End of the World

Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP, is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. He is Honorary Professor, Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, UK, on faculty in the Postgraduate Programs in Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy, Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, USA, and on faculty and a Supervising Analyst at the New School for Existential Psychoanalysis, USA. Recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship including 5 Gradiva Awards, he is the author and/or editor of over 30 books in psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies including most recently Psyche, Culture, World. In 2015 he was given the Otto Weininger Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Canadian Psychological Association. He is based in Ontario, Canada.

• PrefaceProlegomenon: On the Brink of Extinction1: Here on EarthA Promise of HopeGlobal Bystanders in the Face of Ecological CrisisThe Revenge of GaiaToo Big to Fix2: Ten BillionWhat Can We Learn from Rats?Overpopulation and the Food SupplyWithering WaterThe Worse Is Yet to Come: Pandemics, Economic Paralysis, and Societal Collapse3: The Evil That Men DoThe Need to KillThe Ontology of PrejudiceOn the Universality of EvilThe Ethics of KillingInstitutionalized Evil4: The Doomsday Clock is Ticking Dropping the BombThe Doomsday ArgumentExistential RisksShould We Take the Doomsday Argument Seriously?Our Final Century?5: Apocalypse NowOn SinApocalypse, Millennialism, and EschatonThe (un)Holy LandApocalyptic Discourse in Post-Millennial CultureFuturistic FantasiesDisparitiesThe New After6: Global Catastrophic Risks Defining RiskBig-Picture HazardsEconomic DisintegrationTechno NihilismSuperintelligences7: A World without RecognitionThe Need to Be AcknowledgedDysrecognition as Social PathologyUnconscious Politics and the OtherA Failure of EmpathyTransgenerational Transmission of Trauma8: Living in the End TimesFrom the Plague to a Plastic IslandThe Doomsday VaultIt Took a ChildPredicting the FutureDemocracy IncorporatedFrom Catastrophe to RenewalEnvironmental Conflict and PeacebuildingThe Last ResistanceReferencesIndexAbout the Author

We are in a unique period in history in which we are simultaneously capable of understanding species extinction—including our own, which could be self-inflicted—and able to do something about it. Will we? In this engrossing account of the many existential threats we face—nuclear weapons are especially terrifying—Jon Mills outlines the problems and possible solutions. A must-read for anyone who cares about the future of Homo sapiens, in which we do not always seem so wise . . . but we could be.