This project will be the main focus of this website during the latter part of 2023, and possibly beyond. It will aim to comprehensively explore the question whether our time is especially important, indeed is it "the hinge of history", and if so what are the implications.

Most efforts to do this have tended to focus on one or other of the momentous developments going on at the moment, such as the climate change debate, the acceleration of powerful and potentially dangerous technologies such as AI, and the changing geopolitical landscape.

The treatment on this site will attempt to take a holistic view, taking account of the interactions between the various factors, such as the geopolitical implications of technological developments. For example, some have stressed the danger of a race to AI supremacy in the context of a new Cold War—but what if we are already in one? How to have a a globally effective system of safeguards against dangerous AI developments when there is an absence of trust?

What are the implications for the global power balance of the West's strategy to transition to a low-carbon energy system? What does it mean for supply chain dependencies given the CCP regime's use of economic levers in pursuit of geopolitical goals? And so on, and so forth.

Questions like these obviously require detailed consideration, and so I intend to post a series of articles to serve as discussion starters on the various  questions listed below. As the project develops, I plan to arrange some interviews with people with greater expertise. These will be conducted in an online format similar to that I used for the Blackheath Philosophy Forum  (examples of  which you can view here). Some online panel discussions are also an option.

A further possibility is to graphically model some of the debates and issues using a tool designed for the purpose that can be accessed on this website.

For an overview of the scope of the project, and some preliminary observations about some of the key issues, check out the article Our moment in time.

Here is the schedule and subject matter outlines for the articles to be posted starting on Friday 29 September 2023. Any online events will be held on weekends, since this simplifies handling timezone differences with foreign guests. For example, the BPF discussion with Dr Gad Saad, who lives in Montreal, was held on a Saturday morning (Friday evening his time).

1. The Hinge of History debate will explore the debate following Parfit's 2010 statement. This discussion initially involved a small group of philosophers, but later engaged a broader audience, with influential articles in mainstream media. One important participant was the Oxford philosopher Stuart MacAskill, who coined the word longtermism to describe his view that we are under an ethical obligation to be paying much more attention to the effect of current decisions on future generations. Elon Musk was one of a number of tech types who endorsed this viewpoint. (posting 29 September)
2.  The Landscape of Existential Risk surveys the variety of sources of existential risk identified by analysts as significant possibilities in the coming century. For most people, the term is virtually synonomous with climate change, but some of the most serious dangers scarcely figure in the public debate. One that has recently emerged as a significant public concern is unaligned artificial intelligence, powerful AI capable of acting contrary to human interests. How to evaluate and address these risks, and potential conflicts in strategies to meet them? (posting 6 October)
3. The Artificial Intelligence Precipice evaluates claims that unaligned AI could be the greatest existential danger of all. How serious is this danger? How can it be addressed on a global basis given the severe deterioration in geopolitical conditions? What about the less-than-benign uses to which powerful AI can be put, not least the possibility of creating a form of stable, or "robust", totalitarianism that would be virtually impossible to overthrow, a possibility already being foreshadowed in CCP controlled China? (posting 13 October)
4. The Rise of the Autocratic Orchestra considers the challenge to the global democratic order posed by the emergence of a powerful coalition of autocratic states, with the CCP regime overwhelmingly dominant, that is now seeking to overturn the rules-based global order to create a world "safe for autocracy". This has entered an acute phase, with Russia's aggression against Ukraine marking the end of the relatively benign post-Cold War era, and the real possibility of armed conflict in the Indo-Pacific. How does this effect options to address existential risks?  (posting 20 October)
5. The West's War on Itself is concerned with the loss of civilizational self-confidence within the Western democracies at the very time it is confronted by an unprecedented external challenge from the autocracies. The cultural shift some describe as "the Great Awokening" has undermined confidence in the value of liberal democratic norms and institutions, a development the autocracies are exploiting effectively through influence operations. (posting 27 October)
6. What Matters Most, Right Now looks again at Parfit's hinge of history thesis, and will argue that Parfit grossly overestimated the duration of the "hinge period", which he reckoned as the next several centuries. Given the confluence of accelerating developments in technology, geopolitics and culture, the window of opportunity is likely a matter of years, not centuries. Given which, how should the present generation structure its priorities? (posting 3 November)