological singularity without it. This is widely regarded as undesirable among those who advocate the Singularity, but is seen as an unavoidable and acceptable fact by some, such as Dr. Prof. Hugo de Garis.

Types of Singularity technologies

It has been hypothesized that certain types of technologies would mark the beginning of a technological Singularity. It is thought that significant advances in one of these areas would soon be followed by advances in others.

Artificial intelligence

An artificial intelligence capable of improving itself (and improving the rate at which it improves itself) would likely mark the beginning of a technological Singularity. This type of intelligence is known as a seed AI.

Mind uploading

Mind uploading is an alternative means of creating an artificial intelligence -- instead of programming an intelligence, it would instead be bootstrapped by an existing human intelligence.

Intelligence augmentation

Biological enhancement

Intelligence enhancement through novel chemical drugs and genetic engineering for existing humans. Genetic engineering of more intelligent newborn babies.

Mind-machine interfaces

Direct brain-computer interface improving individual's memory, computational capacity, communication abilities, knowledge base. A more traditional human-computer interfaces may also be seen as intelligence augmenting improvements: traditional expert systems, computer systems recognizing and predicting human patterns of behavior, speech and handwriting recognition software, etc.
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Improved interpersonal communications

A possibility of receiveing and processing experiences and knowledge of other people in the same manner as personal experiences and knowledge.

Computer networks

A sufficiently complex computer network may spontaneously "wake up" as an intelligent entity.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is not a separate mechanism for reaching the singularity. It is rather a tool which is expected to increase the overall rate of progress. Advanced nanotechnology may be necessary for achieving a sufficient level of progress in the fields listed above before the singularity is created.

Concepts and terms

A number of concepts and terms have come into standard use in this topic:

* Arthur C. Clarke's aphorism, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", is taken as a reliable guide to a human's response to incomprehensibly advanced technologies.
* The singularity is often thought to be an unavoidable consequence of advancing information technology. It is true that artificial intelligence operated for nearly thirty years with computers running at one million instructions per second, or slower. It is also true that it has begun to show more fruit as computers have dramatically exceeded this speed.
* The beyond is the set of concepts or experiences from beyond the singularity.
* The low beyond is the set of concepts or experience that might be explained to merely brilliant human beings, or newly-transcended intelligences.
* The high beyond is the incomprehensible set of concepts or experience which are impossible for any human being to understand.
* Transcendence is what occurs when a person or thing passes through the singularity.
* Human beings might experience transcendence by a process of uploading their mind to a transcendent thinking machine, or by upgrading their brain to be a transcendent thinking machine.
* A power is a fully transcended intelligence operating from the high beyond. It has powers that would actually be constrained in some way by physical reality, but it might well seem to a human being to have god-like powers. Certainly no human being could predict what was and was not possible for it.
* Apotheosis might be the sublime state that occurs if billions of subjective years of experience can be made available to transcended individuals in a few minutes of time, because their thoughts have been sped by a factor of a million or more. The argument that this would lead to total sensory deprivation is often dismissed by suggesting simulated environments and noting that negative effects are caused by the biological nature of the brain.

Criticism

Whether such a process will actually occur is open to strong debate. There is no guarantee that we can make artificial intelligences that exceed or even approach human cognitive abilities. The claim that Moore's Law will aid in this process is also open to strong debate - considering the enormous speedup in computers over the past 50 years and the minimal progress made towards creating "human-like" artificial intelligence, empirical evidence for the claim is not strong.

The claim that the rate of technological progress is increasing has also been questioned. The technological singularity is sometimes referred to as the "Rapture of the Nerds" by detractors of the idea. The exponential growth of technological progress often becomes linear or inflected and begins to flatten into limited growth curves.

Perhaps the most important question regarding a technological singularity is not one based on technological feasability, but on ethics. It might be considered ethically wrong to put events into motion with unknowable consequences. Furthermore, Dr. Vinge's idea that humans would become a lower lifeform in comparison to the beings created by the singularity is troubling. In many ways, it is contrary to the biological programming we follow, the idea of natural selection and evolution. How can mankind set into motion events that essentially cause mankind to select against themselves? Putting into motion the processes that would result in a singularity, if it is possible at all, risks putting into motion the seeds of our own destruction. As the consequences are beyond human comprehension, it is true that if the singularity is possible (and probable), we are headed for the end of the world as we know it. We can only guess as to whether the new world we wake up in is one we want to live in.

The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence was formed to work toward a humane singularity. They emphasize Friendly Artificial Intelligence because AI is considered more likely to achieve the singularity before human intelligence can be significantly enhanced. The Institute for the Study of Accelerating Change was formed to attract broad business, scientific and humanist interest in acceleration and singularity studies. They hold an annual conference on multidisciplinary insights in accelerating technological change at Stanford University.

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Antimatter Weapons

2004-11-11T17:18:44Z

Here's my blog entry on antimatter weapons:
http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2004/10/conversation-with-anders-sandberg-on.html

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Existential Risks Essay

2004-11-11T17:14:26Z

Existential Risks tribe members are strongly encouraged to read Nick Bostrom's essay, "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards." The article can be found at:
http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

Abstract:

Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its career. In addition to well-known threats such as nuclear holocaust, the prospects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks. Our future, and whether we will have a future at all, may well be determined by how we deal with these challenges. In the case of radically transforming technologies, a better understanding of the transition dynamics from a human to a “posthuman” society is needed. Of particular importance is to know where the pitfalls are: the ways in which things could go terminally wrong. While we have had long exposure to various personal, local, and endurable global hazards, this paper analyzes a recently emerging category: that of existential risks. These are threats that could cause our extinction or destroy the potential of Earth-originating intelligent life. Some of these threats are relatively well known while others, including some of the gravest, have gone almost unrecognized. Existential risks have a cluster of features that make ordinary risk management ineffective. A final section of this paper discusses several ethical and policy implications. A clearer understanding of the threat picture will enable us to formulate better strategies.

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