Chuyển sang chế độ ngoại tuyến với ứng dụng Player FM !
X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction
Manage episode 286846891 series 2485260
Matt Colquhoun (author/editor of Egress and Postcapitalist Desire) speaks to to Thomas Moynihan about his most recent book X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction.
From forecasts of disastrous climate change to prophecies of evil AI superintelligences and the impending perils of genome editing, our species is increasingly concerned with the prospects of its own extinction. With humanity's future on this planet seeming more insecure by the day, in the twenty-first century, existential risk has become the object of a growing field of serious scientific inquiry. But, as Thomas Moynihan shows in X-Risk, this preoccupation is not exclusive to the post-atomic age of global warming and synthetic biology. Our growing concern with human extinction itself has a history.
Tracing this untold story, Moynihan revisits the pioneers who first contemplated the possibility of human extinction and stages the historical drama of this momentous discovery. He shows how, far from being a secular reprise of religious prophecies of apocalypse, existential risk is a thoroughly modern idea, made possible by the burgeoning sciences and philosophical tumult of the Enlightenment era. In recollecting how we first came to care for our extinction, Moynihan reveals how today's attempts to measure and mitigate existential threats are the continuation of a project initiated over two centuries ago, which concerns the very vocation of the human as a rational, responsible, and future-oriented being.
Produced by Sam Kelly; Mixed by Samantha Doyle; Soundtrack by Kristen Gallerneaux.
464 tập
Manage episode 286846891 series 2485260
Matt Colquhoun (author/editor of Egress and Postcapitalist Desire) speaks to to Thomas Moynihan about his most recent book X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction.
From forecasts of disastrous climate change to prophecies of evil AI superintelligences and the impending perils of genome editing, our species is increasingly concerned with the prospects of its own extinction. With humanity's future on this planet seeming more insecure by the day, in the twenty-first century, existential risk has become the object of a growing field of serious scientific inquiry. But, as Thomas Moynihan shows in X-Risk, this preoccupation is not exclusive to the post-atomic age of global warming and synthetic biology. Our growing concern with human extinction itself has a history.
Tracing this untold story, Moynihan revisits the pioneers who first contemplated the possibility of human extinction and stages the historical drama of this momentous discovery. He shows how, far from being a secular reprise of religious prophecies of apocalypse, existential risk is a thoroughly modern idea, made possible by the burgeoning sciences and philosophical tumult of the Enlightenment era. In recollecting how we first came to care for our extinction, Moynihan reveals how today's attempts to measure and mitigate existential threats are the continuation of a project initiated over two centuries ago, which concerns the very vocation of the human as a rational, responsible, and future-oriented being.
Produced by Sam Kelly; Mixed by Samantha Doyle; Soundtrack by Kristen Gallerneaux.
464 tập
Tất cả các tập
×Chào mừng bạn đến với Player FM!
Player FM đang quét trang web để tìm các podcast chất lượng cao cho bạn thưởng thức ngay bây giờ. Đây là ứng dụng podcast tốt nhất và hoạt động trên Android, iPhone và web. Đăng ký để đồng bộ các theo dõi trên tất cả thiết bị.