May 6 - Policy - Memos

[jamesallenevans]

Leave below as comments your memos that grapple with the topic of Policy Responses to Existential Crisis inspired by the readings, movies & novels (at least one per quarter), your research, experiences, and imagination! Also add a thumbs up to the 5 memos you find most awesome, challenging, and discussion-worthy!

Recall the following instructions: Memos: Every week students will post one memo in response to the readings and associated topic. The memo should be 300–500 words + 1 visual element (e.g., figure, image, hand-drawn picture, art, etc. that complements or is suggestive of your argument). The memo should be tagged with one or more of the following:

origin: How did we get here? Reflection on the historical, technological, political and other origins of this existential crisis that help us better understand and place it in context.

risk: Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the risk associated with this challenge. This risk analysis could be locally in a particular place and time, or globally over a much longer period, in isolation or in relation to other existential challenges (e.g., the environmental devastation that follows nuclear fallout).

policy: What individual and collective actions or policies could be (or have been) undertaken to avert the existential risk associated with this challenge? These could include a brief examination and evaluation of a historical context and policy (e.g., quarantining and plague), a comparison of existing policy options (e.g., cost-benefit analysis, ethical contrast), or design of a novel policy solution.

solutions: Suggestions of what (else) might be done. These could be personal, technical, social, artistic, or anything that might reduce existential risk.

framing: What are competing framings of this existential challenge? Are there any novel framings that could allow us to think about the challenge differently; that would make it more salient? How do different ethical, religious, political and other positions frame this challenge and its consequences (e.g., “End of the Times”).

salience: Why is it hard to think and talk about or ultimately mobilize around this existential challenge? Are there agencies in society with an interest in downplaying the risks associated with this challenge? Are there ideologies that are inconsistent with this risk that make it hard to recognize or feel responsible for?

nuclear/#climate/#bio/#cyber/#emerging: Partial list of topics of focus.

Movie/novel memo: Each week there will be a selection of films and novels. For one session over the course of the quarter, at their discretion, students will post a memo that reflects on a film or fictional rendering of an existential challenge. This should be tagged with:

movie / #novel: How did the film/novel represent the existential challenge? What did this highlight; what did it ignore? How realistic was the risk? How salient (or insignificant) did it make the challenge for you? For others (e.g., from reviews, box office/retail receipts, or contemporary commentary)?

[starmz123]

framing #salience #climate #nuclear #solutions

Ord takes a globalist view of humanity, emphasizing the shared potential futures of our species to argue for the importance of safeguarding our potential. This reminds me of Agarwal and Narain’s argument against one-worldism—is Ord’s philosophy of long-termism rooted in a form of colonialism, which ignores the disparate responsibilities of different countries?

Going by Agarwal and Narain’s criterion of causal relationship, this seems plausible. Agarwal and Narain argued that global warming is caused by excessive (i.e. exceeding the ‘natural allocation’) carbon emission and only a handful countries—primarily in the Global North—are responsible for that. Thus, the responsibility (and corresponding sacrifices) to resolve global warming should fall mostly on them. Is it possible that only a handful of countries, too, are responsible for our current level of existential risk? This seems possible for nuclear threat, as Perry points out: “unlike all other nations, the United States bears the greatest global responsibility […] America brought the bomb into the world.” (206) It seems reasonable to assume that artificial intelligence development will be concentrated in the wealthiest nations, such as the United States, although it should be noted that China is a huge player in this space as well. Cyber disinformation seems to also primarily be facilitated through a few players (the United States, Russia, China, Iran) though cyber warfare seems increasingly widespread. Climate change, of course, has already been covered.

Yet, even if Ord is perpetuating a colonialist mindset, I am not convinced that this affects his argument or its implications. Firstly, Ord’s recommendations are general, not focused on any single group or country. Though this might unwittingly ignore global injustice by not placing more responsibility on a specific group, Ord’s conclusion [that humanity must prioritize existential risks] would not change simply because the distribution of action changes. Secondly, Ord’s claim that “every single one of us can play a role” (216) accords with Agarwal and Narain’s point that countries that may not be responsible for global warming (e.g. India) still must act. Regardless of how we got to this state, it does not change that we are in our present situation and that our choices from hereon out are our responsibility. Even if, say, the just action for an Indian citizen to take is to press one’s electeds to hold another more responsible nation accountable, that is still an action that they must choose to take. Finally, if we are centering the conversation around justice, it is imperative to consider the issue of generational justice. Ord is motivated to safeguard the many future generations that could exist and that is a matter relevant for everyone regardless of their nationality. It might be that widespread public support will not manifest for interventions that are not considered fair given our history, but focusing on past injustice need not mean enacting injustice against future generations. There must be some way to balance present-day (intragenerational) justice with (intergenerational) justice for future humans.

