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A review by remmerich1
The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity by Toby Ord
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
5.0
To have written a book oh this scale, drawing from such varied fields, binding them together, and presenting so clear and concise a summary of existential risk is a phenomenal achievement.
I tried to follow the foot notes at first, and planned to read the appendices but they get densely scientific and mathematical, and I found I was more frustrated with my reading pace than I was getting from them. Accepting that and just reading the text as presented (as Ord encourages the casual reader to do) helped me stick with the flow and narrative of Ord's arguments far more easily.
The book runs through various forms of risk, why we should think about them now, how we might mitigate them, and an overview of where humanity might go in the future. Its endlessly fascinating, and Ord does a good job of distilling wildly dense scientific ideas and mathematical concepts into plain language- with greater depth available for those who are interested, you can always check his working.
The book filled me with hope, fundamentally. Not that we WILL survive, but that there's no real reason why we CAN'T. If we pull ourselves together, the upper limit on our existence doesn't really exist. Tens, or hundreds, of billions of years, with a humanity stretching across the stars, experiences, perceptions, forms, stories, art, games, lives of unimaginable quality, and numbered in the trillions. So often we worry about asteroids or climate collapse or nuclear war. To have a sober, serious discussion of how we might avoid that, and what might folow, is a great joy, and I'll be thinking on and talking about this read for a very long time to come
I tried to follow the foot notes at first, and planned to read the appendices but they get densely scientific and mathematical, and I found I was more frustrated with my reading pace than I was getting from them. Accepting that and just reading the text as presented (as Ord encourages the casual reader to do) helped me stick with the flow and narrative of Ord's arguments far more easily.
The book runs through various forms of risk, why we should think about them now, how we might mitigate them, and an overview of where humanity might go in the future. Its endlessly fascinating, and Ord does a good job of distilling wildly dense scientific ideas and mathematical concepts into plain language- with greater depth available for those who are interested, you can always check his working.
The book filled me with hope, fundamentally. Not that we WILL survive, but that there's no real reason why we CAN'T. If we pull ourselves together, the upper limit on our existence doesn't really exist. Tens, or hundreds, of billions of years, with a humanity stretching across the stars, experiences, perceptions, forms, stories, art, games, lives of unimaginable quality, and numbered in the trillions. So often we worry about asteroids or climate collapse or nuclear war. To have a sober, serious discussion of how we might avoid that, and what might folow, is a great joy, and I'll be thinking on and talking about this read for a very long time to come