Pessimism is a mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empty or half full?"; in this situation, a pessimist is said to see the glass as half empty, or in extreme cases completely empty, while an optimist is said to see the glass as half full. Throughout history, the pessimistic disposition has had effects on all major areas of thinking.
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to space science:
Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member. A taxon may become functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" after a period of apparent absence.
John Edward Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication and symbolic thought.
David Hillel Gelernter is an American computer scientist, artist, and writer. He is a professor of computer science at Yale University.
"A Cyborg Manifesto" is an essay written by Donna Haraway and published in 1985 in the Socialist Review (US). In it, the concept of the cyborg represents a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating "human" from "animal" and "human" from "machine." Haraway writes: "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."
Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Luddites, who were active between 1811 and 1817. While the original Luddites were mostly concerned with the economic implications of improving technology in regard to industrialization, neo-Luddites tend to have a broader and more holistic distrust of technological improvement.
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.
David Richard Kaczynski is an American charity worker. He is the younger brother of the domestic terrorist and mathematician Ted Kaczynski (1942–2023), also known as the Unabomber.
"Why The Future Doesn't Need Us" is an article written by Bill Joy in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine. In the article, he argues that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species." Joy warns:
The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.
Ecofascism is a term used to describe individuals and groups which combine environmentalism with fascism.
Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. He was a mathematics prodigy, but abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a primitive lifestyle.
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."
Jean-Marie Apostolidès was a French novelist, essayist, playwright, theatre director, and university professor.
Gergana Dimitrova is Bulgarian theatre director, playwright and translator.
Ecomodernism is an environmental philosophy which argues that technological development can protect nature and improve human wellbeing through eco-economic decoupling, i.e., by separating economic growth from environmental impacts.
Industrial Society and Its Future, also known as the Unabomber Manifesto, is a 1995 anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber". The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology, while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The 35,000-word manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society. The manifesto states that the public largely accepts individual technological advancements as purely positive without accounting for their overall effect, including the erosion of local and individual freedom and autonomy.
Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How is a 2016 non-fiction book by Ted Kaczynski.
Ted K is a 2021 American historical crime drama film written, directed, produced, and edited by Tony Stone. Starring Sharlto Copley as Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, the film follows the mathematics prodigy turned domestic terrorist through the events leading to his arrest.
Technological Slavery is a 2008 non-fiction book by American domestic terrorist Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. In it, Kaczynski continues the critique of modern technological society that he began with his 1995 manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future. The book serves as a compendium of his thoughts and philosophies on technology, freedom, and the impacts of societal progression on individual autonomy.
