Winter is coming!

Games of Thrones character Jon Snow is quite convinced that his imaginary world is heading into a long winter, if not into extinction (which, by the way, may not be such a bad thing considering how dystopian that world is).

Interestingly enough, out here in the real world, many apocalyptic scenarios are gaining credence, as the BBC has captured and organized very well in this awesome infographic.

For instance, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert is convinced that we are in the middle of a Sixth Extinction, and has proceeded to win a Pulitzer Prize for sharing her morbid vision of our fate in her book of the same name (some people call it the Holocene Extinction, which at least sounds more sexy).

Meanwhile, futurist Ray Kurzweil of Singularity fame is convinced that we won’t really need to wait for the Sixth Extinction to play itself out, because smarter-than-human “strong” AI (artificial intelligence) will wipe us out much sooner, probably within a few decades after the so-called Singularity occurs around 2045.

Other popular apocalypse scenarios that provide a steady revenue stream to Hollywood studios include the idea that a global scale social conflict caused by extreme income inequality will do us in (as in Matt Damon’s Elysium), and of course some or the other version of the idea that we will create a virus – cyber or pathogenic – that will wipe us out or that we will nuke ourselves out of existence one of these days.

DIY apocalypses are “in”

One common thread that runs through the most popular doomsday scenarios today is that these are all man-made. The Sixth Extinction is being caused by climate change that is a result of human action, the Singularity is the result of artificial intelligence created by humans, extreme income inequality is the result of flaws in human political and economic systems, computer and biological viruses are lab-made by humans and the nukes as well as the rogue nations or terrorists that might unleash them are homo sapiens as well.

The prevailing view thus seems to be that our potential demise is more likely to occur because of things we will do to ourselves, which is in contrast to view popular up to the ’80’s, when our atavistic fear psychosis was fueled by the notion that others will bring us doom e.g. aliens, asteroids, volcanoes or mysterious new species.

Personally, I am quite encouraged by this shift in the collective locus of control from external to internal, as it signals that humans feel much more empowered today than they did 30 years ago, and hence feel more in control of their destiny. As a result, our worst fears are now more about mistakes we are making – or might make – which could have catastrophic consequences rather than about externalities we might be hapless victims of.

The race to escape extinction

There is no doubt that >99% of all species that ever originated on Earth eventually went extinct; hence the possibility that the same fate may befall us is by no means a far-fetched one. In fact, the odds are against us being able to escape extinction.

But here’s the hopeful scenario: we seem to be developing our capability to anticipate and cope with threats to our existence faster than any other species that ever lived!

We are developing our political, social, technological and economic systems at an ever accelerating pace. By increasing our population (which has trebled since the end of the Second World War) and by now connecting it using ICT technology and global social and economic systems, we have created a being of such scale, intellect and resourcefulness as never existed in eons past.

We are taking control of our lives and that of our planet – and perhaps even of space if Elon Musk and team have their way at SpaceX! It is no surprise then that our existential fears are increasingly more about mistakes we might make along the way than about externalities we might suffer.

However, those external threats still do exist and are quite real and we will need to face them at some point or another (some of the self-inflicted threats are real too, but I am assuming we will find ways to course correct ourselves since this is in our collective control).

When will an uncontrollable external event occur that could wipe us out? No one can really tell – but chances are decent that this is still a few decades to a few centuries away. Since we are developing not only rapidly year on year but also doing so at an accelerating rate, this window of opportunity might just be enough for us to develop our capabilities sufficiently to ward off these catastrophes when they occur.

In this sense, we are in a tight race to escape our own extinction, and this is the ultimate survival game in town!

Will we win this race? Who knows? But we have by no means lost it yet. The result is not in yet, and the future is indeterminate. So how do we respond to all the Jon Snows who are telling us that winter is coming? Well, I would say, “You know nothing, Jon Snow!”