For each phase, we ask how people could stop the process, because the different failure modes may be best addressed in different ways. The motivating question behind the classifications we present is ‘How might this affect policy towards these risks?’ We proceed by identifying three phases in an extinction process at which people may intervene. In this article we will consider three different ways of classifying such risks. People have considered and studied possibilities such as asteroid impacts (Matheny, 2007), nuclear war (Turco et al., 1983), and engineered pandemics (Millett and Snyder‐Beattie, 2017). To guide research and policymaking in these areas, it may be important to understand what kind of processes could lead to our premature extinction. For example, Pamlin and Armstrong ( 2015) give probabilities between 0.00003% and 5% for different scenarios that could eventually cause irreversible civilisational collapse. Both the total risk of extinction by 2100 and the probabilities of specific potential causes have been estimated using a variety of methods including trend extrapolation, mathematical modelling, and expert elicitation see Rowe and Beard ( 2018) for a review, as well as Tonn and Stiefel ( 2013) for methodological recommendations. Human extinction is also possible, even this century. For many moral views it would be far worse than merely the deaths entailed, because it would curtail our potential by wiping out all future generations and all value they could have produced (Bostrom, 2013 Parfit, 1984 Rees, 2003, 2018). Our framework for discussing extinction risks Lastly, we discuss the importance of underlying risk factors – events or structural conditions that may weaken the defence layers even without posing a risk of immediate extinction themselves.
We also suggest ways to do so tailored to the classes of risk we identify. We find that it’s usually best to invest significantly into strengthening all three defence layers. The largest probability of extinction is posed when all of these defences are weak, that is, by risks we are unlikely to prevent, unlikely to successfully respond to, and unlikely to be resilient against. Third, humanity is resilient against extinction even in the face of global catastrophes. Second, we can respond to catastrophes before they reach a global scale.
First, how does it start causing damage? Second, how does it reach the scale of a global catastrophe? Third, how does it reach everyone? In all of these three phases there is a defence layer that blocks most risks: First, we can prevent catastrophes from occurring. Barrett is no more than a child, and those left in the world are either out to get her, or to control her.We look at classifying extinction risks in three different ways, which affect how we can intervene to reduce risk. On an average patrol, Del spots a pillar of fire in the distance and the source of it can only be one thing: demons have been summoned once more. She's hardened by this dead world, but something softer lies beneath her violent exterior.ĭespite the destruction of it all, there are those in the end of the world who feel that perhaps the first time didn't quite take. You play as Del, a bruiser who patrols the wastes in her truck. The wastes are harsh, and camaraderie is hard to come by. The world has been lost to a demon apocalypse, the remnants of this devastation staining the landscape and leaving mere dozens of people alive.
A half-hour long narrative game with survival gameplay elements and two endings. The demon summoned to embark this second apocalypse is only a child, and a woman who has lost it all resolves to save her. The world has ended once before, and there are those who aim to end it again.