Letter to the Editor—The End

Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.16.6.1217

In the face of the view that the probability is 1 of the human race eventually being destroyed by some environmental calamity, one may argue that increasing controls over the environment may reduce this probability. But then the probability of eventual extinction via poor health is 1. However, one may argue that increasing controls over human health may reduce this probability. But then, under reasonable hypotheses (and regardless of accelerating environmental and health controls), extermination of the human race will be ensured (modulo probability 0) by a long run of consecutive human births of the same sex.

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