What is the greatest existential threat (true extinction-level threat) to humanity?
27
227
1.3K
2025
50%
AI/machines (human created)
16%
Climate Change
7%
Nuclear War
4%
Other
4%
Rationalussy
3%
Biological warfare (intentional)
1.9%
Asteroid/comet
1.8%
Synthetic pandemic (unintentional)
1.8%
Heat death of the Universe
1.4%
Unanticipated Technology
1.3%
Natural pandemic

We're talking true existential threat, LONG term. Something that sets us back to the stone age doesn't qualify. (See other questions for that. It's my opinion that even were we reduced to some few thousand, we could recover this civilization within several thousand, certainly 100 thousand years and the overall trajectory of our species would not change too drastically.)

Add options as you see fit, but options which get few votes in the long term will likely be deleted (including mine).

For now, the plan is to resolve by the end of 2025 according to simple democratic opinion. Obviously I ask that everyone plays in the spirit of earnest and truth-seeking. Depending on how long manifold lasts we may see certain options disappear one by one, especially as soon as (if) we go interstellar.

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How will this resolve?

@EvanDaniel Hopefully my brain will be coded into digital, duplicated, uploaded into a fleet of satellites, and shot out into space in every direction. In many many years I'll either be the last human (and can resolve it) or the options will have narrowed to heat death and/or aliens, probably very little else will threaten us at that point.

Short of that though, it will be rather hard to resolve conclusively. I'm more curious to see which options will win out

@JesseTate Which options will win out depends on how people expect it to be resolved

@StevenK true good point––but I think this sort of poll is fairly common on here, and most people expect it to resolve due simply to majority vote.

@JesseTate you could be right though––I've edited the description though just to make it clearer.

@JesseTate I think if what you want is actually a poll you should run a poll! It does kinda suck that you can't edit options as you go or run more complicated polls though.

Here's a good summary of why I think "self-resolving" markets that resolve solely based on trading / market behavior don't work well:
https://manifold.markets/old-posts/selfresolving-markets-why-they-dont

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