Catastrophe Risk and Response Richard A Posner 9780195379075 Books
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The risk of global catastrophes is real, and growing. An asteroid collision that could kill a quarter of humanity in twenty-four hours and the rest soon after; irreversible global warming that could flip, precipitating "snowball earth;" a particle accelerator disaster that could reduce the earth to a hyperdense sphere only 100 meters across--all these extinction events, and others, are possible, and they warrant serious thought about assessment and prevention.
In Catastrophe, Richard A. Posner addresses the threat of global disaster from a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective. Incorporating insights from economists, physical scientists, environmental scientists, psychologists, and other experts, Posner explains how we can minimize risks and differentiate low probability risks from more threatening high probability ones. He raises difficult questions about the role of politicians and policymakers in addressing catastrophic risk. Must we yield a degree of national sovereignty in order to deal effectively with global warming? Is limiting our civil liberties a necessary and proper response to the threat of bioterrorist attacks? Is investing in detection and interception systems for asteroids money well spent? How far can we press cost-benefit analysis in the design of responses to world-threatening events? These are but a few of the issues explored in this fascinating, disturbing, and necessary book.
In this revised and updated edition, Posner incorporates many new scholarly insights about catastrophe and risk that have emerged in the wake of the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2008 financial crisis, recent catastrophes which he discusses in detail.
"We would be well advised to...take the message of this book seriously."
--Peter Singer, The New York Times Book Review
"Catastrophe is worth the price of the book simply for Posner's lively and readable summary of the apocalyptic dystopias that serious scientists judge to be possible."
--Graham Allison, The Washington Post Book World
"Posner's perspective, very different from those held by most scientists, is a welcome addition to considerations of catastrophic risks."
--Science
Catastrophe Risk and Response Richard A Posner 9780195379075 Books
Wow, what a polymath! Posner is judge of the US Court of Appeals, 7th circuit. But on top of all that law he has learned science fairly well including probability theory and evolutionary biology. He explains some human behavior in terms of instincts we evolved by the Darwinian process, an argument you rarely see. But this doesn't make a great book. Posner sees no need to write his judicial opinions in an entertaining style because interested parties will read them anyhow. He seems not to realize that writing popular books is a different game; people are far less motivated to read them. Oxford press did its part to discourage sales: the font is small and somewhat faint; words are divided at the ends of lines between the second and third letters; there are no pictures even though the topic cries out for them.Posner chose four hazards to track throughout the book, and two of those choices are unfortunate. The first is an asteroid strike. The risk of that is miniscule simply because we have such a long history of surviving it. Humanity has not been seriously at risk for 70,000 years. (Genetics tells us that humanity was reduced to a small population about that time thus reducing genetic diversity.) So if the next natural catastrophe occurs in the next 100 years, that means that we are now living in the last 1/700 of the interval between them, and the probability of that is only about 1/700. By contrast, we are living with man-made hazards after only a decade or so of adaptation.
Posner makes a plea for various reforms to prevent catastrophe: international agencies, safety reviews of proposed science projects, new police powers, and so on. Posner never mentions that a major collapse of civilization would take out all the major threats to our species' survival. The aftermath would be a long period of safety for people who are wiser for the experience. So there's a paradox: measures that prevent catastrophe also jeopardize our species. I prefer to look outside the box and save Homo sapiens an entirely different way. Form survival colonies with about a 100 people (a viable breeding stock) and build redoubts in remote places to ride out as many different threats as you can. Wealthy people are already buying luxury apartments in abandoned missile silos and similar places. You can sign up as a candidate for a survival colony at the website of the Lifeboat Foundation.
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Tags : Catastrophe: Risk and Response [Richard A. Posner] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The risk of global catastrophes is real, and growing. An asteroid collision that could kill a quarter of humanity in twenty-four hours and the rest soon after; irreversible global warming that could flip,Richard A. Posner,Catastrophe: Risk and Response,Oxford University Press, USA,0195379071,LAW General,SCIENCE Philosophy & Social Aspects,SOCIAL SCIENCE Disasters & Disaster Relief
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Catastrophe Risk and Response Richard A Posner 9780195379075 Books Reviews
I purchased the book looking for interesting insights on catastrophes. I have to say I did not expand my knowledge of catastrophes much by reading the book. I did expand my knowledge of the relation between our legal/political systems and catastrophic defense/scientific research.
