Cosmic reach cannot settle the question of haste in either direction, because it moves about six orders of magnitude too slowly to matter. Ord counsels caution tuned to the slow clock of cosmological expansion, on the grounds that losing a century of intergalactic reach costs roughly one part in fifty million. But his own estimate of existential hazard is about one in six per century, which is a rate on the order of a hundred thousand times larger. So a century of reflection buys a negligible amount of reach and is spent inside the vulnerable condition at the full hazard rate. His two conclusions pull apart: the cosmological argument counsels patience and his own state-risk argument counsels rushing through, and on his figures the second dominates. Cosmic reach is a red herring for both sides of the argument.

Evidence 2 passages

• groundsUntitled source

  one might think this pushes humanity towards a grand strategy of haste, a desperate rush to reach the technologies of intergalactic travel as soon as possible. But the relative loss each year is actually rather slow, about one part in five billion, and it is this relative reduction in our potential that matters. The pressures towards prudence and wisdom are larger in relative terms, and counsel care over haste. If rushing to acquire these technologies a century earlier diminished our chance of survival by even one part in fifty million, it would be counterproductive, and for many years hence, the value of another century's reflection on what to do with the future, an irrevocable choice, and quite possibly the most important one humanity will ever make will outweigh the value of extending our reach by just one part in 50 million. So our best grand strategy is one of careful reflection and prudence, with our degree of caution tuned to the slow clock of cosmological expansion. Such considerations seem unreal. In most of our d

• groundsUntitled source

  Overall, I think the chance of an existential catastrophe striking humanity in the next hundred years is about one in six. This is not a small statistical probability that we must diligently bear in mind, like the chance of dying in a car crash, but something that could readily occur, like the roll of a die, or Russian roulette. thi

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