[fdioum]

salience #solutions

The article The Psychology of Existential Risk: Moral Judgments about Human Extinction by Stefan Schuber, Lucius Caviola1 & Nadira S. Fabe alludes to the effects of hope in regards to all existential threats. As demonstrated through the many studies, most people consider human extinction to be uniquely bad when they are presented with hope that the future would be better. Telling participants that the future will be extraordinarily good makes them significantly more likely to find extinction uniquely bad. Which suggests that because people don’t have hope in regards to the future, they are not so distraught by the extinction of humanity as they are about 80% of the human population dying. Though I agree that as proven by the study’s results, some level of sympathy and concern played a role in why the study groups found it worse for 80% of the population compared to no one dying than the difference between 80 and 100% of the human population dying. However, I would say that people may lack hope about a better future which is why they aren’t so concerned about the future of humanity. Thus why it is so hard to think about most if not all existential threats. Furthermore, that could be a reason why there isn’t much policy response to threats like climate change because policy makers don’t believe that this is a fight that we can win. Specifically, more people in the study groups found human extinction uniquely bad after being sold this idea of a utopia in the future compared to a future similar to our current life or worse. Considering that human extinction is then deemed uniquely bad, “ we should arguably invest much more in making sure it does not happen”. However, I think often the positive effects of a societal change is downplayed and not talked about enough, thus why people might be hopeless against many if not all existential threats. This can also be related to a framing problem, considering the example of cyber security which is in most cases framed as a problem that affects mainly the government and private companies instead of a threat that also affects the every day person. We need to reconsider how these existential threats are framed, and put more emphasis on the positive effects of mitigating such risks. So that the every day person can more closely identify with the existential threats and feel somewhat responsible for being a part of the solution.

https://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-019-50145-9/MediaObjects/41598_2019_50145_Fig1_HTML.png

[jasonshepp6]

In this week’s readings, we examined policy responses to existential threats. The reading that I was most drawn to was The New Yorker’s “How Close is Humanity to the Edge” by Carinne Purtill. In this article, Purtill cites Toby Ord, a philosopher and researcher at Oxford University, as placing the odds “of our extinction during the twenty-first century at one in six” (Purtill).

What really struck me was the mathematical approach that Ord brought throughout his analysis. That there is a way to quantify our risk of destroying ourselves, and there are statistical probabilities of this happening within our life time. Reading this paper helped add to the gravity of this course in two respects: (1) the odds of existential threat in our lifetime is higher than it appeared to me before, and (2) there is a way to mathematically approach these larger-than-life end-of-days philosophical questions.

(1) Concerning our odds of having an existential threat, Ord places it and 1 in 6 by the end of the century, which, if my classmates and I are so lucky, will be approximately our life span. In addition, from our readings over the past few weeks, it appears that the propensity towards destruction has increased exponentially throughout recent decades. If this trend were to continue, the chances of existential crises could be even greater than 1 in 6.

(2) I am completely amazed by Ord’s ability to apply mathematical principles to generate future-facing predictions to this level. With all of the hundreds and thousands of variables, Ord believe that he has isolated the right ones to understand the odds of our demise. Whether this figure is correct or not, however, is not why Ord’s paper reframed the way I now approach this course. It is the very nature of being able to quantify risk that can help move these conversations from the abstract to the practical.

risk #framing

Source: http://lukemuehlhauser.com/industrial-revolution/ ![Uploading Screen Shot 2021-05-03 at 4.31.26 PM.png…]()

[dramlochun]

orgins #policy #solutions

In the New Yorker profile of Ord, a line that stood out in particular to me was: “At the moment, it seems that we have to wait about forty years after a threat is scientifically recognized before culture gets to it. And I think that’s too slow.” I think that, clearly, over the past few weeks, we have seen numerous examples of how true this statement is. An example that immediately comes to mind is the continued denial of climate change despite evidence to the contrary existing for decades. Still, I am surprised that Ord did not comment on another phenomenon especially relevant in 2020 and beyond related to this discussion. It seems that in the present, we now also have to consider the issues that arise from misinformation on social media and how threats that are scientifically recognized may become lost to the public among the myriad pieces of misinformation regarding that threat. This is especially relevant to policymakers, given that their messaging about threats could be misquoted, misinterpreted, and even blatantly misrepresented, and in all cases, the public may lose trust in that messaging.

