Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the Earth's civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, such as an impact event; destructive, such as nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, such as a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or any other scenario in which the outcome is apocalyptic, such as a zombie apocalypse, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion.
Nick Bostrom is a philosopher known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, whole brain emulation, superintelligence risks, and the reversal test. He was the founding director of the now dissolved Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford and is now Principal Researcher at the Macrostrategy Research Initiative.
Space and survival is the idea that the long-term survival of the human species and technological civilization requires the building of a spacefaring civilization that utilizes the resources of outer space, and that not doing this might lead to human extinction. A related observation is that the window of opportunity for doing this may be limited due to the decreasing amount of surplus resources that will be available over time as a result of an ever-growing population.
Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species, either by population decline due to extraneous natural causes, such as an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism, or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction), for example by sub-replacement fertility.
The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) was an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford investigating big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. It was founded in 2005 as part of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Oxford Martin School. Its director was philosopher Nick Bostrom, and its research staff included futurist Anders Sandberg and Giving What We Can founder Toby Ord.
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization, the extinction of humanity, and/or the termination of most biological life on Earth.
A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's existence or potential is known as an "existential risk."
The Fate of the Earth is a 1982 book by Jonathan Schell. Its description of the consequences of nuclear war "forces even the most reluctant person to confront the unthinkable: the destruction of humanity and possibly most life on Earth". The work is regarded as a key document in the nuclear disarmament movement.
The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) is a research centre at the University of Cambridge, intended to study possible extinction-level threats posed by present or future technology. The co-founders of the centre are Huw Price, Martin Rees and Jaan Tallinn.
Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era is a 2013 non-fiction book by the American author James Barrat. The book discusses the potential benefits and possible risks of human-level or super-human artificial intelligence. Those supposed risks include extermination of the human race.
Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe is a 2014 book by David Denkenberger and Joshua M. Pearce and published by Elsevier under their Academic Press.
Existential risk from artificial general intelligence is the idea that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could result in human extinction or an irreversible global catastrophe.
Global Catastrophic Risks is a 2008 non-fiction book edited by philosopher Nick Bostrom and astronomer Milan M. Ćirković. The book is a collection of essays from 26 academics written about various global catastrophic and existential risks.
Seth Baum is an American researcher involved in the field of risk research. He is the executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI), a think tank focused on existential risk. He is also affiliated with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and the Columbia University Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress is a 2018 book written by Canadian-American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. It argues that the Enlightenment values of reason, science, and humanism have brought progress, and that health, prosperity, safety, peace, and happiness have tended to rise worldwide. It is a follow-up to Pinker's 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature.
On the Future: Prospects for Humanity is a 2018 nonfiction book by British cosmologist and Astronomer Royal Martin Rees. It is a short, "big concept" book on the future of humanity and on potential dangers, such as nuclear warfare, climate change, biotech, and artificial intelligence, and the possibility of human extinction.
The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity is a 2020 non-fiction book by the Australian philosopher Toby Ord, a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford. It argues that humanity faces unprecedented risks over the next few centuries and examines the moral significance of safeguarding humanity's future.
Scenarios in which a global catastrophic risk creates harm have been widely discussed. Some sources of catastrophic risk are anthropogenic, such as global warming, environmental degradation, and nuclear war. Others are non-anthropogenic or natural, such as meteor impacts or supervolcanoes. The impact of these scenarios can vary widely, depending on the cause and the severity of the event, ranging from temporary economic disruption to human extinction. Many societal collapses have already happened throughout human history.
What We Owe the Future is a 2022 book by the Scottish philosopher and ethicist William MacAskill, an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford. It advocates for effective altruism and the philosophy of longtermism, which MacAskill defines as "the idea that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time."
Émile P. Torres is an American philosopher, intellectual historian, author, and postdoctoral researcher at Case Western Reserve University. Their research focuses on eschatology, existential risk, and human extinction. They are also a critic of what they and computer scientist Timnit Gebru have dubbed the "TESCREAL" philosophies: transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism.
