Welcome to the World's Final Century! - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ARTelevision · 06-04-2003, 02:42 PM

Here's a sensational story and that's no overstatement.

Lots of folks predict the world's end.
Here's a guy with papers to prove it.
.......................

The End is Nigh — Maybe
An eminent British astrophysicist warns in his new book that humankind might not survive the next 100 years

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

June 4 — Sir Martin Rees is not given to histrionics. Britain’s Astronomer Royal and longtime Cambridge University professor is responsible for major advances in our understanding of cosmic background radiation, quasars, gamma-ray bursts and galaxy formation.

ONE OF the most eminent theoretical astrophysicists alive, Rees’s pronouncements carry a certain gravitas. So, when he says “the odds are no better than 50-50 that our present civilization on Earth will survive to the end of the present century,” it would be unwise to dismiss him simply as a scaremonger.
The prediction that civilization may not make it through the next century is the premise of his new fascinating and frightening book “Our Final Hour” (Basic Books). Terrorism, scientific advances, catastrophic error and natural hazards conspire to do us in, he says. The book is a horrifying catalog of everything that might go wrong in the next 100 years. Indeed, citing the Cuban missile crisis as the only known precedent of human ingenuity putting the entire planet at risk, Rees even suggests that humankind was in some respects lucky to have survived the last 100 years. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the possible proliferation of nuclear weapons into rogue hands, it seems unlikely to Rees that such a crisis in the future could have a similarly happy ending.
Add global warming and genetic engineering to the witch’s brew of nuclear proliferation and 9-11-style terror, and Rees’s prediction becomes disturbingly convincing. Still, Rees concludes that civilization is not necessarily doomed—if approached with thought and restraint, science holds infinite potential, he says. NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker spoke to Rees about his words of warning. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What drove you to write this book and how difficult was it to sell?

Martin Rees: Over the years I’ve given a lot of talks to student groups and at conferences on the responsibilities of scientists and the risks from technology. So it was a longstanding interest of mine. As you imply, it wasn’t a particularly popular concept with publishers because readers don’t wish to be depressed too much. On the other hand, I felt that the book did gather together some thoughts which are in some respects disquieting but also offer some feeling for the tremendous potential for science if we handle things well.

NEWSWEEK: The title is certainly attention-grabbing, though maybe a little misleading. You don’t seem to conclude that this is indeed our final hour.

Martin Rees: No, but I would say that the original title I had for the English edition was “Our Final Century?”—with a question mark. The title was hyped-up by the American publishers. I do genuinely believe that the risk of a severe setback to civilization is probably 50 percent. We won’t be wiped out, but there’s a severe risk to civilization, and I would make that sort of assessment even if we just considered the nuclear threat. We were subject to the threat of a devastating setback to civilization in America and Europe during the 30 years of the cold war. We got through that, but the threat has not gone away.

NEWSWEEK: The very fact that nuclear weapons exist today would lead one to conclude that your prediction that civilization may self-destruct within 100 years would have been accurate a century ago.

Martin Rees: Well of course 100 years ago we couldn’t have predicted nuclear weapons, but in retrospect we were subject to substantial threats over the cold war period. Of course, in the next hundred years, we can’t rule out some renewed standoff—perhaps involving different dispositions of superpowers. The nuclear threat itself is reason for disquiet, but in my book I also raise the possibility that other threats, which are as hard to specify as the present day world would have been in the year 1900, may be even more intractable.

NEWSWEEK: That must put you in the awkward position of hoping that your book sounds rather quaint 100 years hence, much like the century-old predictions you cite by H. G. Wells.

Martin Rees: Yes, indeed. Of course, if we look back 100 years, some of the predictions made by people like H. G. Wells were borne out. Some showed failure of imagination because many of the features of our everyday present world would have seemed complete magic 100 years ago.

NEWSWEEK: It’s ironic that that which makes us human—our ingenuity and our self-awareness—makes us the most dangerous to ourselves and to the rest of the world. We are our own worst enemy here.

Martin Rees: Indeed, that is the downside of the advance of knowledge. In my book, I do devote one chapter to natural threats like earthquakes, asteroid impacts and eruptions. But I describe them as baseline threats because they are no greater for us than they were for the Romans or the Neanderthals.

NEWSWEEK: And yet we’re changing our environment, too. Look at global warming.

Martin Rees: As you say, other environmental threats are aggravated by human actions. Global warming’s the most obvious one. And the other threats from technology are human-induced. The baseline natural threats are now being disquietingly augmented by the environmental threats caused by humans and by these other dangers that stem from advanced technology. Another respect in which this new century is going to be different from its predecessors and less predictable is that for the very first time human nature itself may change.