Covid-19 brought the issue I have raised as an extension to Ord’s to the forefront of the public’s attention because of how widespread misinformation about the virus has been. We are all familiar with the various warning labels that social media companies have placed upon any social media post that contains keywords like Covid-19, vaccines, and more. What has made this recent wave of misinformation different than what we have seen in the past is its mass amplification on social media which means it is more visible to the mainstream than ever before. Researchers from Cambridge have tried to uncover the effects of misinformation surrounding the pandemic (Roozenbeek et al., 2020). The study found that susceptibility to misinformation has a significant effect on willingness to comply with public health guidance and vaccine hesitancy worldwide. The researchers emphasize the need for doctors, scientists, and public health officials to provide factual and reliable information, but I feel that this fails to address the problem that they have shown to exist. Policy will continue to be ineffective as long as misinformation continues to be amplified as it has been during the pandemic. Government officials will struggle to gain public trust if conflicting messages are being put out by what some believe are reliable sources. The issue is not a lack of factual information but misinformation that the public believes to be factual. Thus, building upon Ord’s point, society now faces a dual-threat of a lack of care and consideration for facts, and when people decide to care, social media and its amplification of misinformation have made it unclear what the correct facts are to care about.

The solutions to this situation are tricky and complex. One change that needs to be made is our government adapting and building the tools necessary to govern in the age of social media. Simply put, the government today understands technology and social media to such an insufficient degree (see Big Tech hearings) that there is no real hope that they will enact effective policy while facing the threat of misinformation. Moreover, we as a society must decide what we expect from social media platforms. If we ask them to take responsibility for the information put on their platforms, are we willing to sacrifice some of our free speech rights? Finally, there must be some responsibility placed on us as individuals. We need to critically think about the information we see and read and do our best to find information directly from the source. If we can alleviate this issue of misinformation, policy around existential threats will be much more effective.

Sources: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fighting-the-spread-of-covid-19-misinformation/ https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.201199 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-56047409 https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/16/facebook-will-start-alerting-users-who-have-interacted-with-harmful-misinformation-about-covid-19/

[jatkins21]

In "How Close is Humanity to the Edge", author Corinne Purtill details expert Toby Ord's thoughts on our likelihood of reaching a doomsday scenario. Ord pegs our odds at demise at roughly one in six, and somewhat subtly issues a sort of ultimatum in the resolution of our current circumstances. He claims that our current tribulations will end either in a collective societal effort to rectify current global issues or a complete global breakdown. I find this perspective fascinating as it completely eliminates the mindset, one which I'm somewhat guilty of adhering to, that "everything will naturally work itself out". While this mindset may not be 100% incorrect, it certainly isn't a productive viewpoint to collectively adopt. His essential ultimatum for societies fate was sort of the first instance in which I realized a more proactive approach is required to insure our collective safety. I also found Ord's attribution of advanced AI as our greatest threat interesting. While I'm not certain I agree, I do think AI is perhaps the existential threat that is most under humanity's control, yet also poses one of the greatest dilemmas. I always deliberate on how to strike an effective balance between continual progress and societal well-being. Human nature inherently wants to push the boundaries of what we can innovate and achieve, and thus we rarely consider whether these innovations are for the betterment of ourselves and humanity as a whole. While I tend to favor continual advancement, I do think unchecked innovation can be a major threat, which raises the question of how to strike some sort of effective balance.

