Talk:Existential risk

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result of the discussion was no consensus. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 03:00, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Existential risk and Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth are, really, the same thing; there's no sense in having two articles here. I think the merged article should be at existential risk, as it's shorter and has been used in the literature, but the latter article does have much more content and inertia. ~~ N (t/c) 22:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose: Existential risk and Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth are not same thing. Existential risk is a phrase used in future studies. Risks to civilization, humans and planet is not necessarily a phrase but describes scientific prediction, facts revealed by scientific studies that will have immense negative impact on Earth at planetary level. The two topics are ok as two different articles. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 09:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Unless a phrase has its own substantial history (which this one doesn't), I don't see why there should be separate articles for the phrase and what it refers to; and the second article says flat out "Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth are existential risks...." and "The risks discussed in this article are at least Global and Terminal in intensity.", which is the exact definition of existential risk. ~~ N (t/c) 16:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Existential risk is a term, and Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth are scientific predictions. Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth should stay as separate article because even if the term Existential risk is not widely used, the information given in the article Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth are outcome of scientific experiments and scientific predictions by noted scientists and scientific organizations. Actually Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth describes some end-of-the-world scenario and it should stay as separate article. Existential risk may not necessarily a risk for the civilization, it may be a risk for only one individual, but Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth are predicted risks for the entire human civilization and the planet Earth. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 16:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

"existential risk is a term": as I said, unless there's a lot to say about the term itself, there shouldn't be separate articles about the term and what it refers to. We don't have different articles at, oh, biology and scientific study of life.

"existential risk may be a risk to one individual": read the article, they're by definition global and terminal.

I'm afraid I don't understand your second and third sentences at all. ~~ N (t/c) 19:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

As I have said above, Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth describes some end-of-the-world scenario and should stay as separate article. I will remove the merge tag within one more day if no other people supporting the merge. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 23:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

And as I have said, end-of-the-world scenarios are existential risks. Having two articles is redundant. I have listed this at WP:PM. ~~ N (t/c) 00:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I am again saying Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth describes some end-of-the-world scenario and should stay as separate article. And as I have said above, I will remove the merge tag within one more day if no other people supporting the merge. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 00:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Weak oppose per Otolemur. The risks to... is more of a list, and if they are merged, the only solution should be to make it longer, which could make it too long. Perhaps add see-alsos to each of the articles. Also, "existential risk", although widely publicized, might not be that well known, as I myself have found the risks to... article much earlier than this one. I find that the Risks to... article rather resourceful in terms of context, as the two topics might not entirely overlap. However, some of the references in the risks to... article may be helpful to this one, as this article isn't even sourced as in references, although it does have some external links. Also, a navbox-type template featuring the articles related to doomsday scenarios may also be helpful, as having all the content in one article may cause dial-up users to crash their computers. Although both articles are about risk, that doesn't nessecarily mean both articles are about the exact same types of risks, albeit if they are similar. Besides, we also have a wide variety of articles relating to similar subjects, and it often helps if we keep the articles short but informative. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
• sigh - It seems this discussion has continued, on and off, for a few years now. The articles in question also seem to have been renamed over and over again - I just now got to this topic via a bluelink to Disaster#Causes_of_hypothetical_future_disasters, for example. Whatever everyone finally decides to do, be warned that it'll take a heck of a lot of work to clean everything up into one single neat package. There are certainly many articles that require merging at Wikipedia - but with these two in particular, could we just leave them alone? No renaming, no redirects, and come back when we've fixed all the rest of Wikipedia. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.