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Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks

Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks

Current price: $17.95
Publication Date: October 1st, 2017
Publisher:
Pitchstone Publishing
ISBN:
9781634311427
Pages:
328

Description

Existential risk studies is a growing field that attempts to understand the greatest dangers to humanity from a scientific perspective. This book offers the first scholarly survey of existential risks, from asteroid impacts and climate change to molecular nanotechnology and machine superintelligence. It argues that avoiding an existential catastrophe should be among our highest moral priorities and analyzes a number of risk mitigation strategies to reduce the probability of a worst-case scenario. The dangers facing humanity this century are real and immense, but the future course of civilization is ultimately up to us.

About the Author

Phil Torres is the founding director of the X-Risks Institute. He has written about apocalyptic terrorism, emerging technologies, and existential risks in a wide range of publications, including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, TIME, Motherboard, the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Foresight, and Metaphilosophy. Follow him @xriskology. Martin Rees is a cosmologist and space scientist based in Cambridge, England. He holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal.

Praise for Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks

"How might our world end? By our own hand? Or might danger loom from outside forces? Either way, Phil Torres takes you on a tour of the new field of Big Risk assessment, including ways we might protect our fragile promise." —David Brin, physicist and award-winning science fiction authorÂ