NEWSWEEK: Through genetic engineering?

Martin Rees: Through genetic modifications, through targeted drugs and perhaps even through implants into the brain. Some of these may seem science fiction, but they may not 50 years from now. That’s a new dimension of change because over the thousands of years of human history the one thing that’s been fairly constant has been human nature and human physique.

NEWSWEEK: But isn’t that so unethical as to be almost unthinkable?

Martin Rees: I do discuss in my book the growing gap between what science can do and what science should do. This raises issues of the responsibility of scientists, dialogue with the wider public. I do quote as an example the attitude of some of the physicists who worked at Los Alamos on the first atomic bombs, many of whom after the war did feel a concern and did devote their energies to arms control. They set an example which I think will need to be followed by scientists in other fields.

NEWSWEEK: But isn’t devoting energy to arms control after having invented the weapons a case of too little, too late?

Martin Rees: I agree. What we’d like to do, obviously, is have the benefits of science without the downsides. Some people have talked about going slow in some areas of science. I address this issue in my book and conclude that it’s probably not feasible and not even desirable. When you do science, you can’t always predict what its application is going to be. Lord [Ernest] Rutherford, the greatest nuclear scientist of his time, thought that getting energy from the nucleus was moonshine. He said that in 1933. So even the experts can’t predict how their work will be applied.

NEWSWEEK: The future of mankind in some respects may even rest in private enterprise and private-sector space exploration, according to your book.

Martin Rees: I do discuss the possible long-term future of humans beyond the earth. To summarize in one sentence: although, as a scientist and a practical man, I’m against manned space flight, as a human being, I’m in favor. What I mean by that is that the practical case, the scientific case, for sending people into space is getting weaker with each advance in robotics and miniaturization. On the other hand, I would like to feel in 50 or 100 years from now some individuals will have got beyond the Earth, maybe to Mars, and may be establishing little communities. It never will be more than a few pioneering individuals because … it’s not going to be a comfortable place. I think space exploration will only be financially and sociologically feasible if it’s done in that style, probably by privately financed groups.

NEWSWEEK: Is it anomalous for someone who’s professionally an astronomer and cosmologist to be writing about terrorism and genetic engineering and bioethics?

Martin Rees: I’m writing not as a specialist, but as a scientist in general. Astronomers do bring a slightly different perspective, which is that we’re probably more aware than most people of the tremendous time spans that lie ahead. Most educated people are aware of the billions of years of the past of the evolution that led from simple life to human beings. But most people, I suspect, think of humans in some sense as the culmination, whereas astronomers are mindful that the time lying ahead even for the earth is probably as long as the time that has elapsed up until now. [If] the time lying ahead is as long as the time that’s elapsed from simple organisms to humans, we shouldn’t think of humans, we should think of posthumans that might develop from us.

..........

Not to worry. I figure in the next 100 years we'll be nano-technological solid-state items, coursing through interstellar space with our own IP addresses networked to everyone else's.

How 'bout you?

Easytiger · 06-04-2003, 03:06 PM

I tend to believe that this world won't miss us when we're gone, though I really don't think that our departure is going to happen in a way that we can predict.

Easytiger · 06-04-2003, 03:07 PM

...or a time-frame that we can predict, for that matter.

yodapaul · 06-04-2003, 03:13 PM

Well, why not just enjoy life and not worry about the "end"? Nobody ever really knows when the end will come, we just know that it will. So I say don't let it bother you and just enjoy life.

krwlz · 06-04-2003, 03:56 PM

yodapaul, your prolly right, we should just move on with our lives...but a few of those things that are going to cause our doom, could be avoided...maybe we should work toward lessening our chances of destruction...

BBtB · 06-04-2003, 04:20 PM

I think humans are going to be rather depressed when we go out not with a bang but with a whimper.

Jesus Pimp · 06-04-2003, 05:21 PM

If the weather stays the way it is now (i.e. rainy weather) and president bush gets re-elected are signs of what to come then yes the world is truly fucked.

Gortexfogg · 06-04-2003, 07:30 PM

We should make it another 50 years for sure. But once our oil supply runs dry and we don't have anything concrete to replace it, bye-bye law and order, hello anarchy and chaos...

