For thousands of years, humanity has wondered how the world would end. The ancient Sumerians, for example, thought a planet called Nibiru was on a collision course with Earth. The speculations have only increased in recent years: A meteor (like the imaginary one that attracted a strong following during the 2016 U.S Presidential Election), nuclear war , global warming , or even artificial intelligence (which Elon Musk, head of SpaceX, recently called our “biggest existential threat ”). But what if they were wrong? What if instead, it will be giant slug-like intergalactic creatures called Vogons who destroy the earth to make room for a hyperspatial express route? In addition to being somewhat of a bummer (after all, then we would never live to see a world of fully autonomous cars , supersonic hyperloops , and ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces ), the scenario poses the all-important question: Is there a legal remedy? The civil legal issues raised by de...