Modern politics proceeds through trial and error. But what happens when technology advances to the point that a single error risks leaving no survivors? Does it still make sense to claim that a people is democratic, sovereign, or free when a small handful of people can threaten human survival using nuclear weapons, climate modification, or the products of machine intelligence? This course explores the century of scientific and political developments that have led us to our increasingly apocalyptic present. We will see how the First World War replaced Enlightenment hopes of perpetual peace with new fears of runaway technological progress, inspiring communist and fascist responses to tame these forces. We will consider how the global fallout from the hydrogen bomb threatened human survival during the 1950s, but also revealed a new degree of ecological interconnection. We will trace how this new awareness of the Earth System paved the way for contemporary understandings of the dangers posed by global heating and the mounting extinction crisis during the 1980s. The course concludes by recounting the rise of artificial intelligence as a potentially appealing - but existentially risky - solution to all of humanity's apocalyptic problems during the 2000s and 2010s. Along the way, you will be challenged to consider how the growing human ability to end the world forces us to make new kinds of political trade-offs between. Does it make sense to protect a people's freedom using nuclear weapons if doing so also jeopardizes the biological survival of the human species? How much freedom would you be willing to relinquish in order to prevent a handful of bad actors from using advanced AI to cause global harm? This class aims to equip you with a new set of perspectives for weighing the increasingly urgent trade-offs between freedom and life, flourishing and survival
3 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit · GER: WAY-SI
Modern politics proceeds through trial and error. But what happens when technology advances to the point that a single error risks leaving no survivors? Does it still make sense to claim that a people is democratic, sovereign, or free when a small handful of people can threaten human survival using nuclear weapons, climate modification, or the products of machine intelligence? This course explores the century of scientific and political developments that have led us to our increasingly apocalyptic present. We will see how the First World War replaced Enlightenment hopes of perpetual peace with new fears of runaway technological progress, inspiring communist and fascist responses to tame these forces. We will consider how the global fallout from the hydrogen bomb threatened human survival during the 1950s, but also revealed a new degree of ecological interconnection. We will trace how this new awareness of the Earth System paved the way for contemporary understandings of the dangers posed by global heating and the mounting extinction crisis during the 1980s. The course concludes by recounting the rise of artificial intelligence as a potentially appealing - but existentially risky - solution to all of humanity's apocalyptic problems during the 2000s and 2010s. Along the way, you will be challenged to consider how the growing human ability to end the world forces us to make new kinds of political trade-offs between. Does it make sense to protect a people's freedom using nuclear weapons if doing so also jeopardizes the biological survival of the human species? How much freedom would you be willing to relinquish in order to prevent a handful of bad actors from using advanced AI to cause global harm? This class aims to equip you with a new set of perspectives for weighing the increasingly urgent trade-offs between freedom and life, flourishing and survival
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.