[D66] How Humanity Came To Contemplate Its Possible Extinction: A Timeline

[R.O.]

  How Humanity Came To Contemplate Its Possible Extinction: A Timeline

By
Thomas Moynihan
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
13 min
View Original

It is only in the last couple of centuries that we have begun to grasp 
that our existence might one day cease to exist forever.

Today's attempts to measure and mitigate existential threats are the 
continuation of a project initiated over two centuries ago. Image: MIT 
Press Reader

With Covid-19 afflicting the world, and a climate crisis looming, 
humanity’s future seems uncertain. While the novel coronavirus does not 
itself pose a threat to the continuation of the species, it has 
undoubtedly stirred anxiety in many of us and has even sparked 
discussion about human extinction. Less and less does the end of the 
species seem an area of lurid fantasy or remote speculation.

Indeed, the opening decades of the 21^st century have seen investigation 
into so-called ‘existential risks’ establish itself as a growing field 
of rigorous scientific inquiry. Whether designer pathogen or malicious 
AI, we now recognize many ways to die.

But when did people first start /actually thinking/ about human extinction?

The answer is: surprisingly recently. As ideas go, the idea of the 
extinction of the human species is a new one. It did not, and could not, 
exist until a few centuries ago.

Of course, we humans have probably been prophesying the end of the world 
since we began talking and telling stories. However, the modern idea of 
human extinction distinguishes itself from the tradition of apocalypse 
as it is found across cultures and throughout history.

In the ancient mythologies you will not find the idea of a physical 
universe continuing, in its independent vastness, /after/ the 
annihilation of humans. Neither will you find the idea of the end of the 
world as a totally meaningless event. It is invariably imbued with some 
moral significance or revelatory lesson. Meaning and value lives on in a 
spiritual afterlife, in anthropomorphic gods, or an eventual rebirth of 
creation.

Only very recently in human history did people realize that /Homo 
sapiens/, and everything it finds meaningful, might permanently 
disappear. Only recently did people realize the physical universe could 
continue — aimlessly — without us. However, this was one of the most 
important discoveries humans have ever made. It is perhaps one of our 
crowning achievements. Why? Because we can only become truly responsible 
for ourselves when we fully realize what is at stake. And, in realizing 
that the entire fate of human value within the physical universe may 
rest upon us, we could finally begin to face up to what is at stake in 
our actions and decisions upon this planet. This is a discovery that 
humanity is still learning the lessons of — no matter how fallibly and 
falteringly.

Such a momentous understanding only came after centuries of laborious 
inquiry within science and philosophy. The timeline below revisits some 
of the most important milestones in this great, and ongoing, drama.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

*c.75,000 BP*: Toba supervolcanic eruption rocks the planet. Some 
evidence implies /Homo sapiens/ nearly goes extinct (though scientists 
disagree on the details). Around the same time, advanced human behavior 
and language emerge: This kickstarts cumulative culture, as recipes for 
technology begin to accumulate across generations. An immense journey 
begins…


        PHASE 1 (PREHISTORY–1600): INDESTRUCTIBLE VALUE

/No clear distinction between ethics and physics, so no true threat to 
the existence of ethics in the physical universe. Indestructibility of 
value. No ability to think of a possible world without minds./

*c.400 BC:* Even though they talk of great catastrophes and destroyed 
worlds, ancient philosophers all believe that nature does not leave 
eternally wasted opportunities where things, or values, could be but 
never are again. Whatever is lost in nature will eventually return in 
time — indestructibility of species, humanity, and value.

*c.360 BC:* Plato speaks of cataclysms wiping away prior humanities, but 
this is only part of eternal cycling return. Permanent extinction is 
unthinkable.

*c.350 BC*: Aristotle claims that everything valuable and useful has 
already been discovered. Everything knowable and useful can be found in 
the ‘wisdom of the ages.’ Precludes thinking on perils and risks that 
have not previously been recorded. Material conditions of mankind cannot 
radically change, or fail.

*c.50 BC*: Lucretius speaks of humankind ‘perishing,’ but also asserts 
that nothing is ever truly destroyed in nature, and that time eventually 
replenishes all losses. Our world may die, but it will eventually be remade.

Around 1100, Persian theologian Abu Hamid Al-Ghazâlî developed ways of 
talking about possibilities in terms of logical coherence rather than 
prior experience.

*c.1100* *AD*: Persian theologian Al-Ghazâlî develops ways of talking 
about possibilities in terms of their logical coherence rather than 
availability to prior experience — crucial to all later thinking on 
risks previously never experienced.

