"We were surprised to find that no one else had compiled a list of global risks with impacts that, for all practical purposes, can be called infinite," co-author Dennis Pamlin of the Global Challenges Foundation told the Financial Times.
Actually, I compiled a list three years ago and published it on Natural News in this article from May 11, 2012.
I also created a detailed infographic in 2012 which outlined the greatest apocalyptic threats posed by runaway science. That infographic is shown below.
What's interesting is that about half of the Oxford University scientists' predictions overlap my own predictions from 2012. Technically, my list was focused on threats from runaway disastrous science and did not attempt to incorporate possible threats from all sectors (such as economic collapse or government collapse). If I had included economic and government sectors, there would have been even more overlap.
Oxford University scientists warn of these apocalyptic risks
Here's the list of apocalyptic threats documented by Oxford scientists. Items in bold are ones I documented and published three years ago:1. Global pandemic
2. Supervolcano
3. Artificial Intelligence
4. Extreme climate change
5. Synthetic biology
6. Asteroid impact
7. Ecological collapse
8. Nanotechnology
9. Nuclear war
10. Government collapse
11. Global economic collapse
My own list of apocalyptic threats posed by runaway science, as shown in the infographic below, was published as follows:
1. Nuclear power
2. Genetic pollution (ecological collapse)
3. Nanotechnology
4. Bioweapons (unleashing a global pandemic)
5. Atmospheric experiments (causing extreme weather)
6. Artificial intelligence
7. Particle accelerator physics experiments gone awry
8. Pollinator disruption chemicals (food supply collapse)
9. Weaponized vaccines (has already come true with covert infertility chemicals)
10. Antibiotics (rise of deadly superbugs)
11. Water pollution with deadly chemicals
12. Nuclear weapons
As you can see, the Oxford scientists left out of their list the risk of runaway superbugs caused by antibiotics, the risk of a food supply collapse caused by the loss of pollinators. Their inclusion of "ecological collapse" was focused more on pollution in general rather than genetic pollution caused by the unintended consequences of genetic engineering.
Nevertheless, there is about a 50% overlap between our two lists.
Science can "go horribly wrong" and have unintended consequences
The author of the Financial Times article correctly points out that at least three of the risks described by the Oxford scientists are "dual-use" technologies: "Three (synthetic biology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence) result from dual-use technologies, which promise great benefits for society, including reducing other risks such as climate change and pandemics -- but could go horribly wrong," he says.It's refreshing to see someone in the financial press recognize this. AI, nanotech, synthetic biology and GMOs are all technologies that scientists swear up and down can only help humanity; yet that's what they also promised about DDT, Agent Orange, nuclear weapons, chemotherapy and a long list of other sciences that were later used to cause widespread suffering and death.
Additionally, all these technologies present risks of unintended consequences such as runaway genetic pollution leading to global crop failures. Or AI robots rising up and deciding humanity must be terminated by Skynet. Or nanotechnology creating the infamous self-replication "grey goo" that slimes across the planet, devouring all matter.
Today's corporate-corrupted for-profit "science" blindly barrels ahead with wild abandon, pursuing radical open-air genetic experiments, AI humanoid robot development and nanotechnology advancements utterly without any sense of caution or restraint. It's almost like modern-day scientists are begging to see humanity wiped out because they're incapable of considering the implications of Murphy's Law.
Murphy's Law says that if something can go wrong, it will. Biotechnology has no special immunity against Murphy's Law. Nor do AI research firms like Google, which has already developed weapons-carrying humanoid robots with laser rangefinders, following in the path of fictional Terminators from the realm of sci-fi.
Technology without wisdom is suicide
As I wrote in my warning article from three years ago, "Technology without wisdom is suicide."Now, it seems, even Oxford scientists are beginning to acknowledge the very real risks of pursuing runaway science, runaway global debt and runaway ecological destruction in the name of "profits."
But even these scientists will, of course, be called "fear mongers" for daring to point out reality.