06-04-2003, 09:21 PM

We all do make a diffrence but I belive if there was going be a nuclulear holocaust, the chances of me making a diffrence are slim. I have no control over it so the best I can do is to take care of the world around me.

madsenj37 · 06-05-2003, 11:05 AM

Ive always believed that we will someday be responsible for our own demise.

maxero · 06-05-2003, 11:12 AM

im still going on the theory that baboons are secretly planning a retaliation from within zoos.

Peetster · 06-05-2003, 11:17 AM

This is an interesting article. While not exactly a liberal, Sir Martin tends towards the fantastic. Technically he is a "Theoretical Astrophysicist", an odd group even by Astrophysicists' standards.

He lost me when he cited global warming.

BentNotTwisted · 06-05-2003, 12:05 PM

I don't think civilization's chances of surviving are anywhere clost to 50-50, more like 10-90 on the bad side. Let's look at a scenario using where we are today. Le't's assume human polulation stops increasing starting today, this moment. For each person that dies, one baby is born. Now do any of you really believe the planet as it is today can indefinitely support the 6 billion plus people that are here now? I truly doubt it. Most of the ocean fisheries are dying out. Large ocean game fish are almost non-existant. Forests and jungles are being cut at rates that are mind boggling.
Unless the human race changes its ways really fast we are all in deep shit. I fear for the future of my children.

Oh, one more 'comforting' thought. Gortex mentioned what happens when we run out of petroleum. In the next 10 to 20 years the developed world will have a hydrogen economy. The need for petroleum will be dramatically reduced. Not completely, as it will still be used in plastics and for aircraft fuel. Still, what are the arab nations going to do when the price of oil has dropped to zip because so little of it is needed? They are going to be looking to nations that produce something other than oil to meet their needs. Can anyone say jihad (again)?

