Though asteroids get the press and the Michael Bay movies, existential risk experts largely agree that supervolcanoes — of which there are 20 scattered around the planet — are the natural threat that poses the highest probability of human extinction. But that's not the same thing as high. The probability of a supereruption at Yellowstone in any given year is 1 in 730,000.

虽然小行星备受媒体和迈克尔·贝(Michael Bay)电影的关注，但生存风险专家们在很大程度上同意，超级火山才是人类灭绝的最大自然威胁，地球上分布着20座超级火山。但是危险性绝对不高。黄石公园在任何一年里发生超级喷发的概率是73万分之一。

But extremely unlikely isn't the same thing as impossible, even though it's human nature to conflate the two. What sets existential risks apart from everyday dangers isn't likelihood but consequence.

但非常不可能并不等于完全不可能，尽管人类的天性就是把两者混为一谈。将生存风险与日常危险区分开来的不是可能性，而是后果。

Let's say, as scientists have modeled, that a supereruption might kill 10 percent of the global population. Even if such eruptions occur roughly every 714,000 years — the low end of the frequency range — the death toll of that catastrophe equates to the expected loss of over 1,000 people annually, averaged out between now and when that supervolcano finally blows. If they occur roughly every 45,000 years — the high end of the range — that annual expected death toll jumps to some 17,000.

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