(Xrisk 101): Existential Risk for Interstellar Advocates

(Xrisk 101): Existential Risk for Interstellar Advocates
Heath Rezabek
hrezabek@icarusinterstellar.org
heath.rezabek@gmail.com
J. N. Nielsen
nnielsen@icarusinterstellar.org
john.n.nielsen@gmail.com
Keywords
Existential Risk, Xrisk, Resilience, Archival, Vessel, Future, Civilization
Introduction
This paper is based on a joint presentation given at Icarus Interstellar’s Starship Congress,
August 15-‐18, 2013.
Though the concept of Existential Risk or Xrisk denotes risks to our very existence, it will be
shown that Xrisk is far from intractable or imponderable. Because of the subtypes described
in our session below (Permanent Stagnation and Flawed Realization), humanity can do
much to improve the prospects for Earth-‐originating intelligent life tomorrow by working to
improve its prospects today.
This begins with directly mitigating the extinction risks that can be mitigated, and with
safeguarding—to the best of humanity’s abilities—the scientific, cultural, and biological re-‐
cord so that future recoveries are possible if needed. The Vessel proposal attempts a unified
approach to this work. If existential risk is well mitigated, the prospects for Earth-‐
originating life over the very long term are shown to be expansive.
(Xrisk 101) is divided into two parts, and mirrors the format of the original presentation. The
first part, authored by Heath Rezabek, will cover the fundamentals of Xrisk, and update on
the Vessel project, a framework for preserving the cultural, scientific, and biological record
in resilient facilities, on Earth and beyond. The second part, authored by Nick Nielsen, will
explore the longer term implications of overcoming Xrisk for the future of civilization.
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Part I -‐ Towards a Vessel Open Framework as a Mitigation of Xrisk
Understanding the Scope and Scale of Existential Risk
Though discussed in other terms, Xrisk was a key concern and priority for the DARPA 2011
Strategy Planning Workshop. In its January 2011 report, that workshop prioritized “creating a
legacy for the human species, backing up the Earth’s biosphere, and enabling long-‐term sur-‐
vival in the face of catastrophic disasters on Earth.” [1]
At the 100YSS 2012 Symposium, a synthesis of strategies to address all three of these goals at
once was presented by Heath Rezabek: the Vessel Archives proposal. [2] Before discussing
the ways in which the Vessel proposal meets these objectives, existential risk will be dis-‐
cussed, with discussion of what it includes and why priority should be given to finding ways
to meet its challenge.
The risk that Earth-‐originating life may not endure long enough to achieve its full potential
is termed existential risk. Popularly shortened as Xrisk, this spectrum of risks encom-‐
passes both extinction risk and global catastrophic risk.
Nick Bostrom, Director for the Future of Humanity Institute, defines existential risk this way
in a key paper, Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority: “An existential risk is one that
threatens the premature extinction of Earth-‐originating intelligent life, or the permanent
and drastic destruction of its potential for desirable future development.” [3] In an array of
possible risks presented in the paper, small personal risks are visible in the lower left, while
situations of widespread suffering such as global tyranny are in the middle as Global Cata-‐
strophic Risks. Finally, the destruction of life’s long term potential defines Existential Risk,
in the upper right.
2

Figure 1: Qualitative risk categories. (After Bostrom 2013)
Xrisk has become a popular shorthand for this whole spectrum of risks, and this term will be
used throughout. Bostrom provides a broadly applicable general taxonomy of Xrisk outcome
scenarios, which includes several less-‐considered types. Crucially, it sets aside discussion of
specific incidental causes (asteroids, pandemics, etc), internal versus external causation, or
the importance of initial causes in and of themselves, to focus strictly on the possible out-‐
comes of Xrisk. This also assists in envisioning possible recovery scenarios.
Human Extinction: Humanity goes extinct prematurely, i.e., before reaching technological
maturity.
Permanent Stagnation: Humanity survives but never reaches technological maturity.
Subclasses: unrecovered collapse, plateauing, recurrent collapse
Flawed Realization: Humanity reaches technological maturity but in a way that is dismally
and irremediably flawed.
Subclasses: unconsummated realization, ephemeral realization
Subsequent Ruination: Humanity reaches technological maturity in a way that gives good
future prospects, yet subsequent developments cause the permanent ruination of those
prospects. [3]
3

Before it is possible to discuss the potential value created through the mitigation of Xrisk,
the question must be asked: How prevalent is life in the universe, or in the Milky Way gal-‐
axy?
The Fermi Paradox, The Great Silence, and The Great Filter
Is life—living matter, whether simple or complex—common, or is it rare, in the observable
universe? The Kepler Mission, and others with similar goals of planet-‐detection, reveal that
there is no shortage of worlds to be detected. Yet with billions of years of evolutionary time
behind them all, humanity has heard and seen no trace of life beyond Earth. Why? This is
the Fermi Paradox; the expectant quiet which exists in the place of any signs of other life has
been termed the Great Silence. The Great Silence is conspicuous because of the billions of
years of gravitation, geology and chemistry which lie behind those worlds humanity has be-‐
gun to detect in such abundance.
Numerous explanations are possible. [4] Questioning these, Robin Hanson proposes a Great
Filter between single-‐celled life and radiant, pervasive life throughout the universe:
If [...] advanced life had substantially colonized our planet, we would know it by now.
We would also know it if they had restructured most of our solar system’s asteroid belt
[...]. We should even know it if they had aggressively colonized most of the nearby
stars, but left us as a “nature preserve”. Our planet and solar system, however, don’t
look substantially colonized by advanced competitive life from the stars, and neither
does anything else we see. To the contrary, we have had great success at explaining the
behavior of our planet and solar system, nearby stars, our galaxy, and even other galax-‐
ies, via simple “dead” physical processes, rather than the complex purposeful processes
of advanced life. Given how similar our galaxy looks to nearby galaxies, it would even
be hard to see how our whole galaxy could be a “nature preserve” among substantially-‐
restructured galaxies. These considerations strongly suggest that no civilization in our
past universe has reached such an “explosive” point, to become the source of a light
speed expansion of thorough colonization. [5]
“The Great Silence,” concludes Hanson, “implies that one or more of these steps are very
improbable; there is a ‘Great Filter along the path between simple dead stuff and explosive
life. The vast vast majority of stuff that starts along this path never makes it. In fact, so far
nothing among the billion trillion stars in our whole past universe has made it all the way
along this path.” [5]
However remote it may be, this possibility confers upon humanity a great potential respon-‐
sibility in the here and now, regardless of its eventual answer.
In the absence of evidence of interstellar life, it is appropriate to foster life on Earth as if the
future of life in this region of our galaxy depended on it. Humanity must extend its very best
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efforts as stewards of Earth’s flora, fauna, and cultures, regardless of our own opinions on our
collective right or ability to do so.
Is the story of the universe one of widespread life, or is life as uncommon as we seem to be,
poised on the brink between seclusion and radiant growth? Passing beyond this precarious
cusp, and into the reaches of interstellar space to learn the truth of the matter through an
effort such as a century starship, will take time. In order to achieve the goal of interstellar
travel, humanity must foster a supporting and surviving interstellar civilization—an inter-‐
stellar Earth.
A Conservative Metric for Stakes in Xrisk Mitigation, and Potential Return on In-‐
vestment
It is possible to grasp the value of securing such a future, even in the absence of such sweep-‐
ing scenarios as the securing of the prospects of all life-‐forms on Earth. Setting aside for the
moment the prevalence of life as a whole, and the ultimate potential of Earth-‐originating
nonhuman life, we can examine a more conservative base metric: the value of a single hu-‐
man life, of the sort humanity values every day through individual action.
Thus evaluated, it can then be asked: What are the stakes for humanity as a whole? How
many human lives have there been, or could there yet be if extinction is avoided?
Nick Bostrom presents some useful estimates as illustrations of risk and reward.
“To calculate the loss associated with an existential catastrophe, we must consider how
much value would come to exist in its absence. It turns out that the ultimate potential for
Earth-‐originating intelligent life is literally astronomical.” [3]
Wolfram Alpha lists the total world population as 107.6 billion people over time. The current
global population is 7.13 billion. [6] Setting aside the current living population yields 100 bil-‐
lion—also roughly the number of neurons in a single human brain.
5

