|i _By oyun G1" chukware ‘00 Bellarmine Human Extinction Is Inguvitecy Bao Schell, ‘82 (Policy Analyst and Proliferation Expert) (Jonathan; ‘The Fate of the Earth, 1982; p. 43-Vo But itis lear that wt present, with rome twenty thaw sand megatons of nuclear explosive power in existence, andi, Inore being added every day, We have enteed ito the sari ttncestanty, which i to say the sone of ck of eineion Bat “Fare ok of extinction basa sgnifcance that categorically difer SEER ale oor cee thet igniicapee Wins SEE Up to tow every rather been contarned within team Tater ie tiame Teper oot Neti Ss humanly speaking See Tete tinction we have paight gamble, bees Pre pie, the game will be cer enaneinee weanon sean il ever geranother cranes. Sea Reet tie tere inthe ws PORTO Wat a holocaust will bring about extinction snd Uy certainty of it morally they aze the same_and we have no choict ‘but to address the ” Shas FT eerainy that the In weigh Tag be fate ofthe eath and, with four ovm fate, we stand befoe we ary, end in tampering with the earth we teriper with a) ten, We are lage uignorance. Our ignorance should dispateis to wotder, our ypnder sould make us humble, our hamiity choo inopre ur te viveence and eauton, and our ceverence and eastlr should lead us to ac without delay to withdraw the threat we ndw pote to the earth afd to ourselveiBRC > toy, See. es TLING Hymang MicnT Kus Ave Seaxrrear JOHN LESLIE 1996 (PROF EMERITUS OF PHILOSOPHY, U OF GUELPH & FELLOW @ ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. THE ENO OF THE woRLa) ¢.'38 Ought we, then, to join the flying-aucé? spotters who claim prmitve be fo ntl ould alo begvery sitheule,)And the eeratertesials have in fact been seen? If could seem better even if it were easy it might well not be made, Because there was to jom Barrow and Tipler= in reflecting that Earth could easily #oGtde evolutionary advantags)in-making it_ Think of the cleser be the one and only place in the galaxy where advanced life (or and curious animal putting its head into some dark hole and gesting any life) had been going to evolve, Iti litle use arguing that we t= aa ee et the Sueelieaseccaneving. planet on which we find” In view of all cis we have a(rong dun)not to risk the essing “Surscves as faiiypsal-untl we get gridence to she contrary - stan- ofc Sean abons all mot to_isk it forGorterly Tanck aival benefits. As soon as st Became faity clear that CFCS Were Shear a destroving stratospheric ovone, their use for spraying spasehes? Vary posibly, most al albxies wil mmainermanentiy) deodorants inte armpits ght to have been banned outright ably the Ghtire universchwould for ever Femain, and world wide _ boy a}DQ proegthusomem 1 G20 chukware '00 Bellarmine Tae isi O¢ Auens lows Woera Beirne _ Car inerion Ow \ ! John Leslie 1996 (prof emeritus of philosophy, U of Guelph & fellow ! @ Royal Society of Canada. The End of the World.) | ! It is sometimes suggested that the annihilation of all life on Earth would be no great aged. Other inteligent beings would soon E Srolve somewhere, it is tid, and these would then spread throughout the glans. But this overlooks che fact char we have sis ine no on fc nlite olde wo evolve, even on ideally suitable Perhaps 9S Not just the fae pe gee ie on Earth cae 09 at end Toon ; Tr can seem unlikely that our galaxy already contains many oe ological cvilzatiog. for, 5 Enrico Fermi noted, we could in that hhave expected definite signs of their presence, if not through ‘their radio signals then through Earth’s actually being colonized” ‘Byte Aer allie could well beth a euman race will have colonized the entire galaxy, if it survives.” tice that observational selection effects might help to explain cour survival up to date For instance, we couldn't observe tha we fBere on a planct whore disease or tm asteroid impact had exter inated all intelligent life, even if such planets formed the vast fesjority of those on which such life had evolved. Ineligent living, [beings cannot find that they are in places devoid of living inteli- fence! Observational selection fects, of course, didn't ease us Fe be where we are. All the moe, they could ina senge ad in iSeounting fort. They could rake it unmysteiou6 Hl o Bay- Ar: Empumrteo ' : & 3,N we (wont Mare Tar oe fr | Waa Tave, So ts Means John Leslie 1996 (prof emeritus of philosophy, U of Guelph & fellow @ Royal Society of Canada. The End of the World.) ¢-134 Observational selection ee a ee rare ee many planets inhabited by intelligent species, the pathogens iin mos asap Dng the few where the pathogens have not thumphed, ele we'd not LE NS Sonar Rain our san Tae cone ~The segment of space-time conggining all the events of which we of_vscuum_metastabiliny disusrer discussed in" Chaprer 2, Pecause Pi es em. Sud selection fan Gdisastrous past xould make Jt dithcule co argue that we cust be safe because nothing terrible 1 Thas_ye ‘not xr millions or billions of years. HB, Nielsen writes! We do not even know if there should exist some extremely dangerous decay of say the proton which caused eradication 139 1). of the earth, because it happens we would no longer be there to abserve it and if it does not happen there is nothing | _wobene