I heard about Our Final Hour when I watched Martin Rees' Ted talk on the mounting risks that the Earth now faces, here. I thought that I would be getting a more in-depth treatment of the topics he covered in the video, but for the most part, I had already learned his most interesting ideas. Also, since the immediacy of the issues is a main thrust of the book, it has gone a bit stale already, as in:
Some innovations just don't attract enough economic or social demand: just as supersonic flight and manned space flight stagnated after the 1970s, today (in 2002) the potentialities of broadband (G3) technology are being taken up slowly because few people want to surf the Internet or watch movies from their mobile phones.
Wasn't 2002 such a simpler time? I did enjoy some of the philosophical parts (ie., the Mediocrity Principle), but was put off by Rees' constant use of ironic quotation marks, as in:
But there is a difference when those exposed to the risk are given no choice, and don't stand to gain any compensating benefit, when the "worst case" could be disastrous, or when the risk can't be quantified. Some scientists seem fatalistic about the risk; or else optimistic, even complacent, that the more scarifying "downsides" can be averted. This optimism may be misplaced, and we should therefore ask, can the more intractable risks be staved off by "going slow" in some areas, or by sacrificing some of science's traditional openness?
Those are on every page and drove me bonkers. In the end, if there is truly a 50/50 chance that humanity won't survive the 21st century, do yourself a favour and just watch the video.