Figure 2: Total population over time: 107.6 billion. Current global population: 7.13 billion
Carl Sagan discussed this familiar image of Earth from afar as follows:
Consider again that dot.
That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, eve-‐
ryone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The
aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and
economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator
and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every
mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every
corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in
the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. In …
all this vastness … there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from
ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere
else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle,
not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. [7]
6

Figure 3: 100 billion lives. ~ One Pale Blue Dot.
100 billion lives is here used as humanity’s basic unit of measure. How much value would
come to exist if humanity’s future potential is never cut short?
1016 — 10 million billion — is Bostrom’s estimate of the potential number of future lives on
Earth alone, if only 1 billion lived on it sustainably for the 1 billion years it’s projected to re-‐
main habitable.
7

Figure 4: 1016 — 10 million billion — Conservative estimate of future lives with sustained
population of 1 billion on Earth
But if we consider the possibility of the spread of life beyond Earth, or synthetic minds and
lives yet to come, Bostrom’s estimate [2] grows vast: 1052 potential lives to come. 100 million
x 100 billion x 100 billion x 100 billion x 100 billion
8

Figure 5: 1052 — 100 million x 100 billion x 100 billion x 100 billion x 100 billion potential lives
9

This means that reducing the chances of Xrisk by a mere 1 billionth of 1 billionth of 1 per-‐
cent… is worth 100 billion billion lives.
Figure 6-‐7: Reducing the chances of Xrisk by a mere 1 billionth of 1 billionth of 1 percent is
worth 100 billion billion lives
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With just a slight shift in priorities, humanity could hugely boost the chances of life achiev-‐
ing its full future potential by working to enhance its prospects today. Even without a shift
in global priorities, this exercise is a reminder that even the slightest efforts towards the
mitigation of Xrisk have the potential for massive future return on investment. The results
of this exercise may then be multiplied, in future studies, to deduce the worth of Xrisk miti-‐
gation for all Earth-‐originating life, multiplying greatly the scale of humanity’s realm as con-‐
sidered here.
Securing the Future Potential of Earth-‐Originating Life through Vessel Archives
Armed with a measurable motivation and metric, it is possible to examine the potential pay-‐
off of our efforts more optimistically. Due to the relative tractability of two subclasses of
Xrisk, a far-‐reaching initial investment might be made quite effectively.
Examine Bostrom’s definition again: “An existential risk is one that threatens the premature
extinction of Earth-‐originating intelligent life, or the permanent and drastic destruction
of its potential for desirable future development.”
Survival alone is not enough. In some cases, a surviving society may be brutalized, stagnant,
or diminished irreparably, unable to aspire or to build itself anew. In this light it is possible
to reexamine two of the subtypes of Xrisk originally noted, whose impacts may be as unde-‐
sirable as extinction itself. Both fall into the realm of global catastrophic risks.
Permanent Stagnation: Humanity survives but never reaches technological maturity
or interstellar civilization.
Flawed Realization: Humanity reaches technological maturity but in a way that is ir-‐
redeemably flawed.
In Bostrom’s four classifications of Xrisk, human extinction is what we normally think of as
the ultimate risk; however, it is actually only one of several possible outcomes. Whatever the
cause of an extinction-‐threatening crisis, Bostrom usefully points out that permanent stag-‐
nation—a partial but ultimately incomplete recovery—poses a threat as serious as any other
class of Xrisk. One of the design requirements of a truly interstellar Earth is that it will not
only survive, but that it will retain the capability needed to launch an interstellar starship in
the fullness of time.
We can, Bostrom notes, distinguish various kinds of scenario leading to permanent stagna-‐
tion: unrecovered collapse—much of our current economic and technological capabilities
are lost and never recovered; plateauing—progress flattens out at a level perhaps somewhat
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higher than the present level but far below technological maturity; and recurrent col-‐
lapse—a never-‐ending cycle of collapse followed by recovery.
Also of note is a family of outcomes which Bostrom calls flawed realization: “A flawed reali-‐
sation occurs if humanity reaches techno-‐ logical maturity in a way that is dismally and ir-‐
remediably flawed. By ‘irremediably’ we mean that it cannot feasibly be subsequently put
right. By ‘dismally’ we mean that it enables the realisation of but a small part of the value
that could otherwise have been realised.” Examples include humanity enduring only by be-‐
coming a despotic technocracy or fascist regime.
Because the risks to civilization are so varied, there may be many possible means of address-‐
ing them. How is humanity to determine its priorities? Two broad approaches to Xrisk miti-‐
gation bear exploring as particularly worthy efforts for safeguarding advanced aspirations,
such as that of becoming a sustainable species on an interstellar Earth.
The first imperative is education (for the sake of prevention; of overall risk mitigation).
The second imperative, in case of direst need, is preservation (for the purposes of societal
recovery in the midst of survival). This last is particularly key to addressing some of the
suboptimal scenarios in the Bostrom classifications above.
Both permanent stagnation and flawed realization raise the interesting possibility that cul-‐
tural value or richness may be crucial to humanity’s prospects for societal recovery—at least
to a stage where candidacy as an interstellar civilization is desirable once again. These
classes of Xrisk highlight the long work of earning—through sustained effort—a role as
stewards of humanity’s cultural heritage as well as of the biota of life on Earth.
Bostrom makes a compelling case that the addressing of existential risk must include strate-‐
gies to avoid the decline of humanity’s aspirations or capabilities, and not only strategies for
survival. This perspective allows a reframing of the DARPA 2011 Strategy Planning Work-‐
shop’s priority:
Creating a legacy for the human species, backing up the Earth’s biosphere, and
enabling long-‐term capability in the face of catastrophic disasters on Earth. [1]
States as a new imperative:
To achieve an interstellar civilization while addressing existential risk, human-‐
ity must do more than survive: humanity must preserve its aspirations and ca-‐
pabilities, as well as exemplars of its cultural resources and exemplars of Earth’s
biodiversity.
Permanent stagnation and flawed realization: Losing our capability as a civilization, or en-‐
during only in a deeply flawed form. These two risks fill modern society’s dystopian movies.
Despite its flaws, the film Elysium (2013) did effectively envision permanent stagnation and
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flawed realization as direct contrasts with one-‐another within one fictional world, through
the distant and rarified luxury of an orbital habitat above a perpetually desperate and swel-‐
ling remnant of humanity.
Figure 8: The Xrisk subtypes of permanent stagnation and flawed realization, as envisioned
in the film Elysium (2013). Because popular culture understands these interrelated risks, it is
possible to learn applicable lessons about messaging and priorities by understanding them
as well.
These two types of Xrisk cut to the heart of what it means for humanity to achieve its full
potential. There is a critical path towards vast opportunity between these risks, because of
the many advances needed to achieve an interstellar future – and because of the benefits
such advances could have for life on Earth—in areas such as habitat design, energy infra-‐
structure, biotechnology, as well as advanced computing, networking, and archival. If inter-‐
stellar efforts strive to prototype here and now, solving real-‐world problems along the way,
all will benefit. If advances are available in open source versions, and adaptable to human-‐
ity’s best minds, such efforts will gain allies in an effort to uplift life on Earth and to thrive
beyond it.
What would such comprehensive advances or efforts be like?
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Vessel is an approach to advanced computing, compact habitat design, and long-‐term ar-‐
chival which seeks to directly mitigate the two categories of Xrisk discussed above: perma-‐
nent stagnation and flawed realization. At the 100 Year Starship Symposium (2012), Vessel
Archives were presented as a practical proposal, a means towards safeguard life’s potential
on Earth and beyond.
While the use of the word vessel here includes the potential for an instance in the form of a
craft (such as a seafaring or spacefaring craft), several other meanings of the word are also
deliberately invoked in its usage: A medium, a conduit, and a receptacle.
Figure 9: Vessel Symbol. (CC BY-‐SA Heath Rezabek -‐ 2013)
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Vessel, as a design solution, begins with a simple premise:
Capability lost before advanced goals are reached will be very difficult to recover, without a
means of setting a baseline for civilization’s capabilities.
A Vessel is an installation, facility, or habitat that serves as a reservoir for Earth’s scientific,
biological, and cultural record. Into a Vessel is poured what must be retained for humanity’s
potential to be maintained, and for the potential of all Earth-‐originating life to be secured.
On Earth or beyond, a Vessel habitat is designed to carry forth a representative sample of all
Earth has been.
Figure 10: Vessel facility visualized as the primary function of a Callebaut Lilypad. (Image ©
Philippe Steels -‐ pixelab.be -‐ Used by Permission -‐ 2008)
A Vessel is proposed to house a core collection, a cache dedicated to the preservation of bio-‐
logical, cultural, and scientific heritage. Integral to this core capacity is proposed some
means (interface) towards the recovery of lost capability through creative reconstruction of
the materials preserved. Secondarily, a layered design pattern is proposed as a means for ac-‐
complishing these aims, with core archives safeguarded at its center, specialized research
spaces surrounding them, and approachable learning spaces at its periphery, regardless of
the size or scale of an individual Vessel facility. Examples at numerous scales are here pro-‐
vided as illustration of flexibility.
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Vessel Facilities as a Library of Life
At a Vessel’s core may lie biological archives, meant to preserve key traces and exemplars of
Earth’s biodiversity. Here the primary model is Gregory Benford’s groundbreaking 1992 Li-‐
brary of Life proposal.
The Library of Life is a practical project proposal as well as a thought experiment, originally
set forth by author Gregory Benford as a refereed scientific paper in 1992. In response to ac-‐
celerating loss of biodiversity worldwide, it proposes a “broad program of freezing species in
threatened ecospheres”, in situ, which “could preserve biodiversity for eventual use by future
generations.” [8]
This paper, originally published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
was expanded in Benford’s 2001 nonfiction work Deep Time, which explored the methods
human use to communicate across the ages. In this version, Benford notes that “...this was
and is a radical idea: to convey a new kind of message, intensely information-‐dense, a signal
of desperation. The target lies at least a century away, perhaps much longer: nothing less
than a future generation that needs the information lost in our coming dieback of many
species, and can harvest our salvaged samples with technology we cannot foresee.” [8]
A variety of methods excavating and gathering in situ samples of biomass are explored, from
earth moving machines to local teams of manual laborers for more finely-‐tuned samples. If a
Library of Life were actually undertaken and stored within a Vessel Archive, it would add
one more reason to attempt the establishment of such centers as widely as possible, so as to
locally preserve the most endangered of biomes—at the least in the form of their organic
and genetic materials.
The chapter on the Library of Life proposal in Deep Time ends with a discussion of the pos-‐
sibilities that, “...if scientific progress has followed the paths that many envision today, [fu-‐
ture generations] will have the means to perform seeming miracles. They will have devel-‐
oped ethical and social mechanisms we cannot guess, but we can prepare now the broad
outlines of a recovery strategy, simply by banking biological information.” [8]
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Figure 11: Vessel proposes facilities similar in function to those of a Library of Life, as de-‐
scribed by Gregory Benford. (Image “Living Diatom Cell” CC BY Debra Gale -‐ 2011)
Vessel Facilities as a Chamber of Codes and Very Long Term Knowledge Archive
Also crucial would be core archives for cultural artifacts and scientific knowledge, in both
physical and digital forms. Several examples exist of information storage technologies engi-‐
neered to endure the passage of time, such as the digital DNA encoding strategies of George
Church’s team at the Wyss Institute [9] as well as Ewan Birney and Nick Goldman’s ap-‐
proach [10], the fused quartz technologies of Hitachi [11] or Jingyu Zhang [12], and the Ro-‐
setta Disk project of the Long Now Foundation, which is the first deliverable for their 10,000
Year Library [13].
Birney and Goldman’s approach has particularly informed the Vessel proposal, as their
speculations suggest layers of decoding exercises necessary to ultimately decode DNA-‐based
digital information. [10] Birney and Goldman also propose the presence of a deciphering key
such as the Rosetta Disk, an existing creation of the Long Now Foundation, which cross-‐
references over 1,500 human languages. [13]
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Such progressive exercises would serve to protect the materials, requiring a baseline of effort
and ability to progress through them. Those very same safeguards would also, however,
serve as a means of teaching and learning the information being imparted, which could in-‐
clude simple to complex mechanisms for the retrieval and decoding of deeper layers of
knowledge.
Figure 12: Vessel proposes facilities similar in function to those of a Chamber of Codes, as
described by Ewan Birney and Nick Goldman. (Image “Rosetta Disk” by Rolfe Horn, courtesy
of The Long Now Foundation -‐ www.longnow.org -‐ 2008)
Vessel Facilities as Research Labs and Learning Labs
Surrounding these archives are proposed Research Labs, where specialists may collaborate
on advanced technologies, seeking critical paths which avoid and mitigate Xrisk. In a time of
recovery, sealed labs may be the birthplace of new beginnings. Research Labs are proposed
18