*c.1200*: Hindu-Arabic numeral system introduced to Europe, later 
allowing computation of large timespans that will be instrumental in 
discovery of the depth (rather than eternity) of past and future time.

*c.1300*: Islamic and Christian philosophers invent logical possibility 
as a way of thinking about the ways God could have created the world 
differently than it actually is. Theologians like William of Ockham 
conduct first thought experiments on a possible world without any human 
minds. Still, God would never manifest such a world, they believe.

*1350*: Black death kills up to 200 million people in Europe and North 
Africa. Around 60 percent of Europe’s population perishes.

*1564*: Using new logical conceptions of possibility, Gerolamo Cardano 
inaugurates the science of probability by thinking of each dice throw as 
the expression of a wider, abstract space of possibilities.

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle. Front piece for “Conversations on the 
Plurality of Worlds,” 1686.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


        PHASE 2 (1600–1800): COSMIC NONCHALANCE

/Modern physics implies that ours is one planet among many, but it is 
generally presumed that the universe is habitable and filled with 
humanoids. For every populated planet destroyed, another grows. Species 
cannot die. Indestructibility of value continues. Inability to recognize 
existential stakes./

*1600s*: Copernican Revolution gains momentum. Growing acceptance, 
following supernova sightings, that planets and suns can be destroyed. 
But from stars to species, nothing can be lost: It will regrow again 
elsewhere.

*1680s*: Breaking with orthodoxy, Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley 
controversially endorse the idea of prehistoric extinctions caused by 
massive geological cataclysms. Such conjectures remain fringe, however.

*1705:* Following Leibniz and Newton’s invention of calculus, long-term 
prediction of nature becomes feasible. Halley predicts the return of his 
comet.

*172*1: Population science takes hold: People start thinking of /Homo 
sapiens/ as a global aggregate. Baron de Montesquieu writes of humanity 
expiring due to infertility.

*1740s*: Reports of behemoth fossil remains found in Siberia and America 
begin to interest, and confuse, naturalists. Could these be extinct beasts?

*1750s*: Speculations on human extinction, as a naturalistic 
possibility, begin to emerge. Yet many remain confident that humans 
would simply re-evolve on Earth.

*1755*: Lisbon Earthquake shocks Europe. Influential geologist Georges 
Buffon accepts prehistoric species extinctions, ponders on which animals 
will inherit the Earth after we are gone.

*1758:* Linnaeus adds genus /Homo/ to his taxonomy. Halley’s comet 
returns, confirming his prediction.

*1763*: Thomas Bayes’s revolutionary work on probability is published, 
providing rules for thinking about probabilities of events prior to any 
trials. Proves essential to later thinking on risks beyond precedent.

*1770s*: First declarations that /Homo sapiens/ may be specific and 
unique to the Earth, and thus contingent upon the planet’s particular 
conditions. Baron d’Holbach writes that, if Earth were destroyed, our 
species would irreversibly disappear with it.

*1773*: Probability theory applied to issues of global catastrophic 
risk: Joseph Lalande computes likelihood of Earth being hit by a comet 
intersecting our orbit.

*1778*: Georges Buffon provides first experimental calculations of the 
window of planetary habitability, argues that eventually Earth will 
become irreversibly uninhabitable.

*1781*: Enlightenment philosophy culminates in Kant’s critique of the 
way we bias and distort our objective theories with our moral 
prejudices. We may /like/ the idea that the amount of value is constant 
in the universe, and that valuable things cannot irreversibly be 
destroyed, but that doesn’t mean it is /true/.

In the 1830s, Biela’s comet (the third short-period comet discovered 
after Halley’s and Encke’s) became an object of concern when it was 
realized that its orbit intersected with Earth’s. Image: Wikimedia Commons

*1790s*: Deep time and prehistoric extinctions accepted as scientific 
consensus. Modern paleontology and geology are born. They unveil a 
radically nonhuman past. Georges Cuvier theorizes our planet has been 
wracked by many catastrophes throughout its past, wiping out scores of 
creatures.

*1796*: First notions of long-term human potential — to alter material 
conditions and alleviate suffering — begin to come together in the work 
of (e.g.) Condorcet. Meanwhile, Marquis de Sade becomes the first 
proponent of voluntary human extinction. Pierre-Simon Laplace says that 
the probability of a cometary collision is low but will ‘accumulate’ 
over long periods of time. He remains confident that civilization would 
re-emerge and be replayed, however.

*1800:* By the century’s close, George Cuvier has identified 23 extinct 
prehistoric species.

