Podcasts
Avoiding Millennialist Cognitive Biases
17 August 2009
Lecture on the history and implications of the different types of eschatological philosophy; theories on the end of the world and how we can avoid the predjudices and biases these theories bring
Catastrophe, Social Collapse and Human Extinction
17 August 2009
Lecture on the statistical possibilities of total human extinction caused by war, disease, natural disasters and asks the question; ‘how much should we worry?’
Into the dark: The Long Term Future Of Our Dying Universe
17 August 2009
Lecture on the future of the universe; looking at the decreasing amount of energy originally generated by the big bang and how much longer, roughly, the universe has left.
Biotechnology and Biosecurity
17 August 2009
Lecture on Biotechnology; its applications, its implications, risks and the challenges this new technology brings
Introduction to the Global Catastrophes Risk Conference 2008
17 August 2009
Nick Bostrom provides an introduction to the Global Catastrophic Risks Conference and briefly addressing some of the key themes running through it.
Probing the Improbable
17 August 2009
In this lecture, Toby Ord discusses the philosophical questions surrounding the risk of a global catastophe as well as the implications of a larger Hadron Collider
Into the Dark: The Long Term Future of our Dying Universe
08 December 2008
This talk outlines astrophysical issues related to the long term fate of the cosmos. It considers the evolution of planets, stars, stellar populations, galaxies, and the universe itself over time scales that greatly exceed the current age of the universe
Catastrophe, Social Collapse, and Human Extinction
08 December 2008
This lecture examines how, for many types of disasters, severity seems to follow a power law distribution, and how the level of resistance to such disruptions can affect the future of humanity.
Avoiding Millennialist Cognitive Biases
08 December 2008
This lecture outlines a typology of the pancultural millennial phenomena, describes characteristic cognitive biases and suggests how contemporary forms of secular techno-utopian and techno-apocalyptic discourse reflect these types of millennial psychology
Expected and unexpected in the exploration of the fundamental laws of nature
08 December 2008
How does knowledge of the "known" allow scientists to anticipate consequences of the "unknown"? Possible outcomes of new high-energy experiments will be used to address this topic, covering both scientific and sociological aspects of the issue.