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.

Expected and unexpected in the exploration of the fundamental laws of nature

Dec 8th, 2008 54m 22s

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.

Catastrophe, Social Collapse, and Human Extinction

Dec 8th, 2008 30m 24s

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.

Into the Dark: The Long Term Future of our Dying Universe

Dec 8th, 2008 44m 10s

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 th

Avoiding Millennialist Cognitive Biases

Dec 8th, 2008 30m 43s

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

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