I think there are three main threats humanity currently faces. (1) nuclear war. In any one year the chances of a serious nuclear war are quite small; however the consequences will be global destruction of human civilisation. For many people under 40, this is a black swan scenario, an event which will take them by… Continue reading Existential Threats
Tag: climate change
degrowth and import tariffs
While so many people are worried about the impact of Trump’s new tariffs on imports to the USA and the effect on the world economy, personally I see a positive side. The resulting semi-crash of the stock markets and predictions of loss of growth are, in a way, positive for the struggle against anthropomorphic climate… Continue reading degrowth and import tariffs
Unintended Consequences in History
Almost two thousand years ago, Julius Caesar appointed himself as dictator for life and was subsequently assassinated by the Roman Senate whose intention was to save the Roman Republic and its system of democracy. The unintended outcome was the end of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the Roman Empire, ruled by an Emperor… Continue reading Unintended Consequences in History
complexity
Today I was reading about a Stanford University professor called Robert Laughlin who thinks that, in a thousand years, all the carbon that we are mining today will be in the ocean. We will either have mined all the available carbon energy sources or we will have decided to leave them alone. The excess carbon… Continue reading complexity