[bdelnegro]

risk #salience #policy

Political Complacency in the Face of Catastrophe: An Issue of Incentives

As of today, 3.23 million people have died from COVID-19. This statistic is tragic and shocking. It also exposes a prevailing ineptitude to prepare for low probability, highly destructive events. Despite multiple warnings from public health officials and academics, countries around the world failed to establish effective risk-management processes- processes that, in retrospect, could have saved countless lives. This failure is further exacerbated when it comes to emerging and extreme existential threats. These include, but are not limited to: nuclear annihilation, environmental devastation, information chaos and the emergence of a “post-truth” society, cyber attacks, malicious AI, and the misuse of biotechnologies. According to Toby Ord, a senior research fellow at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute and author of The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, the odds of our extinction during the twenty-first century as a result of one (or more) of these threats are at one in six. If we “don’t get our act together,” Ord warns, the odds may be closer to two in six. Why then, are politicians and countries so complacent? One rationale: profoundly misaligned incentives. To put it simply, politicians are not incentivized to create policies that prevent against existential risks. The reasons for this are manifold. Firstly, existential risk reduction is an “intergenerational good”. This means that the gains from avoiding extinction are enjoyed by future generations rather than the present generation. The former, however, have no say or sway in the political process whereas the latter benefit from underinvesting in existential threats without ever suffering the cost. Consequently, politicians are incentivized to neglect long term risks which are low probability or whose catastrophic consequences lie beyond the next election cycle in favor of preparing for more immediate short term risks such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and war. These are familiar concrete threats and coping with them is more valuable to voters and re-election. Secondly, “safeguarding humanity is a global public good.” The consequences of existential events are not contained to a single country or continent. Rather, they threaten global prosperity, security, and societal structures. On the outset, one might think that this would encourage politicians to cooperate in order to prevent global catastrophe. However, if a nation invests in preventing an existential threat, its citizens reap relatively few benefits (compared to the whole world) but bear all the fiscal burden. As a result, “each nation is inadequately incentivized to take actions that reduce risk and to avoid actions the produce risk, preferring instead to free-ride on others.” This is especially true when solving the issue at hand (say climate change) demands tough trade-offs and day-to-day sacrifices.

Ultimately, politicians are elected by us. Therefore, if we wish to change their incentives, we must first correct our own. This is no simple task. It requires a commitment to future generations and our fellow people across the globe.

Works Cited:

Adam J. Liska, Tyler R. White, Eric R. Holley & Robert J. Oglesby (2017) Nuclear Weapons in a Changing Climate: Probability, Increasing Risks, and Perception, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 59:4, 22-33, DOI: 10.1080/00139157.2017.1325300

Farquhar, Sebastian, et al. “Existential Risk Diplomacy and Governance.” Global Priorities Project 2017, Global Priorities Project, Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, & Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, 3 Feb. 2017, um.fi/documents/35732/48132/existential_risk_diplomacy_and_governance/6dcc5557-0a2d-709d-57a2-7e7784512115?t=1525645980997.

“Governments Are Failing to Understand Global Catastrophic Risks and Need to Take Urgent Action, Says New Report.” University of Cambridge, University of Cambridge, 13 Aug. 2019, www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/governments-are-failing-to-understand-global-catastrophic-risks-and-need-to-take-urgent-action-says.

Rees, Lord Martin. “Why a Flawed View of Existential Risk Must Change Radically.” News from Thinking the Unthinkable, 18 May 2020, www.thinkunthink.org/latest-unthinking/2020-05-18-why-a-flawed-view-of-existential-risk-must-change-radically.

Todd, Benjamin. “The Case for Reducing Existential Risks.” 80,000 Hours, The Future of Humanity Institute and the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford & Centre for Effective Altruism, Oct. 2017, 80000hours.org/articles/existential-risks/.

“The Risk Landscape” and “Saving Humanity.” The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, by Toby Ord, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.

[ishaanpatel2022]

origins #framing #policy

The philosopher Toby Ord believes that the risk of human extinction during the 21st century is at one in six, which is not a comforting thought. However, Ord does provide some solutions:

Firstly, Ord proposes that we “limit our access to deadly technologies until we acquire the maturity to use them safely”. However, as social media has shown us, the human race is not known for limiting our access to technology where the full extent of the consequences is unknown. Since social media’s inception, its number of users has grown exponentially, and the world has seen unforeseen consequences of these technologies surface: as a result of social media platforms, youth depression and suicide rates have increased, elections have been influenced and, through the use of AI, social media platforms have become addictive in the quest for profit (to name a few). During this process, world governments have seen these consequences arise and attempted to alleviate them. However, if one reads transcripts from tech hearings in Congress, the incompetence of world leaders regarding new technologies is evident. Moreover, lobbying and capitalism have left regulatory attempts on social media platforms futile. Therefore, given the ineffective governmental policy surrounding social media, it is a concern that, in the future, with new threats that require regulation like AI, governmental policies will fail to “limit our access to deadly technologies” as incompetency around new technologies and capitalism will reign supreme.

