Book: Precipice. Existential risk and the future of humanity.

If I go out on the roadway and die, my life as a whole will become shorter and therefore worse: not because I will have more of what is bad, but because I will contain the least of all that makes life good. That's why I shouldn't do it.

Our potential is a question of what humanity can achieve through the joint actions of each person.

An existential catastrophe is the destruction of humanity's long-term potential.

And since, in anticipation, almost all the life of mankind lies in the future, almost everything of value also lies in the future: almost all prosperity; almost all beauty; our greatest achievements; our most just societies; our deepest discoveries. We can continue our progress in prosperity, health, justice, freedom and moral thinking. We can create a world of well-being and prosperity that challenges our ability to imagine. And if we protect this world from catastrophe, it can survive for millions of centuries. This is our potential – something we could achieve if we bridged the chasm and continued to strive for a better world.

The challenge of our time is to preserve our enormous potential and protect it from the risk of future destruction. The ultimate goal is to enable our descendants to fulfill our potential by realizing one of the best possible futures open to us.