I thought Posner did a good job surveying different catastrophes and assigning rough estimations to them. However, I felt the key point of his book was promoting more attorneys learning about science so an intelligent discusssion could be made. I agree with the point...but it was such a recurring theme, it became dull for me, since I am not an attorney.
I had not read a book by Posner before. He is a judge, and I felt it read like a judge wrote it. I.e. in most areas he was very careful to be impartial. But then occasionally he would make a blanket opinion without any substantiation and move on as if he had proved some point. You can see examples of this in the other reviews below. I'll only point out I had different examples.
If you are soft skinned, conservative and liberal alike will probably find points of offense in the book. And I guess that is what surprised me the most, that this is a political book, not a scientific one.
This is a very interesting book but it didn't quite grab me. It is a very academic book, almost like a text book. This book would make a better lecture. Most of his meat in the book comes from economic cost benefit analysis. That information probably comes across better in a lecture.
First the author lays out various threats to not only the country but to the world. He does donate a lot to the end of the world stuff like an asteroid hitting the earth. Then he talks a lot about how to express that danger. He also goes into how to express that risk. That is an interesting thing. The expression of the risk helps society express the worth of solutions. The author goes into standard explanation of present value vs. future value. His method of explaining that response is really interesting. For example he explains how society puts a price value on lives.
His last chapter is a departure of the book style. He has some interesting solutions. Those solutions is a big departure for a judge, but nothing to radical.
Great Book, thoughtful and somewhat idiosyncratic analysis of how we should think about and respond to low probability but very large consequence events.
Works very well paired up with Robert Shillers book "Macro Markets"
I'm a big fan of the judge's books, but this one differs from the prior books in the breadth and gravity of its topic avoiding extinction.
The book has a gripping description of several such threats -- asteroids, bioterrorists, nuclear meltdown ("strangelets"), sudden global warming, loss of biodiversity. The book is worth buying for the description alone.
The core problem in dealing with these extinction threats is the need to incur large present costs for only speculative future benefits, where the beneficiaries of today's investments will be unknown to anyone living today. Democracies, run by politicians who get voted into office promising benefits to the current voters, can't make such farsighted investments for the benefit of people not yet living (or more precisely, not yet voting).
The best line in the book (near the beginning, so I don't think I'm spoiling it) is that there are probably many billions of stars with planets around them capable of supporting life. Life therefore probably originated independently on many millions of those planets, many of them probably much earlier than here on Earth. So why haven't we been contacted by any of the earlier, presumably more advanced other civilizations?
Wow, what a polymath! Posner is judge of the US Court of Appeals, 7th circuit. But on top of all that law he has learned science fairly well including probability theory and evolutionary biology. He explains some human behavior in terms of instincts we evolved by the Darwinian process, an argument you rarely see. But this doesn't make a great book. Posner sees no need to write his judicial opinions in an entertaining style because interested parties will read them anyhow. He seems not to realize that writing popular books is a different game; people are far less motivated to read them. Oxford press did its part to discourage sales the font is small and somewhat faint; words are divided at the ends of lines between the second and third letters; there are no pictures even though the topic cries out for them.
Posner chose four hazards to track throughout the book, and two of those choices are unfortunate. The first is an asteroid strike. The risk of that is miniscule simply because we have such a long history of surviving it. Humanity has not been seriously at risk for 70,000 years. (Genetics tells us that humanity was reduced to a small population about that time thus reducing genetic diversity.) So if the next natural catastrophe occurs in the next 100 years, that means that we are now living in the last 1/700 of the interval between them, and the probability of that is only about 1/700. By contrast, we are living with man-made hazards after only a decade or so of adaptation.
Posner makes a plea for various reforms to prevent catastrophe international agencies, safety reviews of proposed science projects, new police powers, and so on. Posner never mentions that a major collapse of civilization would take out all the major threats to our species' survival. The aftermath would be a long period of safety for people who are wiser for the experience. So there's a paradox measures that prevent catastrophe also jeopardize our species. I prefer to look outside the box and save Homo sapiens an entirely different way. Form survival colonies with about a 100 people (a viable breeding stock) and build redoubts in remote places to ride out as many different threats as you can. Wealthy people are already buying luxury apartments in abandoned missile silos and similar places. You can sign up as a candidate for a survival colony at the website of the Lifeboat Foundation.
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