How do scientists uncover phenomena and explain their connections? How do engineers design machines, methods and infrastructure? At omega tau, experts give detailed answers. Over the last ten years, we have produced over 350 episodes in which we dug deeper, until we ran out of questions. Join us on our journey through the world of science and engineering: the closer you look and listen, the more interesting things get.
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episode 350: Existential Risk
Guests: Toby Ord Host: Markus Voelter Shownoter: Jochen Spalding
Humanity has always been exposed to potentially catastrophic risks that might endanger the continued existence of humanity. Asteroid impacts or supervolcano eruptions come to mind. But since about the invention of the atomic bomb, humanity has been able to wipe itself out, adding self-made existential risks to the natural ones. Oxford philosopher Toby Ord argues in his book The Precipice that those risks are much more likely than the natural ones. In this episode we explore this idea with him, and also discuss what we should do about this realization.
Introduction 00:02:22
Toby Ord | Toby Ord | Nick Bostrom (OT 275 - Technikfolgenabschätzung) | Anthropogenic hazard (Toby Ord - The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity | John Leslie - The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction Hardcover | George Orwell - 1984) | Extinction event (OT 184 – Societal Complexity and Collapse) | Joseph Tainter | Derek Parfit (Derek Parfit - Reasons and Persons) | Game theory | Chicxulub impactor | Global catastrophic risk | Gamma-ray burst | Likelihood-ratio test | List of nuclear close calls | Nuclear winter
Concrete Risks 00:47:20Dissolution of the Soviet Union <Dissolution of the Soviet Union> | Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty | Free-rider problem | Positive feedback loop | Methane Feedbacks to the Global Climate System in a Warmer World | Runaway greenhouse effect | The moist greenhouse limit | Increased insolation threshold for runaway greenhouse processes on Earth-like planets | Biotechnology | Pandemic | Killer rabbit virus on the loose | 1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom | Biosafety level | Faulty pipe blamed for UK foot and mouth outbreak | Tokyo subway sarin attack | Bioterrorism | Synthetic genomics | CRISPR | Gene drive | Artificial intelligence
Why do we care? 01:21:48Utilitarianism | Special relativity | Nihilism | International organizations | The Chronicles of Narnia (C. S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia)
Epilog mit Markus und Nora 02:02:18