In no particular order. I’ll add to this if I think of extra books.
Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters, Vol. 1 (2011)
The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (1996)
The Fate of the Earth (1982)
The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986)
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017)
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013)
A longer list is available here
Biosecurity Dilemmas: Dreaded Diseases, Ethical Responses, and the Health of Nations (2017)
Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from the Inside by the Man Who Ran It (2000)
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy (2009)[1]
Smart Than Us (2014)
The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World (2019)
Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe (2014)
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch (2014)
Pale Blue Dot (1994), Cosmos (1980), and Billions and Billions[2] (1997)
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (2004)
The Three-Body Problem (2006)
The Andromeda Strain (1969)
The Ministry for the Future (2020)
Cat’s Cradle (1963)
This covers both nuclear security and biosecurity topics.
Especially Chapter 8: ‘The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?’, which contains some remarkable precursors to metaphors and arguments in The Precipice etc.
Others, most of which I haven’t fully read and not always fully on topic:
Richard Posner. Catastrophe: Risk and Response. (Precursor)
Richard A Clarke and RP Eddy. Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
General Leslie Groves. Now It Ca Be Told: the Story of the Manhattan Project (nukes)
The Bible (Noah’s Ark).
File under “Fiction” or “Precursors”.
Small remark: The Goodreads list on nuclear risk you linked to is private
In no particular order. I’ll add to this if I think of extra books.
Precursors to thinking about existential risks and GCRs
Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters, Vol. 1 (2011)
The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (1996)
The Fate of the Earth (1982)
Nuclear risk
The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986)
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017)
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013)
A longer list is available here
Biosecurity
Biosecurity Dilemmas: Dreaded Diseases, Ethical Responses, and the Health of Nations (2017)
Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from the Inside by the Man Who Ran It (2000)
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy (2009)[1]
AI safety
Smart Than Us (2014)
The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World (2019)
Recovery
Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe (2014)
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch (2014)
Space / big-picture thinking
Pale Blue Dot (1994), Cosmos (1980), and Billions and Billions[2] (1997)
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (2004)
Fiction
The Three-Body Problem (2006)
The Andromeda Strain (1969)
The Ministry for the Future (2020)
Cat’s Cradle (1963)
This covers both nuclear security and biosecurity topics.
Especially Chapter 8: ‘The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?’, which contains some remarkable precursors to metaphors and arguments in The Precipice etc.
Others, most of which I haven’t fully read and not always fully on topic:
Richard Posner. Catastrophe: Risk and Response. (Precursor)
Richard A Clarke and RP Eddy. Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
General Leslie Groves. Now It Ca Be Told: the Story of the Manhattan Project (nukes)
The Bible (Noah’s Ark).
File under “Fiction” or “Precursors”.
Small remark: The Goodreads list on nuclear risk you linked to is private