Ord also recommends that our society define collective goals internationally to regulate existential threats. While this is extremely important, global inequality and political motivations will make this endeavor difficult to achieve. One existential threat that demonstrates these concerns is climate change. For years, various governments have been implementing processes and policies to alleviate climate change. As is evident in the below graphs, these have been effective in reducing emissions in developed countries like the U.S., but global emissions continue to rise. This is because countries like China and India cannot afford to curb emissions, as these emissions power their developing economies forward. Therefore, while it would be helpful to generate global goals for emission reduction, global inequality means that meeting these goals is unrealistic for certain countries. Moreover, political motivations make establishing global goals difficult. For example, during President Trump’s campaign, he questioned the existence of climate change, rolled back regulations surrounding the oil, gas, and coal industries, and pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. As can be seen, Trump violated global goals relating to climate change to appease his supporters. Therefore, it seems that establishing international policies to curb existential crises will be more difficult than meets the eye.

All in all, even though Ord presents methods to regulate the risk of an existential crisis, the threats of inequality, and political motivations seem to undermine his solution of international goals. Moreover, social media in today’s world has shown that government knowledge and policy in response to existential threats needs to be improved if it is to be at all successful in the future.

Image Sources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183943/us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-1999/ https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/5-charts-that-explain-the-paris-climate-agreement/

Other Sources: The Social Dilemma https://tech.co/news/best-worst-questions-congress-google-2018-12 https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/ https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54797743 https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-is-the-trump-administrations-track-record-on-the-environment/

[ghost]

framing #risk

“We’re almost like passengers on the Titanic…not seeing the iceberg up ahead but enjoying the elegant dining and the music” (Perry & Collina 2020, p. 206). The fact that this is how a former governor thinks of the United States’ nuclear policies is incredibly frightening, and we should take his words to heart when we’re trying to fix this problem. If we are the passengers on the Titanic and the iceberg ahead is a nuclear catastrophe, we must take that threat seriously and enact whatever policy is possible to try and avert the collision. To continue the analogy, we must make the passengers see the iceberg rather than allowing them to continue to turn their backs to it and insist it is not an issue.

Perry and Collina suggest ten major policy recommendations to help create a safer world, many of which we discussed in the very first week of class when the topic was nuclear annihilation. Their top solution was to end sole nuclear authority and to get rid of the “nuclear football.” This was something we discussed back in week one, and I had grappled with in my memo. Having read even more on this subject I am more inclined to say that this is a policy that should be pushed, and I appreciated the level of detail these authors brought to their proposal. Allowing for multiple hands to be on the triggers of those weapons (so to speak) decreases the chance that they will be used in a manner that could pose an existential threat to humanity. The more I think on this, the more it baffles me that we have one man in charge of any use of all of the United States’ nuclear weapon. It doesn’t matter who the man is – that’s too much power to place in the hands of just one person. We have checks and balances in our government structure – why not in our nuclear policy?

The final solution posed by the authors is to elect a president committed to changing nuclear policy and to decreasing the threat to humanity. This seems deceptively simple. Politicians of both political parties make campaign promises they have no intention of keeping, so how can we trust that a candidate is serious about changing these policies? If they are elected and then prioritize other things, what can the citizenry do? We can protest, make our voices heard, but ultimately no one can force the president to take up a policy initiative that is deemed to be of lesser importance.

“Each president sought to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, but none set a new course away from the icebergs” (Perry & Collina 2020, p. 206). If we accept what these authors and former Governor Brown have set forth, we must set a new course away from the iceberg – we cannot continue to turn our backs on it, or we will only have ourselves to blame when the ship goes down.