to open inwards to draw upon the core cache. Experts in their relevant fields may be both
stewards and users of the core archives.
In the near term, through an outer ring of Learning Labs, Vessel facilities may welcome the
curious, and give visitors an inspiring glimpse at advanced studies. Immersive labs may be
catalysts for change, helping people understand the arc of history in nature, culture, and sci-‐
ence; the common risks ahead; and the limitless possibilities if Earth achieves its full poten-‐
tial. This function, familiar in one form to any who have visited a nature & science museum
and seen paleontologists at work, hints at a pathway towards present-‐day implementations
of Vessel facilities as popular, well-‐attended, comprehensive exhibitions for a public trying
to make sense of the risks and opportunities of our present day.
In the short term, Vessel facilities may be a new breed of community knowledge center, fo-‐
cused on resilience and long-‐term prospects. Built around these three roles—Learning, Re-‐
search, and Archival—the Vessel Open Framework is designed to adapt to any contingency.
What all Vessels are proposed to have in common is a dedication to preserving cultural ca-‐
pability, and layered, approachable facilities adapted to their settings.
Many should be built, using many different approaches. Some may be public, founded as
community knowledge cooperatives or other community-‐scaled efforts. Mission critical and
institutional Vessels may be as remote as the Svalbard Seed Vault, or otherwise secured and
secret.
Figure 13: Vessel proposes facilities similar in function to those of a Nature & Science Mu-‐
seum, with Learning Labs and Research Labs. (Image CC BY-‐SA Takaaki Nishioka -‐ 2008)
19

In cases where a Vessel facility is visible and public, near-‐term benefits (such as an increased
societal awareness of long term thinking) are more plausible benefits than long term secu-‐
rity. Yet each design might be replicated in remote environments, or otherwise secured
against catastrophic loss.
Because potential risks are difficult to foresee, the Vessel Open Framework remains deliber-‐
ately flexible and encouraging of divergent approaches to the mission of resilient very long
term archival. One path towards ensuring this hybrid vigor is to explore and promote very
different visions of Vessel architectures or functional programs.
Visualizing Vessel
A growing range of visualizations have thus far been used to depict the Vessel project, with
the goal of envisioning a wide array of facility typologies.
Figure 14: Vessel as a Seafaring Callebaut Lilipad -‐ Plan. (Image © Philippe Steels -‐
pixelab.be -‐ Used by Permission -‐ 2008)
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Figure 15: Vessel as a Seafaring Callebaut Lilipad -‐ Section. (Image © Philippe Steels -‐
pixelab.be -‐ Used by Permission -‐ 2008)
21

