After reading The Precipice - Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity by Toby Ord: 9 Lessons I Learned About Global Catastrophes, Responsibility, and the Fragility of Civilization

In 1945, a single event split history into two distinct eras. Before that year, humanity had never possessed the means to end its own story. After it, we did.

The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima was not just a symbol of war; it was the beginning of a new reality, one in which the tools of our own destruction rested in our hands. We had crossed an invisible threshold without quite realizing it.

Toby Ord calls this new reality the Precipice—a narrow, treacherous ledge on the side of a cliff, wit...