On BBC Future I have an essay concluding their amazing season on long term thinking where I go really long-term: The greatest long term threats facing humanity. The approach I take there is to look at the question “if we have survived X years into the future, what problems must we have overcome before that?” It is not so much the threats (or frankly, problems – threat seems to imply a bit more active maliciousness than the universe normally brings about) that are interesting as just how radically we need to change or grow in power to meet them. The central paradox of survival is that it requires change, and long-term that means that what survives may be very alien. Not so much a problem for me, but I think many disagree. A solid state civilization powered by black holes in a starless universe close to absolute 0, planning billions of years ahead may sound like a great continuation of us, or something too alien to matter.

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