When renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently passed away in March, it wasn’t before penning a new book, detailing his fears about the future of humanity. In it, he talked about how we would soon be a race of “superhumans” ruled by the wealthy.
“Humans must leave Earth in the next 200 years if we want to survive”. That was the stark warning issued by Professor Stephen Hawking in the months before his death at the age of 76. The legendary physicist believed that life on Earth could be wiped out by a disaster such as an asteroid strike, AI or an alien invasion, the Daily Mail reported.
But the looming potential for humans to re-engineer themselves occupied much of Hawking’s thoughts in his last days. He put them down amid a collection of articles addressing what he called “the big questions” facing our future. They will be posthumously published later this week in Brief Answers to the Big Questions.
For decades, Hawking had been calling for humans to begin the process of permanently settling other planets. It made news headlines again and again. Hawking’s rationale was that humankind would eventually fall victim to an extinction-level catastrophe – perhaps sooner rather than later. What worried him were so-called low-probability, high impact events – a large asteroid striking our planet is the classic example.
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