[madelman99]

nuclear #salience #solutions

This week, I felt particularly drawn to Jerry Brown's review of former US Secretary of Defense, William J. Perry's, "My Journey at the Nuclear Brink." Throughout this course and the many readings and discussions that we've had, it has become clear that although nuclear might not be the most immediately obvious existential threat to the human species, it may very well be the most pressing. I still have a difficult time conceptualizing this threat, but Brown's review did an excellent job at conveying the prescience and scale of the threat. It is clear in the article that governor Brown has a great deal of respect for William J. Perry, who has a comprehensive understanding of "the science and politics of modern weaponry" and is a man of "unquestioned experience and intelligence." The nuclear threat is the central issue of Perry's recent memoir and, given that a man of such repute regards this as an eminent threat, it lends credibility to the threat. The Einstein quote, "the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything, save our modes of thinking," I found to be particularly salient. Only after the advent of nuclear weaponry has humanity had the means to destroy more than mere cities. During the nuclear race of World War II, humanity developed the means to wipe out the entire planet many times over. It is an antiquated view of thinking that has led world leaders to believe that such armaments provide security to the world rather than endanger it. This particular argument does seem a bit short sighted. After all, a limited proliferation of nuclear weapons in the second half of the 20th century led to a stalemate between the US and Russia. The access of such weapons by the two global superpowers after WWII led to mutually assured destruction. Of course there were other factors involved, but this did allow for western capitalism to essentially take over the world and led to a global prosperity the likes of which humanity has never seen. No system is perfect and there is much work to be done, but the universal opulence of a well-governed society that Adam Smith dreamt of may be achievable as a result. One of the most salient and horrifying conclusions about Perry's research on nuclear weaponry is that "there could be no acceptable defense against a mass nuclear attack, an opinion from which he has never deviated." Despite this, many heads of state have installed anti-missile defense systems nonetheless. The information revealed through Perry about the Cuban Missile crisis, among bits of insider details, reveals just how close we have come to nuclear inhalation in the past. America and Soviet Russia began to view nuclear proliferation and war as a matter of winning and losing. However, as Perry points out so well, such an event would be catastrophic for both countries. Indeed, a number of actions since the Cold War have further escalated tensions between the two global nuclear superpowers including the ending of accords, the expansion of NATO, and the pursuit of an offensive based defense. As Perry himself notes, one of the primary problems with this issue is that "the poised nuclear doom, much of it hidden beneath the seas and in remote badlands, is too far out of the global consciousness." Denial and passivity come from a variety of sources but the result is ultimately the same. Nuclear disarmament must begin again. Among the solutions that Perry implies are a lack of funding for nuclear armament and halting creation of cruise missiles, ICBMs, nuclear submarines, and bombers. Furthermore, all nations armed with such weapons should stop the construction of anti-nuke defense sites in countries neighboring potential threats. Only through cooperation can this threat be solved.

[sosuna22]

policy #salience #climate/environment

For how much longer can we keep neglecting the oceans or are we too late?

After completing the readings and seeing all of the problems that are being heavily avoided by politicians, I continued to think about the term scope neglect and how it is applicable in many areas of policy. I remembered that I recently saw a movie called "Seaspiracy" that really made me realize what a problem there is going on in the oceans and close to no one is doing anything about it. This movie has been criticized for being misleading about certain topics, which I can understand. However, what it does do right is bring to light many of the problems with the fishing industry and how those tie in with the environment today. We are drastically overfishing the oceans and polluting them. An example of scope neglect within this problem is the focus on plastic straws. As a society, we constantly hear about our need to reduce the use of plastic straws and how bad they are for the environment. According to the documentary, the plastic straws only account for 3% of the waste in the oceans. As a society, we have been neglecting to realize that plastic straws are an example of scope neglect. We really need to be focusing on reducing our own waste, but also targeting policy towards these large corporations that are polluting the oceans. Additionally, the fishing techniques being used today have brought forth modern day slavery, destroy the ocean floors, and kill countless fish that will never be consumed.

Another example of scope neglect, is the countless lives that are being lost due to fishing. Many people choose to consume protein by eating fish, which is still ending a life but it is not wasting the fish. What the animal ethics article I read talks about is how we don't even know how many lives of fish are lost every year. Depending on your opinion, killing fish for consumption can be ethical or not. But I feel that both parties would agree that wasting fish and killing them for no reason is unethical. The current fishing practices aim for one specific species but usually catch much more than just that. These other fish that are caught are usually killed anyway but never used for any practical purpose. This is massive scope neglect because these fish keep our ocean ecosystem healthy.

