George P. Dvorsky
The article Leaving the Cradle to Avoid a Nanotech Catastrophe by George Dvorsky said
…regrettably, all it will take is one unscrupulous group or individual to engineer an apocalyptic strain of nanobots.
Which is why some of us should get off this big blue ball lest we all go extinct.
Two years ago in the British Daily Telegraph, cosmologist Stephen Hawking declared that humanity faces a real threat of extinction in the next 1,000 years. His timeline may actually be considerably optimistic, and while he was speaking specifically about the dangers of biotechnology, his comments hold true for the potential damage that could be inflicted in a grey goo scenario.
Hawking’s answer to this dilemma? We should set up colonies in space. And he’s absolutely right.
The demise of intelligent sentient life on Earth would be a catastrophe of epic proportions. By spreading the human seed, we stand a far better chance of seeing the human legacy continue.
George P. Dvorsky is a Canadian transhumanist philosopher, writer,
organizer and activist.
In 2002 George cofounded the
Toronto Transhumanist Association and serves
as its current president. He has been on the board of directors for the
World Transhumanist Association and currently serves on the board
for
the
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He served as
conference chair for
TransVision 2004, the
WTA’s annual conference.
He is the producer of the
Sentient Developments blog and
podcast and deputy editor of Betterhumans.
Listen to his Sentient Developments Radio!
Browse
archived Sentient Developments Radio broadcasts.
His primary focus has been in assessing the wide ranging impacts of
human enhancement technologies and other future technologies on
individuals and society. As a
transhumanist social activist, He
is concerned with issues pertaining to reproductive,
cognitive, and
morphological freedoms, particularly as they pertain to the Canadian
context. To this end he actively promotes informative, accessible and
open-minded discussions for the purposes of responsible foresight and
education.
Listen to George on
The Future And You.
Read his LinkedIn profile.