4. Our final century?

Humanity appears to face existential risks: a chance that we’ll destroy our long-term potential. We’ll examine why existential risks might be a moral priority, and explore why they are so neglected by society. We’ll also look into one of the major risks that we might face: a human-made pandemic, worse than COVID-19.

Alongside this, we’ll introduce you to the concept of “expected value” and explore whether you could lose all of your impact by missing one crucial consideration.

1. Introduction

Our fi­nal cen­tury?

2. Existential risks

Reach Chapter 2 of The Precipice (35 mins.)

From “The case for reducing existential risks,” read up to “What’s the total risk of human extinction if we add everything together?” (10 mins.)

The case for re­duc­ing ex­is­ten­tial risk

3. Risks from pandemics

Prevent­ing Catas­trophic Pan­demics – 80,000 Hours

4. Strategies for improving biosecurity

Con­crete Biose­cu­rity Pro­jects (some of which could be big)

5. Expected value & Hits-based giving

Ex­pected Value

Donat­ing like a startup in­vestor: Hits-based giv­ing, explained

7. Crucial considerations

Cru­cial consideration

7. Exercise (10 mins.)

[Question] Ex­er­cise for ‘Our Fi­nal Cen­tury?’

8. More to explore

More to ex­plore on ‘Our Fi­nal Cen­tury’

Giv­ing What We Can global catas­trophic risk profile

Ex­plore jobs in biose­cu­rity, nu­clear se­cu­rity, and cli­mate change