Existential Catastrophe - Bryant McGill

# Existential Catastrophe ## Definition **Existential Catastrophe** permanently destroys humanity's long-term potential through extinction, irreversible civilizational collapse or another terminal loss of future possibility. It differs from an ordinary disaster in both scale and irreversibility. ## Conceptual relationships [[wiki/Existential Risk|Existential Risk]] · [[wiki/Civilization|Civilization]] · [[wiki/State-Dependent Catastrophe|State-Dependent Catastrophe]] ## Martin Rees research route [[research/Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future|Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future]] supplies a primary quotation dossier connecting this concept to Rees's work on cosmology, technological risk, machine intelligence, posthuman evolution and deep time. ## Article and collection routes - [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match]] - [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts  > “Those of us fortunate enough to live in the developed world fret too much about minor hazards of everyday life: improbable air crashes, carcinogens in food, and so forth. But we are less secure than we think. We should worry far more about scenarios that have thankfully not yet happened—but which, if they occurred, could cause such worldwide devastation that even once would be too often.” > **— Martin Rees**, *2013: What Should We Be Worried About?, Edge, 2013* [[reminders/Existential Risk/The Dangers That Never Happened May Matter Most by Martin Rees|The Dangers That Never Happened May Matter Most by Martin Rees]] > “Even a tiny probability of global catastrophe is unacceptable.” > **— Martin Rees**, *Can Science Save the World?, Project Syndicate, 2008* [[reminders/Existential Risk/No Probability of Global Catastrophe Is Acceptable by Martin Rees|No Probability of Global Catastrophe Is Acceptable by Martin Rees]]   > “I think the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our present civilization on Earth will survive to the end of the present century.” > **— Martin Rees**, *2003, Our Final Hour* [[reminders/Existential Risk/A Fifty-Fifty Chance of Survival by Martin Rees|A Fifty-Fifty Chance of Survival by Martin Rees]]