06-04-2003, 02:42 PM	#1 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Welcome to the World's Final Century! Here's a sensational story and that's no overstatement. Lots of folks predict the world's end. Here's a guy with papers to prove it. ....................... The End is Nigh — Maybe An eminent British astrophysicist warns in his new book that humankind might not survive the next 100 years NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE June 4 — Sir Martin Rees is not given to histrionics. Britain’s Astronomer Royal and longtime Cambridge University professor is responsible for major advances in our understanding of cosmic background radiation, quasars, gamma-ray bursts and galaxy formation. ONE OF the most eminent theoretical astrophysicists alive, Rees’s pronouncements carry a certain gravitas. So, when he says “the odds are no better than 50-50 that our present civilization on Earth will survive to the end of the present century,” it would be unwise to dismiss him simply as a scaremonger. The prediction that civilization may not make it through the next century is the premise of his new fascinating and frightening book “Our Final Hour” (Basic Books). Terrorism, scientific advances, catastrophic error and natural hazards conspire to do us in, he says. The book is a horrifying catalog of everything that might go wrong in the next 100 years. Indeed, citing the Cuban missile crisis as the only known precedent of human ingenuity putting the entire planet at risk, Rees even suggests that humankind was in some respects lucky to have survived the last 100 years. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the possible proliferation of nuclear weapons into rogue hands, it seems unlikely to Rees that such a crisis in the future could have a similarly happy ending. Add global warming and genetic engineering to the witch’s brew of nuclear proliferation and 9-11-style terror, and Rees’s prediction becomes disturbingly convincing. Still, Rees concludes that civilization is not necessarily doomed—if approached with thought and restraint, science holds infinite potential, he says. NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker spoke to Rees about his words of warning. Excerpts: NEWSWEEK: What drove you to write this book and how difficult was it to sell? Martin Rees: Over the years I’ve given a lot of talks to student groups and at conferences on the responsibilities of scientists and the risks from technology. So it was a longstanding interest of mine. As you imply, it wasn’t a particularly popular concept with publishers because readers don’t wish to be depressed too much. On the other hand, I felt that the book did gather together some thoughts which are in some respects disquieting but also offer some feeling for the tremendous potential for science if we handle things well. NEWSWEEK: The title is certainly attention-grabbing, though maybe a little misleading. You don’t seem to conclude that this is indeed our final hour. Martin Rees: No, but I would say that the original title I had for the English edition was “Our Final Century?”—with a question mark. The title was hyped-up by the American publishers. I do genuinely believe that the risk of a severe setback to civilization is probably 50 percent. We won’t be wiped out, but there’s a severe risk to civilization, and I would make that sort of assessment even if we just considered the nuclear threat. We were subject to the threat of a devastating setback to civilization in America and Europe during the 30 years of the cold war. We got through that, but the threat has not gone away. NEWSWEEK: The very fact that nuclear weapons exist today would lead one to conclude that your prediction that civilization may self-destruct within 100 years would have been accurate a century ago. Martin Rees: Well of course 100 years ago we couldn’t have predicted nuclear weapons, but in retrospect we were subject to substantial threats over the cold war period. Of course, in the next hundred years, we can’t rule out some renewed standoff—perhaps involving different dispositions of superpowers. The nuclear threat itself is reason for disquiet, but in my book I also raise the possibility that other threats, which are as hard to specify as the present day world would have been in the year 1900, may be even more intractable. NEWSWEEK: That must put you in the awkward position of hoping that your book sounds rather quaint 100 years hence, much like the century-old predictions you cite by H. G. Wells. Martin Rees: Yes, indeed. Of course, if we look back 100 years, some of the predictions made by people like H. G. Wells were borne out. Some showed failure of imagination because many of the features of our everyday present world would have seemed complete magic 100 years ago. NEWSWEEK: It’s ironic that that which makes us human—our ingenuity and our self-awareness—makes us the most dangerous to ourselves and to the rest of the world. We are our own worst enemy here. Martin Rees: Indeed, that is the downside of the advance of knowledge. In my book, I do devote one chapter to natural threats like earthquakes, asteroid impacts and eruptions. But I describe them as baseline threats because they are no greater for us than they were for the Romans or the Neanderthals. NEWSWEEK: And yet we’re changing our environment, too. Look at global warming. Martin Rees: As you say, other environmental threats are aggravated by human actions. Global warming’s the most obvious one. And the other threats from technology are human-induced. The baseline natural threats are now being disquietingly augmented by the environmental threats caused by humans and by these other dangers that stem from advanced technology. Another respect in which this new century is going to be different from its predecessors and less predictable is that for the very first time human nature itself may change. NEWSWEEK: Through genetic engineering? Martin Rees: Through genetic modifications, through targeted drugs and perhaps even through implants into the brain. Some of these may seem science fiction, but they may not 50 years from now. That’s a new dimension of change because over the thousands of years of human history the one thing that’s been fairly constant has been human nature and human physique. NEWSWEEK: But isn’t that so unethical as to be almost unthinkable? Martin Rees: I do discuss in my book the growing gap between what science can do and what science should do. This raises issues of the responsibility of scientists, dialogue with the wider public. I do quote as an example the attitude of some of the physicists who worked at Los Alamos on the first atomic bombs, many of whom after the war did feel a concern and did devote their energies to arms control. They set an example which I think will need to be followed by scientists in other fields. NEWSWEEK: But isn’t devoting energy to arms control after having invented the weapons a case of too little, too late? Martin Rees: I agree. What we’d like to do, obviously, is have the benefits of science without the downsides. Some people have talked about going slow in some areas of science. I address this issue in my book and conclude that it’s probably not feasible and not even desirable. When you do science, you can’t always predict what its application is going to be. Lord [Ernest] Rutherford, the greatest nuclear scientist of his time, thought that getting energy from the nucleus was moonshine. He said that in 1933. So even the experts can’t predict how their work will be applied. NEWSWEEK: The future of mankind in some respects may even rest in private enterprise and private-sector space exploration, according to your book. Martin Rees: I do discuss the possible long-term future of humans beyond the earth. To summarize in one sentence: although, as a scientist and a practical man, I’m against manned space flight, as a human being, I’m in favor. What I mean by that is that the practical case, the scientific case, for sending people into space is getting weaker with each advance in robotics and miniaturization. On the other hand, I would like to feel in 50 or 100 years from now some individuals will have got beyond the Earth, maybe to Mars, and may be establishing little communities. It never will be more than a few pioneering individuals because … it’s not going to be a comfortable place. I think space exploration will only be financially and sociologically feasible if it’s done in that style, probably by privately financed groups. NEWSWEEK: Is it anomalous for someone who’s professionally an astronomer and cosmologist to be writing about terrorism and genetic engineering and bioethics? Martin Rees: I’m writing not as a specialist, but as a scientist in general. Astronomers do bring a slightly different perspective, which is that we’re probably more aware than most people of the tremendous time spans that lie ahead. Most educated people are aware of the billions of years of the past of the evolution that led from simple life to human beings. But most people, I suspect, think of humans in some sense as the culmination, whereas astronomers are mindful that the time lying ahead even for the earth is probably as long as the time that has elapsed up until now. [If] the time lying ahead is as long as the time that’s elapsed from simple organisms to humans, we shouldn’t think of humans, we should think of posthumans that might develop from us. .......... Not to worry. I figure in the next 100 years we'll be nano-technological solid-state items, coursing through interstellar space with our own IP addresses networked to everyone else's. How 'bout you? __________________ create evolution

06-04-2003, 03:13 PM	#4 (permalink)
yodapaul Insane Location: MN	Well, why not just enjoy life and not worry about the "end"? Nobody ever really knows when the end will come, we just know that it will. So I say don't let it bother you and just enjoy life. __________________ I'm Just here to help. Now, Where is your problem?