Figure 16: Vessel as a Regional Facility. (Image CC BY-‐SA Joshua Davis and Heath Rezabek -‐
2013)
22

Figure 17: Vessel as an Urban Facility. (Image © Stephan Martiniere -‐ www.martiniere.com -‐
Used by Permission -‐ 2004)
23

Figure 18: Vessel as an Arcology (Large-‐Scale Community Habitat). Paolo Soleri. (Image
courtesy of Cosanti Foundation -‐ Used by Permission -‐ 1969)
Figure 19: Vessel as a Hyperbolic Tetrahedral Beacon Tower. (Image CC BY-‐SA Agustina
Rodriguez and Heath Rezabek -‐ 2014)
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Figure 20: Vessel as a Remote Mountaintop Beacon. (Image “Skybeam” CC BY Ben Dansie -‐
2009)
Figure 21: Vessel as a Lunar Facility. (Image CC BY-‐SA Joshua Davis and Heath Rezabek -‐
2013)
25

Figure 22: Vessel Archive Modules as envisioned on a Starship. (Image “IXS Dragonfly” by
Mark Rademaker -‐ Used by permission -‐ 2014)
Design variations help shape our practical explorations: How do inhabitants provide energy
to such facilities? Might they be habitats? Are there technologies now viable on a very large
scale which could be used for smaller, mission-‐critical facilities? What is its likely maximum
scale or size? What elements of the design pattern language would remain between separate
Vessel installations if different instances were built in a variety of settings?
When explored and compared at length, visualizations whose original purpose is to convey a
diverse range of design approaches will ultimately inspire new questions and strategies for
adapting to future situations.
Resilient Future Habitats and Long Term Archives: Towards a Vessel Pattern Lan-‐
guage
By asking the questions needed to solve a wide range of design problems, a comprehensive
design language can be developed over time, capable of robust adaptation to a growing
range of challenges.
Solutions to various problematic scenarios may be clearly named by identifying the chal-‐
lenge to be addressed and articulating strategies beneath that name. No potential solution
need be lost if it can be captured and conveyed to future designers. Once articulated, any
such approach can be called a design pattern. If all of these design patterns are developed
26

to reinforce one-‐another, together they form what is called a pattern language. These two
concepts arise from the fields of architecture, computer science, and design.
Christopher Alexander: A Pattern Language
Christopher Alexander is an architect and Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the Univer-‐
sity of California, Berkeley. Through his work as an architect and engineer, has contributed
the concept of a Pattern Language [14] to the practices of design and planning.
Though developed within the realm of architecture, it has now come to be known nearly as
well for its impact on software development. As originally described, the core concept sug-‐
gests that physical spaces originally unfolded in certain patterns due to the knowledge their
builders had of the ways each larger and smaller space helped shape those around it into a
greater whole. A threshold makes no sense without a pathway leading up to it, a door, and
an area of interior directly beyond it which welcomes one into the space. Each of these can
be described as a pattern, each helping to suggest and to form the patterns adjacent to it.
Originating with an architectural pattern language expressed by Christopher Alexander in
1977 (see his book A Pattern Language), his approach requires that a design solution include
a few key elements:
-‐ A concise name or title which expresses clearly the design solution it strives to im-‐
plement.
-‐ The original problem statement or design challenge, articulated concisely beneath
that title.
-‐ Context, research and insights into the design challenge and the ways they suggest
their solution.
-‐ The full design pattern, articulated concisely.
-‐ (Ideally) the design pattern is flanked by a listing of those larger patterns which help
to shape it (at top), and those smaller patterns which it helps to shape (at bottom). [14]
Without developing an entire design pattern language as yet, it remains possible to sketch
out the beginnings of a design pattern language for Vessel facilities:
Biodiversity Caches
Cultural Caches
Earthbound Facilities and Habitats
Lunar Facilities and Habitats
Asteroid Enclosures and Habitats
Interplanetary Enclosures and Habitats
… and so on.
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Functional strategies may be captured through pattern languages as well. An applied exam-‐
ple is found in the question of Vessel facility positioning or placement.
In correspondence, Lt. Col. Peter Garretson recommended several potential positions for
mission-‐critical Vessel facilities, including the Lunar South Pole and the L5 Lagrange point.
Garretson also noted that having a Vessel facility housed within a solar power transmitting
satellite in geosynchronous orbit, or positioned between two or more of them in an orbital
array, would be a useful arrangement. This raises the design possibility that any Vessel sited
within a populated region might have at least one mirror instance directly above it, in GEO,
providing it with supplemental power. Since the positions of these GEO Vessels would be
clear, concealed mirror sites would also be pragmatic. (Personal communication, August 23,
2013).
Suggested here are the following potential pattern names based upon these solutions, each
of which may suggest still others:
Distributed Sites
Redundant Positioning and Archive Mirroring
Diversified Instances of Community Knowledge
… with subtypes including:
L5 Point
GEO Positioning
Lunar Dark Side
Lunar South Pole
… and so on.
To provide a further example of the design pattern development process, we can examine
another class of potential problem for a Vessel habitat or installation: that of power security.
Designing a Vessel facility or complex to operate independently of any surrounding infra-‐
structure could help to mitigate risks to a Vessel from large-‐scale solar events or other un-‐
foreseen circumstances. Dr. Daniel Sheehan, of USD, suggests in correspondence the many
ways that locally hardening a Vessel installation’s power system could be accomplished:
“If one has access to a space weather forecast, then vulnerable elements can be disconnected
before a storm.” … “If the power grid is small, then the Faraday induction due to time chang-‐
ing magnetic fields can be minimized. If transformers and other devices have surge protec-‐
tion, this would add safety. If one got away from grid systems entirely and went with local
power generation, e.g. small electric generators or, better yet, heat recyclers, then there
should be no problem. Solar events are really only problematic for large-‐scale electrical
grids. The bottom line: your Vessel installation could be easily hardened against flare
events.” (Personal communication, September 15, 2013).
28

Names for these design strategies thus emerge:
Independent Power Infrastructure
Dedicated Power
GEO Beamed Solar
Forecasting Downtime
Heat Cycling
…and so on.
Many more of these key design patterns could be envisioned, both on Earth and beyond it,
as taking place in the near future or the far future.
Developing a unified design pattern language for the Vessel project is an extensive undertak-‐
ing, its beginnings suggested by the examples here. As a comprehensive approach, the Ves-‐
sel Open Framework must span a range of disciplines, from architecture to systems design.
Because the use of pattern languages and design patterns has been successfully applied
across fields for decades, developing a cross-‐disciplinary pattern language for Vessel design
remains a viable strategy in a way that more specialized documentation or specification ef-‐
forts might not be.
Once effective and sheltering environs have been described in this way, the imperative of
the Vessel proposal is more easily addressed: Preserve what Earth-‐originating life has been
and has achieved thus far, as an irreplaceable resource for the future, and a galvanizing in-‐
spiration in the present.
From Practical Proposals to the Far Future of Earth-‐Originating Life
The present effort arises in a spirit of synthesis, proposing the strategy of a common frame-‐
work for the wide variety of proposals and efforts which have come before. An ongoing re-‐
view of such resources, called the Vessel Global Survey, seeks to expand upon the exemplars
below. Please contact the author with additional suggestions: heath.rezabek@gmail.com
Exemplars describing strategies for resilient habitats, on Earth or in space, include Paolo
Soleri’s Arcology framework [15]; Buckminster Fuller’s Cloud 9 proposal [16]; and Freeman
Dyson’s Ark Eggs proposal [17]. Habitats for living beings are not often presented as a form
of living archival, and an order of magnitude more such proposals may exist to be synthe-‐
sized and adapted towards these ends.
Exemplars proposing the long term preservation of key cultural materials include the Ro-‐
setta Disk project for the preservation of languages, the Manual for Civilization project for
the preservation of cultural materials (both of the Long Now Foundation) [18].
29

