Talk:Global catastrophic risk

Category errors & redirect issues: Creating a new "Omnicide" page?

Posting this on both the 'Human extinction' page and the 'Global catastrophic risk' page to suggest the creation of either 1. an 'Omnicide' page 2. a separate 'Existential risk' page and/or 3. Retitling the 'global catastrophic risk' page.

There are some gnarly issues with the terminology in this constellation of pages & page redirects: 'Human extinction' covers...human extinction. Whereas omnicide, properly understood in the context of the literature on this subject, refers to the extinction of all terrestrial life. We can concede that while these may be potentially related domains they are meant to describe consequentially and meaningfully distinct outcomes. Human extinction is, so to speak, a sub-domain of what is being referred to in the word 'omnicide'--as a header it doesn't even remotely cover what is meant to be called up in the word omnicide. Meanwhile 'mass-extinction' no longer has the right ring because most people entering middle-age who have had access to a K-12 education have been aware that we're living through a mass-extinction since they were young children. Mass-extinction begins to sound like a normative element in other words and is more likely to be associated with ancient, pre-human events as opposed to evoking the threat of a future event without example in terrestrial history.

Meanwhile, "existential risk" redirects to "global catastrophic risk." The distinction here is even more subtle but it's still a problem. Existential risk refers to all of the following: 1. the risk of omnicide 2. the risk of human extinction 3. the risk of a civilizational collapse so severe that would evacuate the meaning or desirability of a continuity of human life. <<The modifying phrase here is important. Civilizational collapse, historically, encompasses plenty of situations that might have been experienced as desirable or less severe than the sort of situation that's being gestured towards in the term existential risk. As a term for this constellation of existential threats 'global catastrophic risk' appears to discount or downplay or fall short of the extremity of these potentials. "Global catastrophic risk" sounds like it could just as easily be applied to the risk of the bond market collapsing as to, say for example, the extinction of all terrestrial life. As a description of omnicide or even of existential risk the header "global catastrophic risk" shades into classical apocalyptic thinking--the end is conceived as potentially redemptive. Conceiving of or talking about the actual cessation of all terrestrial life without the implication of cyclic reinvention or hanging onto the possibility of a silver lining is avoided and repressed by apocalyptic thinking. Clarifying distinctions between these styles of thought about the complex of issues relating to omnicide or to existential risk requires some sort of revision in this space.

The reworking of *either* Human extinction page or the Global catastrophic risk page to cover what is being discounted, downplayed or missed in this conversation might end up being extensive, difficult to negotiate or even uncalled for since these pages do manage to cover what the terms in their titles describe--they just don't describe omnicide or adequately deal with the maximal extremity of what is being described. Really, it seems to me, the most appropriate move would be to make a new, separate Existential Risk page that has a slightly different emphasis and organization than the Global Catastrophic Risk page. But this is likely to be somewhat duplicative of the Global catastrophic risk page. Therefore: maybe a new Omnicide page? But that term is more exotic. Either option seems worth pursuing.

So the question, I'm raising is: Should we look into re-titling and revising the Global catastrophic risk page or creating a new omnicide page?

  ThomasMikael (talk) 18:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

References

Mixing of the hypothetical scenario and the field of study

One major fault of this article is the way in which it induces a confusion between a hypothetical event, diversely imagined and theorized along history (both in religious thought and outside it), with a specific (yet not monolithic) framework that emerged in the very recent period and became known mainly as 'existential risk', especially in philosophical literature, which is substantially related, even a byproduct, of the longtermist ethics. "Global catastrophic risk" works well as a generalization of specific catastrophic scenarios that date from the atomic bomb invention to the theorization of extreme global warming scenarios or even uncontrollable virus pandemic. In this sense, global catastrophic risk could be thought as the nonfiction dimension of fictional apocalyptic scenarios, corresponding to the article apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. This confusion is problematic because it hurts the principle of undue weight, as one specific research program is allowed to define the whole idea, which is historically irreducible such attempt of framing; the field of studies itself also suffers from this restrictive linkage, as it is not allowed the necessary space and the freedom to develop its own history, ideas and institutions.

Given that, i think that a kind of 'split' would greatly improve the quality of content and its impartiality. This article could retain its name and part of the content that is less attached to existential risk studies (existential risk authors would still be present all along the text), and then it could branch into a specific article for this area - which could be called 'existential risk studies' (ERS), a name with widespread use by the related institutions and authors (Existential Risk Studies, The Era of Global Risk: An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies, Democratising Risk: In Search of a Methodology to Study Existential Risk). JoaquimCebuano (talk) 22:21, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

There was an existential risk draft in 2020; I was involved. See Draft talk:Existential risk and this. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 11:42, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Dont you think that it would be better to reframe it as 'Existential risk studies'? the confusion problem would be solved imo. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 16:54, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

@JoaquimCebuano What sources do you have supporting that title? WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 12:01, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@JoaquimCebuano It's possible that the field of study is a more distinct topic and that organizing around it would address the problem that the 2020 draft ran into. Still, it would need stronger support than you have provided. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 12:15, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Disagree. That is a far less common title. Biohistorian15 (talk) 17:47, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Biohistorian15 It passed AFC and is live at existential risk studies. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 07:02, 4 August 2024 (UTC)