As promised, I have published my review of the Lifeboat Foundation book Prospects for Human Survival (Willard Wells, 2015). It is more critical than the review of Visions of the Future (also 2015).

I think it is harder to predict existential risks than the equations put forward by Wells, as I argue in the opening parts of my essay. One problem is that maths can only be useful in evaluating what you don’t know from what you do know. One could have done a study of the gradual increase in explosive weapons, but at no point would such study have predicted the emergence of the nuke, which was developed secretively. What Wells does not consider is the unknowns, for which there is no equation. One cannot actually predict their probability, although we can hypothesize about their possibility.

Read the full review at clubof.info and if you so desire, get the book via Amazon.

I can only apologize for not writing a longer post today but I am at the limit of what I can do in a day at this point. Tomorrow, I will find an exciting topic to write about, possibly expanding on discoveries I made in books recently.