Our final hour

What Hacker News says

1. grabbalaciousJan 2020
   >And another thing: Only geniuses (or cranks) head straight for the grandest and most fundamental problems. You should multiply the importance of the problem by the probability that you’ll solve it and maximize that product.

   A note here: when it comes to discovery, motivation is vastly more important than competence and every disciplined effort will lead to greater understanding or a serendipitous result of some kind.

   On the other hand, nobody can know the probability that he'll solve a problem.

   Yet important problems can be reliably identified. What I'm trying to point out is that there's nothing wrong with going after the big ones.

   >But I’m hopeful this log-jam will be temporary, and that new opportunities are opening up for aspiring scientists.

   To put this in context he has also stated he thinks that civilisation has only a 50% chance of surviving this century. Another reason for tackling big problems IMO.

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/185583.Our_Final_Hour

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2. amohrFeb 2008
   Tonight on Rigel News "Distant Planet 'Earth' reduces Milky Way to the size of an atom" more at 11

   Has anyone read Our Final Hour by Martin Rees - he talks about this as being one of the possible ways mankind may accidentally destroy itself.

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