Apocalypse!

Our imaginations are fonts of apocalyptic thinking--from the ancients seers to contemporary doomsday preppers, end-times cultists, and think tanks dedicated to studying existential risk. It seems there’s an end-times prophecy to suit any proclivity. Worries about human-caused cataclysms are gaining steam, including climate change, CRISPR, and superintelligent AI gone bad. Does the proliferation of dangerous exponential technologies require interventions such as “turnkey totalitarianism”? Or does trust in such great power bring catastrophic risks of its own? Join Max Borders and Michael Porcelli as they dive into these questions and even get a bit personal about why they each care about such matters.

After Collapse by Max Borders
Eschatology
Commitment device
Delayed Gratification
Survivalism
Collapsitarians
The Technological Singularity
Posthumanism
Transhumanism
Matrioshka Brain
Thomas Malthus
Malthusian Catastrophe
The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich
The Club of Rome and The Limits to Growth
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Stewart Brand
Kevin Kelly
The Long Now Foundation
Julian Simon
The Simon-Ehrlich Wager
Climate Change
Bright Green vs. Dark Green Environmentalism
Jim Bendall
Dematerialization and Ephemeralization
More From Less by Andrew McAfee
Global Catastrophic Risk
Nick Bostrom
Turnkey Totalitarianism
Future of Humanity Institute (see also Future of Life Institute and Centre for the Study of Existential Risk)
Vulnerable World Thesis
COVID-19
Biohacking
CRISPR
Incel
Drake Equation
Fermi Paradox
Great Filter
Existential risk from artificial general intelligence
The Precipice by Toby Ord
Jordan Hall
Prometheus
Democide
Daniel Schmachtenberger
Jim Rutt
Nonviolence and Ahimsa
Black Mirror episode San Junipero
Decentralization
Cryptocurrency
Multicellular Life
Ludwig von Mises
Holon
Mussolini and Fascism
Central Nervous System
Cancer
Holacracy
Flash Crash
Systemic Risk
Hobbesian Trap
Race to the Bottom
Red Queen Effect
Immune System
Cybersecurity
Cyberwarfare
Mutually Assured Destruction
Black Swan Theory
SolarWinds Hack
Coordination Problems
The Blue Church by Jordan Hall
Walter Cronkite
FUBAR
Anthony Fauci
Daniel Dennett
Future generations (posterity)
Transcendental Argument
Sentience
Moral Agency
Ethical Constructivism
Pascal’s Wager
Postmodern Condition
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Ted Kaczinski
Spiral Dynamics
Catastrophizing
Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Extinction Rebellion
Effective Altruism
Will MacAskill
Flagellant
Modern Stoicism
Virtues
Polyphasic Sleep
Ken Wilber
Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
Post-Truth
OODA Loop and John Boyd