The first anatomically reconstructed depiction of an prehistoric fossil 
skeleton (a megatherium), accomplished by Jean Bautista Bru in 1793. 
Image from Annales du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (1804), 
Biodiversity Heritage Library.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


        PHASE 3 (1800–1950): COSMIC LONELINESS

/Growing recognition that the entire universe may not be maximally 
habitable nor inhabited. Cosmic default is hostility to life and value. 
Many accept human extinction as irreversible and plausible — but not yet 
a pressing probability./

*1805*: Jean-Baptiste François Xavier Cousin De Grainville writes first 
fiction on “The Last Man.” He then kills himself.

*1810s*: Human extinction first becomes a topic in popular culture and 
popular fiction. People start more clearly regarding it as a moral 
tragedy. Value begins to seem insecure in the universe, not indestructible.

*1812:* Scientists claim the Mars-Jupiter asteroid belt is the ruins of 
a shattered planet. Joseph-Louis Lagrange attempts to precisely compute 
the exact explosive force required.

*1815*: Eruption of Mount Tambora causes famine in China and Europe and 
triggers cholera outbreak in Bengal. Volcanic dust in the atmosphere 
nearly blots out the sun; the perturbation provokes visions of biosphere 
collapse.

*1826*: Mary Shelley’s “The Last Man,” depicting humanity perishing due 
to a global pandemic. First proper depiction of an existential 
catastrophe where nonhuman ecosystems continue after demise of humanity: 
Our end is not the end of the world.

With increases in telescopic power, people soon faced up to the 
terrifying magnitude—and emptiness–of space. Image: A drawing of the 
Whirlpool Galaxy, by Lord Rosse, mid-19th century.

*1830s:* Proposing catastrophes as explanations in astrophysics and 
geophysics falls into disrepute, the argument that the cosmos is a 
stable and steady system wins the day, this obstructs inquiry into 
large-scale cataclysms for over a century.

*1844*: Reacting to Thomas Malthus’s theories of overpopulation, Prince 
Vladimir Odoevsky provides first speculation on omnicide (i.e. human 
extinction caused by human action). He imagines our species explosively 
committing suicide after resource exhaustion and population explosion 
cause civilization’s collapse. Odoevsky also provides first visions of 
human economy going off-world in order to stave off such outcomes.

*c.1850:* Large reflecting telescopes reveal deep space as mostly empty 
and utterly alien. Artistic depictions of Earth from space begin to 
evince a sense of cosmic loneliness.

*1859*: Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” published. Progressivist 
tendencies in early evolutionary theory fuel confidence in human 
adaptiveness and inexorable improvement. Fears of extinction are 
eclipsed by fears of degeneration.

Reconstruction of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal by the Czech 
artist Frantizek Kupka. Published in The Illustrated London News, 
February 27, 1909

*1863:* William King hypothesizes that fossil remains found in Neander 
valley represent an extinct species of the genus Homo. The ‘Neanderthal 
man’ becomes first extinct hominin species to be recognized.

*1865*: Rudolf Clausius names ‘entropy’ and theorizes the universe’s 
heat death. Despite provoking gloomy visions from writers like Henry 
Adams and Oswald Spengler, it seems far off enough to not be pressing.

*1890s*: Russian Cosmism launched with the first writings of Fedorov and 
Tsiolkovsky, making clear the stakes of extinction: They both realize 
that the only route to long-term survival is leaving Earth. First calls 
to escape X-risk by securing humanity’s foothold in the wider cosmos.

*1895*: Tsiolkovsky provides first vision of a Dyson sphere: a 
sun-girdling sphere that allows full harnessing of solar energy. 
Suggests mega-scale restructuring of the Solar System in order to 
further secure human civilization and ensure its long-term future.

*1918*: Great War provokes many intellectuals (including Winston 
Churchill) to ponder omnicide, but still a remote possibility. 
Physicists begin to realize how stringent and rare the conditions of 
habitability may be. Yet belief in humanoids inevitably re-evolving 
remains high.

*c.1930*: J.B.S. Haldane and J.D. Bernal provide first coherent 
synthesis of ideas regarding long-term potential, existential risk, 
space colonization, astroengineering, transhumanism, bioenhancement, and 
civilizational pitfalls. Haldane notes that if civilization collapses, 
yet humanity survives, there is no guarantee advanced civilization would 
re-evolve.

