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A global catastrophic risk is a risk that has the potential to inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale. This text focuses on global catastrophic risks arising from natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, biological weapons, advanced nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and social collapse.… (más)
GCR (Global Catastrophic Risks) is a real page-turner. I literally couldn't put it down. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the book open on my chest, and the lights on, and I'd begin reading again from where I'd dozed off hours earlier, and I'd keep reading till I just had to go to sleep.
I had read a review of GCR in the scientific journal "Nature" in which the reviewer complained that the authors had given the global warming issue short shrift. I considered this a plus.
If, like me, you get very annoyed by "typos," be forewarned. There are enough typos in GCR to start a collection. At first I was a bit annoyed by them, but some were quite amusing... almost as if they were done on purpose.
Most of the typos were straight typing errors, or errors of fact. For example, on page 292 the author says that the 1918 flu pandemic killed "only 23%" of those infected. Only 23%? That seems a rather high percentage to be preceeded by the qualifier "only". Of course, although 50 million people died in the pandemic, this represented "only" 2% to 3% of those infected... not 23%. On p 295 we read "the rats and their s in ships" and it might take us a moment to determine that it should have read, "the rats and their fleas in ships."
But many of the typos were either fun, or a bit more tricky to figure out: on p. 254 we find "canal so" which you can probably predict should have been "can also." Much trickier, on p. 255 we find, "A large meteoric impact was invoked (...) in order to explain their idium anomaly." Their idium anomaly?? Nah. Better would have been..."the iridium anomaly!" (That's one of my favorites.) Elsewhere, we find twice on the same page "an arrow" instead of "a narrow"... and so it goes..."mortality greater than $1 million." on p. 168 (why the $ sign?) etc. etc.
But the overall impact of the book is tremendous. We learn all sorts of arcane and troubling data, e.g. form p.301 "A totally unforseen complication of the successful restoration of immunologic function by the treatment of AIDS with antiviral drugs has been the activation of dormant leprosy..." I can hear the phone call now...."Darling, I have some wonderful news, and some terrible news...hold on a second dearest, my nose just fell off..."
So even if you're usually turned off by typos, don't let that stop you from buying this book. I expected more from the Oxford University Press, but I guess they've sacked the proofreader and they're using Spell-Check these days. But then, how did "their idium anomaly" get past Spell-Check? ( )
A global catastrophic risk is a risk that has the potential to inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale. This text focuses on global catastrophic risks arising from natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, biological weapons, advanced nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and social collapse.
Google Books — Cargando...
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I had read a review of GCR in the scientific journal "Nature" in which the reviewer complained that the authors had given the global warming issue short shrift. I considered this a plus.
If, like me, you get very annoyed by "typos," be forewarned. There are enough typos in GCR to start a collection. At first I was a bit annoyed by them, but some were quite amusing... almost as if they were done on purpose.
Most of the typos were straight typing errors, or errors of fact. For example, on page 292 the author says that the 1918 flu pandemic killed "only 23%" of those infected. Only 23%? That seems a rather high percentage to be preceeded by the qualifier "only". Of course, although 50 million people died in the pandemic, this represented "only" 2% to 3% of those infected... not 23%. On p 295 we read "the rats and their s in ships" and it might take us a moment to determine that it should have read, "the rats and their fleas in ships."
But many of the typos were either fun, or a bit more tricky to figure out: on p. 254 we find "canal so" which you can probably predict should have been "can also." Much trickier, on p. 255 we find, "A large meteoric impact was invoked (...) in order to explain their idium anomaly." Their idium anomaly?? Nah. Better would have been..."the iridium anomaly!" (That's one of my favorites.) Elsewhere, we find twice on the same page "an arrow" instead of "a narrow"... and so it goes..."mortality greater than $1 million." on p. 168 (why the $ sign?) etc. etc.
But the overall impact of the book is tremendous. We learn all sorts of arcane and troubling data, e.g. form p.301 "A totally unforseen complication of the successful restoration of immunologic function by the treatment of AIDS with antiviral drugs has been the activation of dormant leprosy..." I can hear the phone call now...."Darling, I have some wonderful news, and some terrible news...hold on a second dearest, my nose just fell off..."
So even if you're usually turned off by typos, don't let that stop you from buying this book. I expected more from the Oxford University Press, but I guess they've sacked the proofreader and they're using Spell-Check these days. But then, how did "their idium anomaly" get past Spell-Check? (