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Archive for the ‘existential risks’ category: Page 49

Feb 8, 2022

The extinction crisis that no one’s talking about

Posted by in categories: existential risks, genetics

Coffee, wine, and wheat varieties are among the foods we could lose forever.


The grocery store is thin on genetic diversity. Bringing back endangered foods can help.

Feb 7, 2022

Astronomers spot a wandering black hole in empty space for the first time

Posted by in categories: climatology, cosmology, existential risks, information science, robotics/AI, sustainability

Machine learning can work wonders, but it’s only one tool among many.

Artificial intelligence is among the most poorly understood technologies of the modern era. To many, AI exists as both a tangible but ill-defined reality of the here and now and an unrealized dream of the future, a marvel of human ingenuity, as exciting as it is opaque.

It’s this indistinct picture of both what the technology is and what it can do that might engender a look of uncertainty on someone’s face when asked the question, “Can AI solve climate change?” “Well,” we think, “it must be able to do *something*,” while entirely unsure of just how algorithms are meant to pull us back from the ecological brink.

Continue reading “Astronomers spot a wandering black hole in empty space for the first time” »

Feb 6, 2022

North Korea Claims Successfully Testing a New Hypersonic Gliding Warhead

Posted by in categories: energy, existential risks, military

These missiles are too fast to detect. Hypersonic weapons technology is at the heart of a new arms race. Currently, the US, China, and Russia are all competing to develop the most effective long-range hypersonic missiles. A recent report revealed that North Korea has also successfully tested a hypersonic missile on January 5, 2022, the country’s second reported test of a hypersonic missile.


North Korea has also referred to verifying the “fuel ampoule system” during this deployment which means that the liquid fuel used by the missile was sealed at production. This allows for rapid deployment even after the missile has been stored for long periods of time, while also reducing its vulnerability to pre-emptive strikes.

We have now seen what North Korea can do in quite imaginative ways.

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Feb 4, 2022

How safe is Earth from an asteroid impact? (2013) | 60 Minutes Archive

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

NASA says an asteroid came within about 1.2 million miles of the Earth’s atmosphere on Tuesday afternoon. In 2013, Anderson Cooper reported on our ability to detect asteroids and comets that come close to Earth after another asteroid impacted the atmosphere over Russia.

“60 Minutes” is the most successful television broadcast in history. Offering hard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news, the broadcast began in 1968 and is still a hit, over 50 seasons later, regularly making Nielsen’s Top 10.

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Feb 1, 2022

Humanity Could Survive A ’Planet-Killer’ Asteroid, A New Study Says

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, physics

About 66 million years ago, a “planet killer” — a 10-kilometer-wide rocky asteroid — hit Earth. The Chicxulub impact caused a mass extinction on a planetary scale, killing off an estimated 76 percent of all species living on Earth at the time, including the dinosaurs. According to a study published by Philip Lubin and Alexander N. Cohen, both physicists at the University of California in Santa Barbara, there is a chance that humanity could survive such a similar impact happening in the near future.

There currently are about 1,200 asteroids on a publicly available asteroid risk list, but all are smaller than one kilometer. The probability of a Chicxulub sized asteroid (5 to 15 kilometers across) hitting Earth is once in a billion years — very low, but not impossible.

Jan 30, 2022

Population Collapse — Is fertility rate decline an existential risk?

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, existential risks

A new video I posted on Population Collapse.


Are we facing a Population collapse?

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Jan 28, 2022

On this recent Metaverse News Network night, I’m interviewed by the host Richard Mourant and co-host Shauna Lee Lange

Posted by in categories: computing, cosmology, existential risks, physics, singularity, space travel, transhumanism

Topics include the prospects of technological acceleration, Metaverse development and immersive computing, transcendence and cybernetic immortality, neurotechnologies and mind uploading, outer and inner space exploration, Global Mind and phase transition of humanity, physics of time and information, consciousness, evolutionary cybernetics, Chrysalis conjecture and Transcension hypothesis, Artificial General Intelligence and cyberhumanity, transhumanism and singularity, Fermi Paradox, Omega Point cosmology, Cybernetic Theory of Mind, and more. https://www.ecstadelic.net/e_news/metaverse-news-network-liv…x-vikoulov #Metaverse #Singularity #Transhumanism #Transcension #Futurism #Cybernetics #SyntellectHypothesis #AlexVikoulov

Jan 27, 2022

HumanityMars NEW YEAR 2030 PARTY IN MARS CITY!

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, existential risks, genetics, government, lifeboat, nanotechnology, robotics/AI, singularity, space travel

FeaturedRead our 3 books at https://spanish.lifeboat.com/ex/books.

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards the Singularity.

Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, such as new methods to combat viruses, effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.

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Jan 24, 2022

Is the Sun expanding? Will it ever explode? (Beginner)

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, climatology, Elon Musk, existential risks, sustainability

It’s wild.

A global apocalypse could be closer than you think.

According to astronomers, in five billion years or so, the sun will run out of hydrogen in its core completely and expand, possibly engulfing the earth. Now that’s a bright future you don’t want. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently tweeted that the expansion of the Sun would result in the extinction of all life on the planet, making interplanetary living a necessity. Musk said this in response to a paper warning about mass extinction caused by human activity, arguing for the necessity of working on ways to move off-world. However, while we lack the technology to live on other worlds just yet, we may have a more immediate catastrophe at hand — climate change and global warming. a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, Sohrab Rahvar, proposes using gravity assist by the asteroids to change the orbit of the Earth.

Jan 22, 2022

SpaceX Starlink: Why humanity needs to act now before it’s too late

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, internet, satellites

We will soon need to make some difficult choices.


Given current trends, that number will be reached within a year or so. There are ways to mitigate the effect of these streaks. Painting the satellites and adding reflective panels could reduce their brightness, particularly at infrared wavelengths that are important for near-Earth asteroid detection.

But the study points out that the mitigation strategy currently proposed by Starlink won’t be sufficient to avoid an impact on astronomy.

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