Unfortunately, there are also ways in which we might self-destruct much sooner, through collective stupidity. Why would our species commit collective suicide, also known as omnicide, if virtually nobody wants it? With our present level of intelligence and emotional maturity, we humans have a knack for miscalculations, misunderstandings and incompetence, and as a result, our history is full of accidents, wars and other calamities that, in hindsight, essentially nobody wanted. Economists and mathematicians have developed elegant game-theory explanations for how people can be incentivized to
...more
