The Road To Hell, and The Weather Along the Way

Would we be better off were we to swear off apocalyptic thinking?

I have spent much of my research career thinking about apocalyptic possibilities. Each possibility has passed out of consideration, although the arguments have merit, and even the evidence is persuasive. The big question is when to constrain behavior, and if there is ever a time when it is "too late" to act. Also, we are rather weak at predicting technological developments compared to sketching apocalypses, so the apocalypse tends to have a better argument than a more wait-and-see policy, or perhaps a deliberate research effort to develop those technologies (which may be a matter of societal arrangements rather than a material discovery). More generally, the prospect of apocalypse is used to  justify policies and behavior that would otherwise seem not so prudent.

The possibility of doom, if taken as a matter of decision analysis, is fraught with uncertainty, and correspondingly with fright and faith. I am unsure I find  valid arguments multiplying small probabilities by large consequences like the kinds of expectations involved in choose a job (as did Howard Raiffa when he went to Harvard from Columbia).

I do commend Gaddis's On Grand Strategy for helpful cases.

I am not sure the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I do wonder if there is such a road and the nature of its pavement.

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