06-04-2003, 04:20 PM	#6 (permalink)
BBtB ClerkMan! Location: Tulsa, Ok.	I think humans are going to be rather depressed when we go out not with a bang but with a whimper. __________________ Meridae'n once played "death" at a game of chess that lasted for over two years. He finally beat death in a best 34 out of 67 match. At that time he could ask for any one thing and he could wish for the hope of all mankind... he looked death right in the eye and said ... "I would like about three fiddy"

06-04-2003, 05:21 PM	#7 (permalink)
Jesus Pimp The Original JizzSmacka	If the weather stays the way it is now (i.e. rainy weather) and president bush gets re-elected are signs of what to come then yes the world is truly fucked. __________________ Never date anyone who doesn't make your dick hard.

06-05-2003, 11:05 AM	#10 (permalink)
madsenj37 Still searching... Location: NorCal For Life	Ive always believed that we will someday be responsible for our own demise. __________________ "Only two things are certain: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not certain about the universe." -- Albert Einstein

06-04-2003, 03:06 PM	#2 (permalink)
Easytiger Insane Location: Tigerland	I tend to believe that this world won't miss us when we're gone, though I really don't think that our departure is going to happen in a way that we can predict.

06-04-2003, 03:07 PM	#3 (permalink)
Easytiger Insane Location: Tigerland	...or a time-frame that we can predict, for that matter.

06-04-2003, 03:56 PM	#5 (permalink)
krwlz Fledgling Dead Head Location: Clarkson U.	yodapaul, your prolly right, we should just move on with our lives...but a few of those things that are going to cause our doom, could be avoided...maybe we should work toward lessening our chances of destruction...

06-04-2003, 07:30 PM	#8 (permalink)
Gortexfogg I and I Location: Stillwater, OK	We should make it another 50 years for sure. But once our oil supply runs dry and we don't have anything concrete to replace it, bye-bye law and order, hello anarchy and chaos...

06-04-2003, 09:21 PM	#9 (permalink)
NotMinus Guest	We all do make a diffrence but I belive if there was going be a nuclulear holocaust, the chances of me making a diffrence are slim. I have no control over it so the best I can do is to take care of the world around me.

06-05-2003, 11:12 AM	#11 (permalink)
maxero Crazy	im still going on the theory that baboons are secretly planning a retaliation from within zoos. __________________ cough

06-05-2003, 11:17 AM	#12 (permalink)
Peetster Right Now Location: Home	This is an interesting article. While not exactly a liberal, Sir Martin tends towards the fantastic. Technically he is a "Theoretical Astrophysicist", an odd group even by Astrophysicists' standards. He lost me when he cited global warming.

06-05-2003, 12:05 PM	#13 (permalink)
BentNotTwisted Optimistic Skeptic Location: Midway between a Beehive and Centennial	I don't think civilization's chances of surviving are anywhere clost to 50-50, more like 10-90 on the bad side. Let's look at a scenario using where we are today. Le't's assume human polulation stops increasing starting today, this moment. For each person that dies, one baby is born. Now do any of you really believe the planet as it is today can indefinitely support the 6 billion plus people that are here now? I truly doubt it. Most of the ocean fisheries are dying out. Large ocean game fish are almost non-existant. Forests and jungles are being cut at rates that are mind boggling. Unless the human race changes its ways really fast we are all in deep shit. I fear for the future of my children. Oh, one more 'comforting' thought. Gortex mentioned what happens when we run out of petroleum. In the next 10 to 20 years the developed world will have a hydrogen economy. The need for petroleum will be dramatically reduced. Not completely, as it will still be used in plastics and for aircraft fuel. Still, what are the arab nations going to do when the price of oil has dropped to zip because so little of it is needed? They are going to be looking to nations that produce something other than oil to meet their needs. Can anyone say jihad (again)? __________________ IS THAT IT ???!!! Do you even know what 'it' is? When the last man dies for just words that he said... We Shall Be Free