Humanity Has Avoided Apocalypse Before. Let’s Do It Again.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

It was a technology so powerful that its creators believed it could bring about either a golden age of human flourishing or the end of the world. The president of the United States called it more revolutionary than “the invention of the wheel, the use of metals or the steam or internal combustion engine.” A reporter for The New York Times, suggesting that the technology might cure cancer and accelerate food production, compared the moment to Moses’ first glimpse of the Promised Land.

The dangers were even starker. People worried about human extinction,........

© The New York Times