This book is a whirlwind tour of all the threats posed to the human race, examining in turn technological, political, natural, scientific and philosophical threats to mankind.
It would be easy for this to be a depressing book, but somehow it manages to remain reasonably upbeat, even given its premise that there is a good chance that mankind won’t exist in its current form in 100 years.
There are some interesting numbers to go with each part of the analysis, for instance the author reckons (with a very plausible explanation) that there was around a 50% chance of nuclear war in the years after WW2, these come from the cumulative probability of the button being pushed on any particular day. There is, doubtless, some statistical argument about this treatment of the numbers (likely involving conditional probabilities and other things I no longer understand).
Another interesting section deals with the *very very* minor, but non-zero, probability of causing a catastrophic accident in a particle accelarator, so catastrophic that it either makes earth inhospitable or destroys it altogether. This, of course, will not be a problem for us since we won’t suffer during this process, but it does seem a little wasteful.
He concludes by taking a look at our context within the universe as a whole – how important are we?
Who should read this book? Its an interesting journey around things that could go wrong for us as a species, theres no-one in particular who should read it, but its probably for you if you’re interested in what the future of mankind holds.
(book 6, week 10)