Posted on 09/12/2013 5:12:15 PM PDT by Dysart
They are an improbable group of superheroes. But some of Britain's greatest minds have got together to focus their powers on saving humanity from itself. Led by the Astronomer Royal and Cambridge don Martin Rees, famous thinkers such as physicist Stephen Hawking and former Government chief scientist Robert May have formed a society to draw up a doomsday list of risks that could wipe out mankind. From crippling cyber-attacks by terrorists using the internet to cause havoc, to the release of engineered diseases and killer computers, they warn the future is far from rosy.
But the work being done by the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) should one day help the world sleep a little easier at night. Once the threats have been identified, the group intend to devise ways of 'ensuring our own species has a long-term future'. Although nuclear annihilation and a giant asteroid obliterating the planet remain distinct, if unlikely possibilities, Lord Rees now believes 'the main threats to sustained human existence now come from people, not from nature.'
Other scenarios being considered by the 27-strong group, which also involves academics from Oxford, Imperial, Harvard and Berkeley, include extreme weather events, fast spreading pandemics, and war or sabotage resulting in a shortage of food and resources. Speaking last night at the British Science Festival at the University of Newcastle, Lord Rees said: 'In future decades, events with low probability but catastrophic consequences may loom high on the political agenda.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The world will end when the ego stops projecting it. It is all an illusion. Get used to it. Ask only that the ego be undone. How do you like me so far?
I like you alright, I suppose.
i like you but obiwan thinks you are an a hole
Uh, not so much.
“The world will end when the ego stops projecting it. It is all an illusion. Get used to it. Ask only that the ego be undone. How do you like me so far?”
Well said. I would put it more succinctly though; verbal masterbation.
The world will end peacefully, in nursing homes around the world, as a generation refuses to produce the next generation.
“The world will end peacefully, in nursing homes around the world, as a generation refuses to produce the next generation.”
The industrialized world looks like that may be a possibility...the third world not so much..
If I had to bet I say they are far ahead in the long term survival game than we are..that’s why I spend so much time there.
> The world will end peacefully, in nursing homes around the world, as a generation refuses to produce the next generation.
Not necessarily refuse if they have all been converted into gays via government mandates (no pun intended).../s
Those alive today came pretty close, I suppose, with advances in health. I peg it as born in 1945. If they were lucky they expired just before the '08 election, thinking there was a chance Obie wouldn't win the White Hut and the world was relatively safe. 63 years is a bit on the short side, but those of us who lasted into Obie's first and now second term know life will not be the same. Not good.
Is it too late for me to deny building killbots?
I’m going with killbots.
Bullshit!
I was hoping for zombies.
If you can...take it to the next level and explain why ego (the concept of self...or will you defined it differently) is the ultimate problem.
No insult intended...just that this is fun...and might produce many new ideas.
63 years is a bit on the short side, but those of us who lasted into Obie's first and now second term know life will not be the same
Yes, a trying time, but better days are ahead. Or, it couldn't go anywhere but up from here post Obacolypse, right?
With science, it can happen.
Zombies while you wait!
The world will end quietly in our sleep, like it did for my grandpa, not screaming like the passengers in his bus.
With a whimper.
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