Aside from Benford’s Library of Life proposal, exemplars similarly focused on preservation of
Earth’s biodiversity include DNA Net Earth (William Y. Brown, Brookings Institution) [19];
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Global Crop Diversity Trust) [20]; the Frozen Zoo project
(San Diego Zoo) [21]; and the Revive & Restore program (Long Now Foundation) [22].
Exemplars exploring the use of DNA as a medium or substrate for very long term data stor-‐
age include those at the Wyss Institute (George Church, Yuan Gao, Sriram Kosuri) [23]; and
the European Bioinformatics Institute (Ewan Birney, Nick Goldman) [24].
Exemplars exploring the use of physical or optical media as a medium or substrate for very
long term data storage include those at the University of Southampton (Fused quartz as
proposed by Jingyu Zhang) [25], Kyoto University (Fused quartz as proposed by Hitachi Cen-‐
tral Research Laboratory) [26]; IBM Atomic Scale Memory (Andreas Heinrich, Chris Lutz)
[27]; and Tungsten and silicon nitride encapsulated media (Jeroen de Vries, Dmitri Schel-‐
lenberg of the University of Twente) [28].
Exemplars proposing various solutions for the resilience of digital data and computation
over long timeframes include the Internet Archive [29]; redundantly distributed storage
platforms such as GlusterFS [30], LOCKSS [31], and BitTorrent Sync [32]; and the Lunar Su-‐
percomputer proposal of Ouliang Chang [33].
Each of these differs in its approach and its focus; yet each shares with Vessel and with one-‐
another a key understanding: The prospects for Earth-‐originating life in the future, whether
vast or diminishing, depend upon our actions and our foresight in this current cultural mo-‐
ment of opportunity, agency, awareness, ability, capability, and willpower.
As time and resources allow, Vessel will continue to be refined as an adaptable approach to
this common mission, in a spirit of service to all past, present, and future life in the universe.
Nick Nielsen continues our journey into the prospects for Earth-‐originating life, should we
succeed in safeguarding its full potential.
30

Figure 23: Origins (Image © Lucy West -‐ www.lucyweststudios.com -‐ Used by Permission -‐
2011)
“Build as if your ancestors crossed over your bridges.”
– Proverbial
31

Part II – Existential Risk and Far Future Civilization
Earth’s Cosmological Context
The prospects for Earth-‐originating life in the future as seen from the perspective of existen-‐
tial risk awareness and mitigation can be grasped by the perspective of seeing Earth from
space. It was a pivotal moment in human self-‐understanding when the Apollo astronauts
turned their camera back toward Earth from the distance of the moon and revealed our
planet as a vulnerable oasis against the black backdrop of space. As our spacecraft have trav-‐
eled ever greater distances from Earth, we have been provided with ever more comprehen-‐
sive images of Earth in space, in which our world appears as a pale blue dot in the skies of
Mars and even can be dimly seen from deep space at the edge of our solar system. [34]
Figure 24 -‐ (Four images of Earth: Upper left: Apollo 8 photograph of Earth from the moon; upper
right: Earth and Moon from 3.9 million miles, taken by the Galileo spacecraft; lower left: Earth as
seen from the surface of Mars by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit; lower right: Earth seen from a
distance of 3.7 billion miles by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M
32

To see our world as a pale blue dot barely visible in the vastness of space graphically shows
Earth’s place in the universe, and if we could continue to expand our scope for several more
orders of magnitude while remaining focused on our pale blue dot, we would perceive our
Earth in the full magnitude of its cosmological context. Just as Earth is placed in cosmologi-‐
cal context by its appearance as a pale blue dot, we must similarly place earth-‐originating
life, intelligence, and civilization in its cosmological context, and we can do so by way of as-‐
trobiology. Astrobiology can be understood as an extrapolation and extension of terrestrial
biology, or as biology in a cosmological context.
Life’s Astrobiological Context
There are many definitions of astrobiology, some quite detailed and others quite concise.
The NASA strategic plan of 1996 [35] gives this definition of astrobiology:
“The study of the living universe. This field provides a scientific foundation for a mul-‐
tidisciplinary study of (1) the origin and distribution of life in the universe, (2) an un-‐
derstanding of the role of gravity in living systems, and (3) the study of the Earth’s
atmospheres and ecosystems.”
The NASA astrobiology website characterizes astrobiology as follows:
“Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in
the universe. This multidisciplinary field encompasses the search for habitable envi-‐
ronments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System, the
search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry and life on Mars and other bodies in our
Solar System, laboratory and field research into the origins and early evolution of life
on Earth, and studies of the potential for life to adapt to challenges on Earth and in
space.” [36]
More concisely, astrobiology has been called, “The study of life in space” [37] and that, “As-‐
trobiology… removes the distinction between life on our planet and life elsewhere.” [38] Tak-‐
ing these sententious formulations of astrobiology as the study of life in space, which removes
the distinction between life on our planet and life elsewhere, gives us a new perspective with
which to view life on Earth.
33

With earth-‐originating life, intelligence, and civilization placed in cosmological context, we
ourselves and our civilization can be understood in the same terms in which the Fermi
paradox is discussed. [39] Enrico Fermi asked, if the universe is filled with life, “Where is
everybody?” The universe is billions of years old, demonstrably compatible with the exis-‐
tence of intelligent life, and yet we find no evidence of highly advanced civilizations other
than our own. The paradox has only been sharpened by recent scientific discoveries of exo-‐
planets, including small, rocky planets in the habitable zones of stars, some of them rela-‐
tively nearby in cosmological terms. [40] The conditions requisite for life appear to be less
rare the more we search for them, hence the ongoing relevance of the Fermi paradox.
Once we place terrestrial life in an astrobiological context and so remove the distinction be-‐
tween life on earth and life elsewhere, we see that the idea of an “alien” is an anthropocen-‐
tric concept, and a Copernican conception such as astrobiology must do away with the idea
of “aliens” as constituting all life other than earth-‐originating life. [41] So when we ask,
“Where are all the aliens?” We must answer, “Right here, on Earth; we are the aliens.” We
inhabit a planet that has produced complex life that has in turn produced complex social
institutions that we call civilization. All this has happened on a pale blue dot that is an
“alien” world for every world in the cosmos other than our own.
Astrocivilization: Civilization in Cosmological Context
A conception of intelligence and civilization as comprehensive as astrobiology—what we
can call astrocivilization—would place these phenomena in cosmological context, and draw-‐
ing on the insights of astrobiology we can easily see that an anthropocentric conception of
alien intelligence as all intelligence other than earth-‐originating intelligence limits our con-‐
ception of intelligence, as an anthropocentric conception of alien civilization as all civiliza-‐
tion other than earth-‐originating civilization limits our conception of civilization. A Coper-‐
nican conception will be concerned with the fate of life, intelligence, and civilization as
such, but we must also acknowledge that we are all that is know so far of life as such, unco-‐
pernican though that sounds.
We are the only known “aliens” to pass through the Great Filter [42]—which is what we call
whatever it is that has filtered out other possible civilizations in the universe and left us only
with our own civilization on Earth in evidence. The development of astrobiology has di-‐
rected our attention to the many near disasters we have experienced in the past—disasters
that have shaped the surface of our planet and the history of life on Earth. The emergence of
a single hominid species from several branches of hominid evolution makes homo sapiens a
kind of existential choke point or bottleneck in the history of intelligent life, so that there is
34

