End Times
A Brief Guide to the End of the World
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In this history of extinction and existential risk, a Newsweek and Bloomberg popular science and investigative journalist examines our most dangerous mistakes -- and explores how we can protect and future-proof our civilization.
End Times is a compelling work of skilled reportage that peels back the layers of complexity around the unthinkable -- and inevitable -- end of humankind. From asteroids and artificial intelligence to volcanic supereruption to nuclear war, veteran science reporter and TIME editor Bryan Walsh provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.
In End Times, Walsh examines threats that emerge from nature and those of our own making: asteroids, supervolcanoes, nuclear war, climate change, disease pandemics, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial intelligence. Walsh details the true probability of these world-ending catastrophes, the impact on our lives were they to happen, and the best strategies for saving ourselves, all pulled from his rigorous and deeply thoughtful reporting and research.
Walsh goes into the room with the men and women whose job it is to imagine the unimaginable. He includes interviews with those on the front lines of prevention, actively working to head off existential threats in biotechnology labs and government hubs. Guided by Walsh's evocative, page-turning prose, we follow scientific stars like the asteroid hunters at NASA and the disease detectives on the trail of the next killer virus.
Walsh explores the danger of apocalypse in all forms. In the end, it will be the depth of our knowledge, the height of our imagination, and our sheer will to survive that will decide the future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Walsh tries to "wake people up... to the reality of existential threats" that include asteroids, artificial intelligence, and more in this well-intentioned but unsatisfying assessment of risk and prevention. Readers craving gloom and doom will feel especially let down, as Walsh doesn't revel in sensationalistic pessimism. He interviews biologists, climatologists, anthropologists, geologists, astronomers, and even a moral philosopher to grapple with a tough subject: human extinction. He goes into great detail about the ins and outs of tracking near-Earth objects, like the small asteroid that exploded above Chelyabinsk Oblast in 2013, injuring residents, damaging buildings, and catching NASA skywatchers by surprise. He takes the same approach to evaluating "supervolcanoes," such as Toba in Sumatra and Yellowstone in the United States, describing the "guesswork" involved in predicting immense-scale eruptions. Other potential forces of mass destruction discussed are artificial intelligence and biotechnology, particularly the ability to synthesize DNA; both he calls "dual-use technologies," which might either benefit humankind or cause mass suffering, even extinction. Though he succeeds in providing an introduction to how these and other megathreats, readers will be disappointed that Walsh's study offers very few clear answers, and only a vague "existential hope" that solutions can be found.
