Betting on Human Survival
Martin Rees is president of the Royal Society in London, a group that took part in moving the hands of the Doomsday Clock to read 11:55, just five minutes from extinction. He’s also the author of Our Final Hour, and in this book predicts that human civilization has only a fifty percent chance of making it to the year 2100.
A few years ago, he posted this prediction on Long Bets: “By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event” because “Biotechnology is plainly advancing rapidly, and by 2020 there will be thousands-even millions-of people with the capability to cause a catastrophic biological disaster. My concern is not only organized terrorist groups, but individual wierdos with the mindset of the people who now design computer viruses. Even if all nations impose effective regulations on potentially dangerous technologies, the chance of an active enforcement seems to me as small as in the case of the drug laws. By ‘bioerror’, I mean something which has the same effect as a terror attack, but rises from inadvertance rather than evil intent.”
Long Bets is an organization that allows people to make predictions, post them online, and take bets on them and those of others. Whoever wins donates the money gained to a charity of their choice. John Tierney, author of this article, is wary of the future but more optimistic than Martin Rees and has posted a counter-prediction.
“I predict that our civilization will survive until at least 2100,” he says, because “In his 2003 book, “Our Final Hour,” Martin Rees writes: ‘I think the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our present civilisation on Earth will survive to the end of the present century.’ Dr. Rees is an eminent cosmologist, president of the Royal Society, and the astronomer royal of Britain — but also, I think, a short-sighted prophet. He correctly notes that humanity will face unprecedented risks this century, but we will also have unprecedented tools to deal with them. I believe the best way to predict the future is to look at past trends — the longest trends possible. And my reading of history is that humans have a longstanding habit of surviving. As the late Julian Simon pointed out in his refutations of doomsayers, there is a long-term trend of humans facing news problems and not just overcoming them but emerging better-off as a result. Our species now has more members living longer than ever before. It’s always possible this trend will end abruptly, but I think the odds are against it.”
Most Long Bets voters side with John Tierney.
ballgame said,
January 30, 2007 at 10:13 pm
My head tends to side with Rees. One important fact that you left out of your “Don’t Panic” post was the thawing of the Siberian permafrost, and subsequent release of enormous quantities of methane gasses from the thawing peat. Once this starts to happen, the planet will be locked into a feedback loop whereby the warmer it gets, the more the peat thaws, the more hydrocarbons get released, which exacerbates global warming and thaws more of the permafrost, which causes more methanes to be released, etc. etc.
As for humanity having faced similar kinds of crises before, well, yes, some societies have overproduced and fallen victim to Malthusian pressures when they’ve gone beyond the ecological limits of their mode of production. Those societies collapsed. It was other societies that came along after such collapses to pick up the pieces and shift to a different mode of production. There won’t be any other human society to come along to pick up the pieces after a world-wide ecological catastrophe.
As for most Long Bets siding with Tierney, well, that’s just common sense. If Tierney is wrong, winning some stupid bet about it will be rather cold comfort.
Sorry to be so cynical; sometimes I get tired of keeping such thoughts to myself. Things are so totally FUBAR.
But, hey, nice blog!
:)
ballgame said,
January 30, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Oh, and this essay by John Faughnan has some fascinating thoughts about mankind’s accelerating investments in technology.
Emily said,
January 30, 2007 at 10:32 pm
That’s alright, this blog is a totally okay place to dump some cynicism. And I’m also leaning towards siding with Rees. Obviously, I’d be psyched if things worked out in Tierney’s (and humanity’s) favor, but the worst-case scenario situations predicted by Rees are, unfortunately, completely imaginable given the current state of the planet.
We’ll wait, and I guess we’ll see. Or not…Ha.
Thanks for the information about the Siberian permafrost and the link.
Daisy said,
January 30, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Hi ballgame! I’ve seen you ’round the blogosphere before. Welcome, and, seconding Emily, we consider cynicism to be something of a virture. Things are, as you say, FUBAR.
ballgame said,
January 31, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Well, thank you, Emily and Daisy! I enjoy checking in here, though I’m a little dismayed at the lack of other people’s comments. You have a good blog, it seems a shame more people aren’t reading it. You must blogwhore more!
Speaking of which, I’ve recently joined a new blog, feminist critics (haven’t put my first post up yet). I’m very impressed with the intelligence and level-headedness of my co-bloggers Daran, Hugh, and toy soldier. We only have a few commenters at the moment, though, and some of them are … uh … (searches for diplomatic phrasing) … well, let’s just say that intelligent and sensible commenters are definitely welcome! Hope you stop by.
we consider cynicism to be something of a virture.
What, you mean “Our Descent Into Madness” isn’t supposed to be a happy blog?!
;)
Daisy said,
January 31, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I’ve read Daran and toy soldier before — they’re both smart and thoughtful, however much we disagree. We’ll certainly stop by.