a sense in which we are the Great Filter. And the life we enjoy on Earth, which is itself a
marvelous and meaningless sequence of unlikely contingencies of the cosmos, is vulnerable
at any moment to being annihilated by another meaningless sequence of unlikely contin-‐
gencies of the cosmos. Events of great consequence (from an anthropocentric perspective)
are no less “filtered” by the natural history of the universe than the species that these cosmo-‐
logical events threaten, so that the destruction of an intelligent species (if it has happened
previously in the history of the universe) can be understood to be similarly the result of a
filter, and as unlikely as the emergence of an intelligent species. [44]
Through the ages of cosmological and geological time our homeworld has been subject to
massive volcanism, asteroid impacts, solar flares, gamma ray bursts, and the extensive gla-‐
ciation that characterizes the present Quaternary glaciation, with its warmer inter-‐glacial
periods such as the Holocene, during which the whole of human civilization has emerged.
These natural forces of the Earth, the solar system, and the cosmos at large have shaped ter-‐
restrial life, humanity, and human civilization. We have been hammered on the anvil of a
violent and dynamic universe, and we have survived thus far, but our ongoing survival, our
existential viability, is not assured.
That we have survived so far, and are able to pose the question of our ongoing existential
viability, is not merely arbitrary, but is the result of an observational selection effect, which
in a cosmological context is usually called the anthropic cosmological principle. [45] Terres-‐
trial life has reached its present level of complexity, and our civilization has reached its pre-‐
sent level of technological sophistication, because we are on a relatively quiescent planet in
a relatively quiescent solar system in a relatively quiescent part of the Milky Way galaxy
(and so on, from the local group to the universe entire). Thus, if it is the case that we have
been hammered on the anvil of a violent universe, it has not been too violent. If our history
had been visited by more catastrophic events—if, for example, the K-‐Pg impact that proba-‐
bly led to the mass extinction of dinosaurs had involved a larger collision, such as that which
likely resulted in the formation of Earth’s moon, then human beings would not have evolv-‐
ed—we would not be here to observe and to question our ongoing viability. [46]
The background rate of existential threats has been such as to shape life on Earth, but not to
eliminate it entirely. This is the ongoing tension between the unlikelihood of the emergence
of sufficiently complex life to produce an intelligent species and the unlikelihood of an event
that could result in the extinction of such an intelligent species once the quiescent condi-‐
tions conducive to the emergence of such a species obtain (or the unlikelihood of an event
that could result in the extinction of an entire biosphere and therefore the impossibility of
the emergence of another intelligent species). It is also a tension subject to change as new
historical forces emerge that will shape ongoing life on Earth.
35

Extraterrestrialization: the Development of Spacefaring Civilization
Earth-‐originating life has now given rise to industrial-‐technological civilization, which con-‐
tinues in its development to this day. What follows planet-‐bound industrial-‐technological
civilization is the process of extraterrestrialization—the movement of the infrastructure of
terrestrial civilization off the surface of the Earth and into space—which places earth-‐
originating civilization in cosmological context, just as the pale blue dot places Earth in
cosmological context and astrobiology places life in cosmological context. Extraterrestriali-‐
zation is an existential imperative. Carl Sagan wrote that, “…every surviving civilization is
obliged to become spacefaring—not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the
most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.” [47] The process of extraterrestrialization,
should it come to pass, furnishes us with a more comprehensive conception of civilization
that begins to transcend our anthropic bias.
Figure 25: Extraterrestrialization. Image by J. N. Nielsen
The resources of industrial-‐technological civilization hold the promise that life, intelligence,
and civilization can spread beyond our terrestrial homeworld. [48] Each stage in the devel-‐
opment of a civilization capable of harnessing the energy resources required to expand be-‐
yond exclusively planet-‐bound conditions represents passing through further layers of the
Great Filter. The gravitational thresholds of our home world, our local solar system, our lo-‐
cal galaxy, and our local universe are each of them existential risks and existential opportu-‐
nities for the future development of earth-‐originating life, intelligence, and civilization.
With the passage beyond one gravitational threshold to another, existential risk is mitigated
36

but not eliminated; the mitigation of one level of existential risk means ascending to a more
comprehensive level of existential risk.
The technology that our civilization develops will influence the structure of extraterrestrial-‐
ized civilization. [49] If the settlement of the universe is parallel to the settlement of our
planet, each gravitational threshold will first be passed by an initial slow wave, only to much
later be filled in by faster waves of expansion resulting from later, higher technology. But in
the event of a disruptive technological breakthrough, as, for example, any of the technolo-‐
gies based on the Alcubierre drive concept (or any other propulsion system that has the
practical effect of superluminary velocity), there could be an initial fast wave of expansion
only later filled in by slower and more thorough later waves filling in the gaps.
Whatever the large-‐scale structure of spacefaring civilization [50], existential risks confront
us at every stage of development. No sooner do we leave behind one risk than we encounter
another, more comprehensive risk that confronts our expanding and more comprehensive
civilization. Existential viability is to be won through a continuous engagement with the hi-‐
erarchy of risks through which an existentially viability civilization must pass.
The Risk of Cataloging Existential Risks
There is an almost irresistible temptation to compile a list of existential threats and to assess
these risks in order of priority in order to make a rational cost/benefit analysis of existential
risk mitigation efforts. After all, industrial-‐technological civilization has achieved its great
accomplishments largely through the application of procedural rationality. Yet the very
power of the idea of existential risk derives from the non-‐constructive character of the con-‐
cept: we know that we will face risks, even if we cannot exhibit in intuition (to employ a
Kantian turn of phrase) what exactly these risks will be. [51] The risk that strikes our Achil-‐
les’ heel may be the risk that we failed to exhibit in our intuition.
If we try to address existential risks on a case-‐by-‐case basis, we will be presented with count-‐
less dilemmas that are likely to become irremediable political conflicts. Should we build
planetary defenses to guard Earth against asteroid strikes, or should we harden our global
electrical grid against a power surge from a mass coronal ejection that could destroy it?
Should we develop legal restrictions on potentially disruptive technologies that could pose
an existential threat (say, genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics [52]), or should we push
innovative technologies to the limit of their development in order to apply them in geoengi-‐
neering solutions to climate change?
37

If we attempt to compile a list of potential existential threats and to systematically mitigate
them one by one (an admirably constructivistic approach to existential risk), we risk being
blindsided by some existential threat that we overlooked, while if we pursue a strategy of
existential risk mitigation that addresses any risk whatsoever, we are much less likely to be
blindsided by an unexpected risk that eludes human imagination. A strategy of absolute
generality will not only mitigate known existential risks, but may also mitigate unknown ex-‐
istential risks. What is needed is a strategy of existential risk mitigation as such, effective for
any existential risk, for civilization as such, effective for any civilization. The question then
becomes this: what can we do that would likely preserve Earth-‐originating life, intelligence,
and civilization regardless of the threats to their existence? What existential risk mitigation
strategy is, in principle, blind to the existential threat against which it secures us?
Knowledge, Redundancy, and Autonomy
Given extraterrestrialized civilization in its cosmological context, we can approach existen-‐
tial risk mitigation through three principles: knowledge, which transforms unknown uncer-‐
tainties into quantifiable risks that admit of calculation and mitigation, redundancy, which
means multiple self-‐sufficient centers for Earth-‐originating intelligent life, and autonomy,
which assures the independence of each self-‐sufficient center to seek its own strategies for
survival.
What does knowledge have to do with risk? Following economist Frank Knight, what we call
Knightian risk distinguishes between predictability, risk, and uncertainty, with predictability
implying total knowledge, risk implying partial knowledge, and uncertainty implying the
absence of knowledge. [53] These are simplified and idealized categories; no risk is entirely
free of uncertainty, and even uncertainty must lie within what is possible within our uni-‐
verse, and in that sense is constrained and predictable. But Knightian risk offers a frame-‐
work to think about the dynamic nature of risk, which changes over time. We can think of
predictability, risk, and uncertainty as constituting an epistemic continuum, based on our
level of knowledge. Growth of knowledge moves the boundary of risk outward, encompass-‐
ing more unknowns, meaning less uncertainty and more predictability. In the event of civili-‐
zational collapse and the loss of knowledge, the boundary of risk contracts, and a greater
proportion of the world is given over to uncertainty.
38

