Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity
    The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity
    The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

    Written by Toby Ord

    Narrated by Toby Ord

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From one of the world’s leading moral voices, this urgent and eye-opening book makes the case that
    protecting humanity’s future is the central challenge of our time.

    If all goes well, human history is just beginning. Our species could survive for billions of years—enough time to
    end disease, poverty, and injustice, and to flourish in ways unimaginable today. But this vast future is at risk. With the
    advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, where we face existential catastrophes—those from which we
    could never come back. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pathogens
    and unaligned artificial intelligence. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it will soon be too late.

    Drawing on over a decade of research, The Precipice explores the cutting-edge science behind the risks we face. It
    puts them in the context of the greater story of humanity, showing how ending these risks is among the most pressing
    moral issues of our time. And it points the way forward, to the actions and strategies that can safeguard humanity.

    An Oxford philosopher committed to putting ideas into action, Toby Ord has advised the US National Intelligence
    Council, the UK Prime Minister’s Office, and the World Bank on the greatest challenges facing humanity. In The
    Precipice, he offers a startling reassessment of human history, the future we are failing to protect, and the steps we must
    take to ensure that our generation is not the last.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 24, 2020
    ISBN9781980073956
    The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity
    Author

    Toby Ord

    Toby Ord is a moral philosopher focusing on the big picture questions facing humanity. Born in Australia, he is a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. He is the founder of Giving What We Can and co-founder of the Effective Altruism movement, which has raised more than a hundred million pounds for some of the world's most deserving causes. In 2020, alongside Shonda Rimes, Kanye West and JK Rowling, he was included on the Financial Times's 'the good list', which highlights the work of the world's ten most inspiring philanthropists. He has also advised DeepMind, the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council and the UK Prime Minister's Office, among others. He lives in Oxford.

    Related to The Precipice

    Related audiobooks

    Anthropology For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Why Are Humans So Kind, Yet So Cruel?

      Mar 6, 2019

      Under different circumstances, humans can be the kindest, gentlest species or the most murderous. Evolution may hold clues to that Jekyll and Hyde nature.

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Power To Endure

      Apr 19, 2021

      The Power To Endure
      5 min read

    • Article

      The End Is Only the Beginning

      Dec 1, 2022

      The End Is Only the Beginning
      14 min read

    • Article

      A Planetary Price To Pay

      May 9, 2021

      A Planetary Price To Pay
      4 min read

    • Article

      Survival Of The Species

      Nov 22, 2020

      Survival Of The Species
      10 min read

    • Article

      Re-inhabiting Planet Earth

      Mar 7, 2019

      "I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the Earth, even though I knew that this was not possible." These words of Manhattan Project physicist Emilio Segre, quoted by Richard Rhodes in his

      4 min read

    • Article

      Freedom From The Fallout

      Apr 16, 2019

      Freedom From The Fallout
      12 min read

    • Article

      Recreating The Wilderness

      Aug 23, 2018

      The science gets ever more dire. The politics runs the other way. We've claimed hold of the planet, but cluelessly, like the sorcerer's apprentice. Welcomed to the Anthropocene: the age of humanity intertwined with nature. "Climate change is not a pr

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Wing And A Prayer

      Feb 12, 2023

      “Longline to extinction” (February 11), describing decades of work to record the decline of subantarctic albatrosses, struck me deeply. No doubt if more people saw these majestic creatures, they would achieve the profile of other charismatic endanger

      5 min read

    • Article

      Robert C. Koehler: The Need For Understanding Never Stops

      Jan 25, 2024

      I inhale the big, do-nothing shrug that always follows the annual posting, by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, of its global metaphor for Armageddon. For the second year in a row, the Doomsday Clock has been set – by scientists analyzing the da

      4 min read

    • Article

      Mars Is a Second-Rate Backup Plan

      Jul 15, 2020

      These days, when I’ve listened in on strangers’ conversations—all properly socially distanced and discretely of course—I’ve heard several fatigued souls talk about how they’d like to get off this planet, or wish the timeline would correct itself. It’

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Hidden Life of Viruses

      May 13, 2020

      If there is one thing that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed, it is that there is much that we still don’t know about the world around us. Forget about the trillions—OK, more than trillions—of galaxies in the universe that we’ll never explore. Jus

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Precipice

    4.5/5

    62 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Eye opening introduction into long term options for the humanity and how to harness humanity potential.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Brilliant overview of threats facing humanity that really focuses our intuitions on the risk realities and what we can begin to do in order to affix our long term flourishing.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This might just be one of the most important books of the 21st century.
    • 4/5
      The premise of this book is that humanity's future's (potentially) so bright [we] gotta wear shades. Therefore, we must plan for and avoid potential existential risks that could make this bright future impossible to achieve. I give this effort 4 stars because it's well written, researched and documented. Over 200 pages are devoted to detailed notes, appendices, bibliography and an index, which is a definite plus in a work of this type. Clearly this book is well researched and thought out. However, I find the premise that Humanity is an entity with agency and the capacity to be harmed by an existential crisis unconvincing, even if only metaphorical. I'm much more concerned with problems not considered as existential threats by this author: basically problems that cause actual suffering to actual living, sentient beings who no doubt number in the trillions.
    • 5/5
      The themes and the size of this book were intimidating, but Ord captured me with his argument that the future of humankind is, from our perspective, boundless, so why not take what steps we can to reduce existential threats to ourselves and our future progeny. Ord is thorough, considering everything from the awakening of artificial intelligences inimical to human beings, asteroid strike, natural and artificial pandemics, nuclear winter and environmental degradation and what we might call the 1984 scenario where a single autocratic dystopia limits our descendants' ability to thrive and develop. On the other hand, his vision for humanity's future is expansive; Ord imagines a future where an expanding humanity explores and settles not only this galaxy and neighboring galaxies, but the entire universe. He supports his risk estimates and most of his projections with current science, probability theory and healthy doses of math. Most of this infrastructure he sequesters in notes and appendices, all very readable, but the meat of the book is a set of straightforward discussions of the risks and an argument for taking action to reduce those risks.
    • 4/5
      In for a pandemic, in for Armageddon. The Precipice – Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (Bloomsbury) by Toby Ord is surprisingly a book of hope, given that he believes there is a 1 in 6 chance that an existential crisis will hit in the next century and the future potential of the human race may be blunted permanently. Ord examines our self-inflicted risks such as nuclear winters and climate change, and potential new threats such as engineered pandemics and artificial general intelligence reaching singularity. This work crosses multiple disciplines of science and PPE, but is nicely structured for the lighter reader, such as myself. Of the 468 pages 241 are the general book, which is followed by 7 appendices giving more detail on specific areas e.g. ethics, risk, policy and research; 132 pages of notes that are for the heavy lifters who want to drill down into greater detail; and then the extensive bibliography and index.