Re: Hawkins suggests human race to continue for another million years

Alpha wrote:
On Apr 25, 9:23 am, Tim Tyler <seemy...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It is huge, has enormous resource reserves, and a long
expected lifespan - almost everything is about as good
as could reasonably be expected. If (heaven forbid!)
we /do/ manage to screw up somehow during embryonic
development, it won't be due to adverse external circumstances.

....the external circumstances/environment changes radically over
longer periods, wiping out gaggles of species or curtailing their
population/growth. In the case of homo sapiens, a good set of
volcanic eruptions (changing weather to an extreme and thence food
production worldwide), a huge asteroid hit (ditto), a virus etc., can
all play havoc with our future. In geologic time, we are but nats on
a mouse's ass and "Earth" could not care less whether we live or die
en masse.

Sure. But our descendants are not likely to be confined to
the earth for much longer - so the only potentially fatal
accidents are:

* ones that happen soon;
* ones that can spread rapidly;

I'm inclined to assign meteorite strikes, alien invasions
physics disasters, and deadly viruses - and most of the
other stuff on:

http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

....a low probability: so I think we - or our machine
descendants - are likely to make it at least as far
as starting a galactic civilisation.

If we don't, IMO the chances are high that that will
be because we screwed up - rather than, say, a big
meteorite strike or an alien invasion.
--
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