Figure 26: Epistemic Continuum. The epistemic continuum, from a high degree of knowledge and
predictability, through risk as an admixture of knowledge and uncertainty, to unknowns of which we
possess a low degree of knowledge. Image by J. N. Nielsen.]
For example, even if we have done very little in the past forty years in terms of human space
exploration and extraterrestrial settlement, and we are still accessing earth orbit with dis-‐
posable chemical rockets, space science has made enormous progress during this period of
time, and this knowledge has transformed our understanding of our universe and our place
within it. This growth of our knowledge of the universe has made the universe a little less
uncertain and a little more predictable for us, suggesting clear paths for the management
and mitigation of existential risk.
Knowledge alone is not enough. Without redundancy of earth-‐originating life, intelligence,
and civilization we still face the possibility of a terrestrial single-‐point failure. Existential risk
mitigation ultimately means multiple self-‐sufficient centers for Earth-‐originating intelligent
life. These distinct centers of earth-‐originating life, intelligence, and civilization will be sub-‐
ject to distinct risks and distinct opportunities, and these distinct populations of Earth-‐
originating life, intelligence, and civilization will be subject to distinct selection pressures, so
that they will evolve into unique forms of each. [54]
Knowledge of risks and redundant centers of earth-‐originating life together are not yet
enough to secure the long-‐term viability of Earth-‐originating life, intelligence, and civiliza-‐
tion. Redundancy without diversity incurs the risk of homogeneity and monoculture. Exis-‐
tential risk mitigation also points to the necessity of the independence of each self-‐sufficient
center to seek its own strategies of survival. The mutual independence of self-‐sufficient cen-‐
39

ters means the possibility of continued social and technological experimentation, which will
in turn lead to the realization of distinct forms of civilization.
Autonomy among multiple independent centers of civilization seems like an unambiguous
condition, but it may be more difficult to achieve than we suppose. [55] If we look around
the planet today, with all its ethnic and cultural diversity, we see that there is, for all practi-‐
cal purposes, only one viable form of political organization—the nation-‐state – and again,
for all practical purposes, only one viable form of civilization—industrial-‐technological civi-‐
lization. We must proactively seek to transcend social and technological monoculture to ar-‐
rive at a civilizational pluralism from which social and technological experimentation flows
naturally.
The Moral Imperative of Existential Risk Mitigation
Taking existential risk seriously means that certain moral imperatives follow from this per-‐
spective, but who would possibly object to preventing human extinction? Of course, it is not
as simple as that. It might be more difficult than we suppose to define human extinction,
because to do so we would need to agree upon what constitutes human viability in the long
term. Additionally, there are vastly different conceptions of what constitutes a viable civili-‐
zation and of what constitutes the good for civilization. What is stagnation? What is flawed
realization? What exactly is subsequent ruination, when achievement is followed by failure?
What constitutes a civilizational failure? What exactly would constitute the “drastic failure
of… life to realise its potential for desirable development”? What is human potential? Does it
include transhumanism? For some, transhumanism is a moral horror, and a future of tran-‐
shumanism would be a paradigm case of flawed realization, while for others a human future
without transhumanism would constitute permanent stagnation. These are difficult ques-‐
tions that cannot be wished away; to pretend that they are not contentious is to fail to do
justice to the complexity of the human condition.
These different conceptions of human potential and desirable outcomes for civilization will
issue in different ideals, different aspirations, and different actions, but if we can continue to
increase knowledge, establish redundancy and assure autonomy there is reason to hope that
existential catastrophe can be avoided and an OK outcome realized, which is the point of
what Nick Bostrom calls the maxipok rule—maximizing the probability of an OK outcome,
where an OK outcome is defined as an outcome that avoids existential catastrophe. [56]
While the formulations of knowledge, redundancy, and autonomy above are framed in
terms of Earth-‐originating life, intelligence, and civilization, such a strategy of existential
40

risk mitigation holds for life, intelligence, and civilization as such, i.e., for any possible intel-‐
ligent species that seeks the existential viability of itself and its biosphere for the long term
future. Any civilization that fails to pursue knowledge, redundancy, and autonomy—any or
all of them—places itself at greater existential risk than a civilization that systematically
pursues all of them. That is to say, epistemic stagnancy is an existential risk; exclusive reli-‐
ance upon a single, unique center of civilization is an existential risk; absence of autonomy
(what a Kantian would call heteronomy) is an existential risk.
If we do nothing, we will have on our conscience the extinction of all earth-‐originating life,
intelligence and civilization. If we understand any or all of these to possess intrinsic value,
allowing their extinction through neglect and inaction is morally indefensible. In the long
term, our survival is only to be had through the extraterrestrialization of our civilization. But
survival is not salvation. Survival often simply means that we will have the opportunity to go
on to make later mistakes on a larger scale, which still constitutes an OK outcome that is
better than the alternative.
41

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K. Miura, K. Watanabe, "Simultaneous Multi-‐Bit Recording and Driveless Reading for Per-‐
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[27] S. Loth, S. Baumann, C.P. Lutz, D.M. Eigler, A.J. Heinrich, "Bistability in Atomic-‐scale
Antiferromagnets", Science, Bd. 335, S.196, DOI:10.1126/science.1214131, 2012
[28] J. de Vries, D. Schellenberg, L. Abelmann, A. Manz, M. Elwenspoek, "Towards Gigayear
Storage Using a Silicon-‐Nitride/Tungsten Based Medium", arXiv:1310.2961,
(http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.2961). Accessed June 2014.
[29] Internet Archive, "About the Internet Archive",
(https://web.archive.org/web/20140425155322/https://archive.org/about/). Accessed June
2014.
[30] GlusterFS, "About GlusterFS",
(https://web.archive.org/web/20140529220132/http://www.gluster.org/about/). Accessed
June 2014.
[31] LOCKSS, "About LOCKSS",
(https://web.archive.org/web/20140127012806/http://www.lockss.org/about/). Accessed June
2014.
[32] BitTorrent Sync, "BitTorrent Sync",
(https://web.archive.org/web/20140614024531/http://www.bittorrent.com/sync). Accessed
44

June 2014.
[33] O. Chang, M. Thangavelu, "Lunar Supercomputer Complex: 21st Century DSN Evolution
Prospects", AIAA Meeting Papers, (http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2012-‐5184), 2012.
[34] Of this most distant picture of Earth Carl Sagan wrote, “It seemed to me that another
picture of the Earth, this one taken from a hundred thousand times farther away, might help
in the continuing process of revealing to ourselves our true circumstance and condition.” C.
Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, Random House, New York,
1997, Chap. 1. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field image is another photograph that has more re-‐
cently played a role in human self-‐understanding, providing the most expansive context yet
for the place of humanity in the universe.
[35] Quoted in S.J. Dick and J.E. Strick, “The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of
Astrobiology”, Rutgers University Press, Piscataway, NJ, 2005, p. vi, also cf. p. 205.
[36] NASA Astrobiology: Life in the Universe
(http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-‐astrobiology/) Accessed June 2014.
[37] L.J. Mix, “Life in Space: Astrobiology for Everyone”, Harvard University Press, Cam-‐
bridge and London, 2009, p. 1.
[38] K.W. Plaxco and M. Gross, “Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction”, The John Hopkins Uni-‐
versity Press, Baltimore, 2006, p. vii.
[39] Perhaps the most systematic study of the Fermi Paradox, also referenced in Part I of this
paper, is to be found in S. Webb, “Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox
and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life”, Copernicus Books, New York, 2002.
[40] Cf. Andrew Snyder-‐Beattie, “Habitable exoplanets are bad news for humanity”
(http://theconversation.com/habitable-‐exoplanets-‐are-‐bad-‐news-‐for-‐humanity-‐25838) Ac-‐
cessed June 2014, and George Dvorsky, “Does a galaxy filled with habitable planets mean
humanity is doomed?”
(http://io9.com/5919110/does-‐a-‐galaxy-‐filled-‐with-‐habitable-‐planets-‐mean-‐humanity-‐is-‐doo
med) Accessed June 2014. I do not agree with the reasoning presented in these particular ar-‐
ticles, but the dilemma can be summarized in this way: “What we are learning makes the
universe appear to be more biofriendly every day.” J. Tartar and C. Impey, “If You Want to
Talk to ET, You Must First Find ET”, Frontiers of Astrobiology, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge et al., 2012, p. 287. The authors go on to note that, “Everything depends on” the
45

