I have just finished reading Evgeny Vodolazkin’s novel, Laurus, set in Russia in the late Middle Ages, the last part of which unfolds against the background of a popular belief that the end of the world is imminent. Well, that is just what you would expect of that benighted era, isn’t it? Superstitious Christians obsessed with death and judgement.
And yet right now, a bunch of bright sparks at Oxford University are calculating the odds of the human race being wiped out reasonably soon – though I don’t think the four last things are on their minds. They reckon there is a 9.5% chance of human extinction in the next century, which means that you or I would be five times as likely to die in an extinction event as in a car crash. And if you read Michael Cook’s article about it, you will find their worries extend to a scenario that is, um, just a bit superstitious.
Mind you, the rise of Donald Trump and now his doppelganger in the Philippines,Rodrigo Duterte, could seem apocalyptic.
Carolyn Moynihan
Deputy Editor,
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