Postby Kevin Thomas Riley » Thu Dec 30, 2010 11:27 pm
There was a documentary on Swedish TV about the ten most threatening things that could happen to mankind. From lowest to highest, they were:
10. Collapsing star
9. Deadly impact
8. Supervolcanic eruption
7. Hostile extraterrestrials
6. Natural pandemic
5. Physics experiments
4. Climate catastrophe
3. Doomsday war
2. Machine superintelligence
1. Synthetic biology
Frankly, I thought the whole thing too far fetched, like taken from a slew of sci-fi movies.
I mean, "hostile extraterrestrials". Sure, I subscribe to the camp that doesn't think we should presume that ETs are friendly, but I think we'd be hit by stray comets, asteroids or black holes before they would arrive. And "physics experiments", like the LHC, are just like a nutty conspiracy theory. And the less said about "climate catastrophe" (the man-made kind) the better.
Also, "doomsday war" is now a rather remote possibility after the end of the cold war. Say what you want about the islamo-fascists, but they won't be able to turn the world into a nuclear wasteland. And I've always been sceptical of the possibility of real artificial intelligence.
She's got an awfully nice bum!-Malcolm Reed on T'Pol, in
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