final four terms of the Drake equation, for which we have no data other than our planet and
ourselves, and this data we possess only due to observational selection effects.
[41] All life other than earth-‐originating life is, properly speaking, exobiology, but exobiology
is relative to a particular planet or other celestial body on which life has emerged. Any extra-‐
terrestrial life that might be found would be an instance of exobiology for human beings, but
human beings and all terrestrial life would, in turn, be instances of exobiology for life that
has independently arisen on another world.
[42] R. Hanson, “The great filter-‐-‐are we almost past it?” Journal preprint available at
(http://web.archive.org/web/20140502212207/http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html). Ac-‐
cessed June 2014.
[43] In saying that we are the Great Filter, I mean the whole history of humanity from the
emergence of cognitive modernity approximately 70,000 years before present to the devel-‐
opment of contemporary industrial-‐technological civilization. The low level of genetic diver-‐
sity among human beings today may be the result of a population bottleneck in the prehis-‐
toric past. There is an unresolved debate whether this bottleneck occurred, and whether it
was a short bottleneck precipitated by a climatological catastrophe or a long bottleneck of
thousands of years’ duration. In either case, if there was a dramatic population bottleneck
this could be identified with the great filter. But we are not yet in the clear; civilization con-‐
tinues to produce anthropogenic existential threats, so it seems better to identify the great
filter with all of human history since cognitive modernity, which is, in any case, a short pe-‐
riod of time in cosmological terms.
[44] A distinction can be made among existential risks between those that cut short the de-‐
velopment of life, intelligence, and civilization before these have reached maturity, and
which risks conform to the pattern of an accident of cosmological proportions, and those
that extinguish the natural life cycles of a species, an intelligence, or a civilization—such as
the exhaustion of our sun in the far future—that can be predicted with a high degree of cer-‐
tainty.
[45] In the present context, I will only refer to the weak formulation of the anthropic cosmo-‐
logical principle, and will not make reference to strong formulations of anthropic cosmo-‐
logical principle.
[46] Being among the currently surviving species on Earth, whilst the vast majority of spe-‐
cies that have evolved have gone extinct, means that we are subject to survivorship bias as
the result of our biological success. If the great filter was the population bottleneck men-‐
46

tioned in note [43] above (or even technological civilization today), and we are not only bio-‐
logically successful but are also the rare example of an intelligent species that has survived
the great filter, then we are also subject to the survivorship bias inherent in having survived
the great filter.
[47] C. Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, Random House, New
York, 1997, Chap. 21.
[48] In the big picture and the long term, the most important function that human beings
may serve in the universe is to be a dispersal vector for earth-‐originating life to gain a foot-‐
hold in the cosmos. Cf. J. N. Nielsen, “Extraterrestrial dispersal Vectors”, Centauri Dreams
(http://www.centauri-‐dreams.org/?p=30024). Accessed June 2014. If the rest of the universe
beyond Earth is sterile, then the expansion of earth-‐originating life into the universe will be
cosmological equivalent of the Cambrian explosion, although several orders of magnitude
larger. (Also cf. F. Dyson, “Noah’s Ark Eggs and Viviparous Plants”, in Starship Century,
Lucky Bat Books, Nevada, 2013., cited in note [17] above—which gives a surprisingly bio-‐
centric vision of the future.) If the rest of the universe is not sterile, we will see something
like a “Wallace Line” where earth-‐originating life and life originating elsewhere share a
boundary along their farthest line of dispersal.
[49] J. N. Nielsen, “How We Get There Matters,” Centauri Dreams
(http://www.centauri-‐dreams.org/?p=30695). Accessed June 2014.
[50] J. N. Nielsen, “The Large-‐Scale Structure of Spacefaring Civilization”, 100 Year Starship
2012 Symposium Conference Proceedings. pp. 301-‐304, 2013.
[51] Exhibition in intuition is a theme found throughout Kant, who is generally recognized as
a proto-‐constructivist. For example: “…mathematics must first exhibit all its concepts in in-‐
tuition, and pure mathematics exhibit them in pure intuition, i.e. construct them.” (I. Kant,
“Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics”, translated by Peter G. Lucas, Manchester Uni-‐
versity Press, 1953, section 10, p. 39) Kant’s most systematic exposition is to be found in his
Critique of Pure Reason.
[52] I cite this litany of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics since these are the three
technologies that feature in Bill Joy’s seminal article, “Why the future doesn’t need us”,
Wired, April 2000 (http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html). Accessed June
2014. I might just as well have cited AI research or nuclear technology.
47

[53] F. Knight, “Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit”, Augustus M. Kelley, New York, 1964. Cf. espe-‐
cially Chapter VIII, “Structures and Methods for Meeting Uncertainty.”
[54] Heath Rezabek has remarked that diversity should be added to the list of knowledge,
redundancy, and autonomy; I am assuming that diversity will follow from the autonomy of
multiple independent centers of civilization, as each independent center will be subject to
unique selection pressures that will result in divergence, thus diversity.
[55] The danger of homogenization and monoculture can be expressed biologically in terms
of convergent evolution: similar habitats with similar selection pressures may produce simi-‐
lar results, and in so far as we may seek Earth twins as centers among multiple independent
relicts of civilization, we would be seeking a similar habitat with similar selection pressures.
Earth-‐originating life, intelligence, and civilization may all be subject to convergent evolu-‐
tion, thus, from the perspective of existential risk mitigation, it would behoove us to tran-‐
scend our existential comfort zone and subject ourselves to dissimilar selection pressures.
[56] N. Bostrom, “Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority”, Global Policy Vol. 4, Issue 1,
pp. 15-‐31, 2013.
48

Acknowledgements
The authors collectively wish to thank Paul Gilster, for his encouragement and support of
this work, and his invitation to develop these concepts further in regular installments on his
Centauri Dreams blog.
We wish to thank Andreas Tziolas and Richard Obousy at Icarus Interstellar, for encourag-‐
ing us to develop these themes into the basis of Project Astrolabe, an initiative which will be
dedicated to the study of civilization’s future prospects on Earth and beyond. For more in-‐
formation, please contact the authors.
Heath wishes to thank Lucy West, Stephan Martiniere, Philippe Steels, and the Soleri Ar-‐
chives for discussion and permission to illustrate aspects of the Vessel proposal with their
art. Heath wishes to thank Laura Welcher at the Long Now Foundation for Rosetta Disk
artwork, as well as Lt. Col. Peter Garretson and Dr. Daniel Sheehan for technical advisory.
Heath owes a particular debt of gratitude to the artists and architect who dedicated time
and expertise in co-‐developing several custom visualizations of Vessel facilities: Mark
Rademaker (The IXS Dragonfly: Vessel Archive Ship), Joshua Davis (Regional and Lunar
Vessel Facilities), and Agustina Rodriguez (Vessel Beacon Tower).
49

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