Difference between revisions of "Survival of our species/See also"

Revision as of 01:20, 26 November 2010

Organisations thinking about these issues

The Long Now Foundation

Established in 01996* to encourage long term thinking in a world that lives in a frantic present without much regard for the future. Two major projects are Clock of the Long Now which is clock designed to run for 10,000 years and the Rosetta Project which trying to create a near permanent archive of 1,000 languages.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

The mission of this seed vault is store as many seeds known to us as is possible. This is to prevent important agricultural and wild plants from becoming rare or extinct in the event of a global disaster. It is being built on the remote arctic island of Svarlbard. BBC article 7th Feb 02007*

Doomsday clock

A symbolic clock maintained since 01947* by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. The clock is altered periodically to represent the perceived number of minutes to midnight, which represents Armageddon by nuclear war. The clock was wound back significantly at the end of the cold war in the 1990s, but has since moved nearer to midnight due to the increasing instability in the Middle East.

The Spaceguard Foundation

A network of national organisations involved in studying and tracking significant Near-Earth Objects  (NEO)

See also B612 Foundation, named after the asteroid in the 'Little Prince' story

Alliance to Rescue Civilization

An organisation that aims to create an off-Earth backup of human civilisation that is able to repopulate the Earth in event of a global disaster or reintroduce knowledge of science and the arts.

Lifeboat Foundation 

A non-profit organization dedicated to helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies

Future of Humanity Institute (University of Oxford)

"FHI's mission is to bring excellent scholarship to bear on big picture questions for humanity. Despite the great theoretical and practical importance of these issues, they have received scant academic attention... The Institute's work centres on how anticipated technological developments may affect the human condition in fundamental ways and how we can better understand, evaluate, and respond to radical change."

Foresight Institute

A leading nanotechnology research institute. They have prepared a set of Guidelines for safe nanotechnology, including the requirement that nanotechnology be programmed to self-replicate only in the presence of an external broadcast signal.

*Five digits are used here to denote years, in honour of the Long Now Foundation who use this format to help promote long-term thinking such as the 10,000 year time-frame

See also

• Global Catastrophic risks - Oxford University Press
• Education