The Future of Humanity

Nick Bostrom
The future of humanity is often viewed as a topic for idle speculation.  Yet our beliefs and assumptions on this subject matter shape decisions in both our personal lives and public policy – decisions that have very real and sometimes unfortunate consequences.  It is therefore practically important to try to develop a realistic mode of futuristic thought about big picture questions for humanity.  This paper sketches an overview of some recent attempts in this direction, and it offers a brief discussion of four families of scenarios for humanity’s future: extinction, recurrent collapse, plateau, and posthumanity. [Read more] ...