From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the near and very far future. For past civilizations, see Societal collapse.
An existential risk narrowly refers to any factor threatening
the existence of humanity. Existential risks may also broadly refer to
any of the various risks that have the potential to destroy, or
irreversibly cripple, human civilization; to lead to human extinction; or even to cause the end of Earth.[1]
Severe events could cause the extinction of all life on the planet
Earth, the destruction of the planet Earth, the annihilation of the
solar system, to the annihilation of our galaxy or even the entire universe.
Existential risks are distinguished from global catastrophic risks.
While global catastrophic risks could severely damage human civilization
and even kill the majority of people, existential risks either
annihilate humanity or prevent civilization from ever rebuilding. The
moral philosopher Nick Bostrom
argues that the moral significance of an existential risk would exceed
that of a global catastrophic risk by orders of magnitude.[2]Natural disasters, such as supervolcanoes and asteroids, may pose existential risks if sufficiently powerful, though human-caused events could also threaten the survival of intelligent life on Earth, like catastrophic global warming,[3] nuclear war, or bioterrorism.
Despite the importance of existential risks, it is a difficult subject to study directly since humankind has never been destroyed before; while this does not mean that it will not be in the future, it does make modelling existential risks difficult, due in part to survivorship bias.
While individual threats, such as those posed by nuclear war or climate change, have been intensively studied on their own, very little systematic work in the area of existential risks was done before the beginning of the 21st century.[4] A precise estimate of each individual risk may not be necessary when compiling the aggregate risk to mankind.
Examples of civilizations and societies that have collapsed
By Reversion/Simplification- Hittite Empire
- Mycenaean Greece
- The Neo-Assyrian Empire
- Indus Valley Civilization
- Angkor civilization of the Khmer Empire
- Han and Tang Dynasty of China
- Anasazi
- Western Roman Empire, Decline of the Roman Empire
- Izapa
- Maya, Classic Maya collapse
- Munhumutapa Empire
- Olmec
- Sumer by the Akkadian Empire
- Ancient Egypt by the Libyans, Nubians, Assyria, Babylonia, Persian rule, Greece, Ptolemaic Dynasty, and the Roman Empire[13]
- Babylonia by the Hittites
- Etruscans by the Roman Republic
- Ancient Levant
- Classical Greece by the Roman Empire
- Dacians by the Roman Empire
- Eastern Roman Empire (Medieval Greek) of the Byzantines by the Arabs
- Modern North East Asian civilisations
- Qin, Song, Mongol and Qing China
- Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, ending with the Meiji Restoration
- Aztecs by the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
- Incas by the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
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