*1937*: Olaf Stapledon further synthesizes these ideas into a 
comparative study of omnicide in his awe-inspiring “Star Maker.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------


        PHASE 4 (~1950–PRESENT): ASTRONOMICAL VALUE

/Nuclear weapons, for the first time, make extinction a policy issue. It 
shifts from speculative possibility to pressing plausibility. 
Anthropogenic risks come to fore. Birth of internet gives critical mass 
to previously disparate communities. Finally, a rigorous framework for 
thinking analytically about X-risk is developed around the millennium./

*1942:* Edward Teller fears that a nuclear fission bomb could plausibly 
ignite the atmosphere of the Earth and destroy all life. Development of 
the bomb goes ahead regardless, even though scientists later concluded 
more research was needed to ascertain that this biosphere-annihilating 
event would definitely not occur.

*1945*: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Atom bomb changes how we relate to 
intelligence’s place in the cosmos. Faith in inevitable progress takes a 
battering. Rather than recurrent and omniprevalent owing to its 
adaptiveness, technological intelligence comes to be considered as 
potentially rare and even maladaptive.

“Hiroshima, U.S.A.: Can Anything be Done About It?” A 1950 cover of 
Collier’s magazine, with a painting by artist and astronomer Chesley 
Bonestell.

*1950*: Leó Szilárd suggests the feasibility of a planet-killing ‘cobalt 
bomb.’ Enrico Fermi articulates the most significant riddle of modern 
science, the Fermi Paradox. Catastrophism begins to reassert itself, 
with scientists asking whether supernovas caused past mass extinctions.

*1950s*: The modern field of AI research begins in earnest.

*1960s*: Initial SETI projects return only ominous silence. Biologists 
begin to insist that humanoids would not necessarily evolve on other 
planets. Dolphin research suggests alternative models of intelligence. 
Technological civilization appears increasingly contingent, heightening 
the perceived severity of X-risk.

*1962*: Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” raises the alarm on climate 
catastrophe.

*1965*: I.J. Good speculates that an AI could recursively improve itself 
and thus trigger a runaway ‘intelligence explosion,’ leaving us far 
behind. It will be our ‘last invention,’ he muses.

*Late 1960s*: Fears of overpopulation reassert themselves in 
neo-Malthusianism. Growing discussion that space colonization is the 
only long-term guarantee for human flourishing and survival. In line 
with this, scientists like Freeman Dyson propose largescale 
astroengineering as a method to further entrench and fortify the 
foothold of intelligence within the universe.

*1969*: First crewed mission lands on the moon.

*1973*: Brandon Carter articulates the Anthropic Principle. Goes on to 
derive the Doomsday Argument from it, which uses Bayesian probability to 
estimate how many generations of humans are likely to yet be born.

*1980s:* Bayesian methods vindicated in statistics. Luis and Walter 
Alvarez report findings that lead to consensus that an asteroid or comet 
killed the dinosaurs. Through this, catastrophism is vindicated: 
astronomical disasters /can/ significantly affect (and threaten) 
terrestrial life.

*1982:* Jonathan Schell pens “The Fate of the Earth,” stressing nuclear 
threat and the moral significance of the foreclosure of humanity’s 
entire future.

*1984*: Derek Parfit publishes “Reasons and Persons.” Population ethics 
clarifies the unique moral severity of total human extinction.

*1986*: A year after a hole in the ozone layer is discovered in 
Antarctica, Eric Drexler publishes “Engines of Creation,” hinting to 
X-risks from nanotech.

*1989*: Stephen Jay Gould publishes “Wonderful Life,” insisting that 
humanoid intelligence is not the inevitable result of evolution. In his 
“Imperative of Responsibility,” Hans Jonas demands a ‘new ethics of 
responsibility for the distant future.’

*1990s*: NASA tasked with tracking threats from asteroids and near-Earth 
objects. Internet allows convergence of disparate communities concerned 
about transhumanism, extropianism, longtermism, etc.

*1996*: John Leslie publishes “The End of the World: The Science and 
Ethics of Human Extinction.” Landmark text meticulously studying 
Carter’s Doomsday Argument.

*2000:* Marvin Minsky suggests that an AI tasked with solving the 
Riemann Hypothesis might unwittingly exterminate humanity by converting 
us, and all available matter in the Solar System, into ‘computronium’ so 
that it has the resources for the task.

*2002*: Nick Bostrom introduces the term ‘existential risk.’

*2010s*: Deep learning takes off, triggering another boom in AI research 
and development.

*2012*: Researchers engineer artificial strains of H5N1 virus that are 
both highly lethal and highly virulent.

*2013:* CRISPR-Cas9 first utilized for genome editing.

*2018*: IPCC special report on the catastrophic impact of global warming 
of 1.5ºC published.

*2020:* Toby Ord publishes “The Precipice.” Covid-19 pandemic sweeps the 
globe, demonstrating systemic weakness and unpreparedness for global risks.


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