The United States of Armageddon

He says one reason we’re drawn to apocalyptic stories is because they capture the way that personal tragedy can feel like the end of the world. “For somebody, their world is ending as we speak, right now,” Bailey says. “Somewhere some tragedy is enveloping someone, and their world is going to be completely remade as a consequence, and it can happen at any time.”

AI apocalypse AND Armageddon? That’s like the Doublemint gum end of the world!

Here’s how to survive—if we want to survive.

“But apocalyptic thinking has serious downsides. One is that false alarms to catastrophic risks can themselves be catastrophic. The nuclear arms race of the 1960s, for example, was set off by fears of a mythical "missile gap" with the Soviet Union. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was justified by the uncertain but catastrophic possibility that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and planning to use them against the United States. (As George W. Bush put it, ‘We cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.’) And one of the reasons the great powers refuse to take the common-sense pledge that they won't be the first to use nuclear weapons is that they want to reserve the right to use them against other supposed existential threats such as bioterror and cyberattacks. Sowing fear about hypothetical disasters, far from safeguarding the future of humanity, can endanger it.”

Makes me feel a bit guilty for having the pest guy come slaughter the wasps, but I can't cohabit with them. Sorry, Earth!

At last, the paper of record tells us how to do it!