Potential solutions for this are very complex. This is because fish is a staple food all around the world. The simplest one is to stop eating fish, but for many, this is not an option. Additionally, just one person foregoing fish consumption will not change an entire industry. What needs to happen is fishing practices that are actually ethical. Although they are made seem unethical in the documentary, many indigenous groups practice whale hunts that are actually significantly better for the environment. One example is in northwestern Washington, the Makah tribe (when legally allowed) will hunt one whale and use all of it to feed the entire town. Also, all parts of the whale are used and none of it goes to waste. Moreover, there needs to be government policy and action. The changes to the industry need to not only come from one government but from governments around the world teaming up and actually caring for the oceans and fish.

Source: Seaspiracy Source: https://www.animal-ethics.org/cognitive-biases-and-animals/scope-insensitivity-failing-to-appreciate-the-numbers-of-those-who-need-our-help/ Source: https://www.edf.org/oceans/how-turn-around-overfishing-crisis Image Source: https://dbknews.com/2021/04/02/seaspiracy-takeaways-seafood-environment/

[louisjlevin]

framing

As I read through Ord's text this week, I couldn't help but bristle.

A part of that is about how my brain is wired. Like Jack Atkins wrote above, I just don't really believe that the future of humanity is at as high of a risk as 1/6 of self-destruction. Now, I say that without any real grounds, but just a huge amount of faith in our species. We have shown a propensity for adaptation that I think doesn't align with the possibility of devastation Ord delineates. That said, as I mentioned, this is more of a feeling than a fact. So maybe Ord is right.

But the second part of it is larger than that. Even if Ord is right, what is the function of texts like this? It made me think of an organisation called Global Optimism, set up by Christiana Figueres - the architect of the Paris Climate Accord. Figueres is obviously highly attuned to the stakes at play. She knows the extent of the risk climate change poses. And yet, she has decided to tackle that risk through optimism. Her organisation made up of "stubborn optimists" aims to reposition climate change as not just our greatest threat, but also our greatest opportunity.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find arguments like Figueres' far more powerful than I do texts like Ord's. Maybe they are equally true, and maybe there's something to be said for brutal honesty. But I can't help but wonder if we need to be more thoughtful about how we best catalyse action. I suspect far too many people would have the same knee-jerk reaction I did to Ord's argument. And that's not helpful as we think about generating rapid and meaningful change.

Check out some of what Global Optimism is up to below (there are some really cool videos and podcasts): https://globaloptimism.com/

[janet-clare]

The Honorable Jerry Brown recounts narratives of caution and complicity and appeals for control of nuclear arms and the grave risks they pose. In his book Toby Ord implores us further to address this nuclear risk, and all other existential threats, known or as yet unrevealed to us.1Within the structure of contemporary society, it’s fairly safe to say that our best approach to mitigating global catastrophe will be shaped largely, and crucially, by policy, be it regional, national, international or global. Regardless of which regulatory bodies involved, there will be a cost to align objectives and develop strategies, facilitate programs, further causes, and enact safeguards, this in the currency of discovery, knowledge, time, and, to back it all up, money. In order to save our human potential Ord puts forward that right now we are the only ones in the position to pay this price. As civil society in pursuit of the continuation of the potential of our species we are responsible, and he, along with a growing group of insightful and judicious benefactors, proposes that this can be achieved through our “80,000 hours”.2

80,000 hours refers to the time we spend in our careers “devoted to solving some kind of problems, big or small.”3 It is also the name of the nonprofit organization4 that is dedicated to research on “how (we) can... best use them to help solve the world’s most pressing problems”.5 The crux of 80,000 hours is the Effective Altruism (EA) concept of “using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis.”.6 This read on patronage invigorates traditional charity, emphasizing a direct application of human resources, knowledge and skills towards carefully selected goals. Not to say conventional philanthropy is eschewed; in instances of irrelevant or differing skill sets, opportunities, or even simply individual desires, good old cold cash is still welcome. The overarching objectives are research, contemplation and responsibility. There is no “should”. EA instills no moral obligation. Consideration is on how to do the “most” effectively, no one has to give it all away, but all are invited to think about their own personal role in engagement.7

While the notion of charity is by no means new, this intellectual approach of EA takes it from a different angle. Proponents of EA are not lured by causes tugging at their heartstrings, but rather follow a clinical approach that calculates and weighs out what, and who, is capable of the most constructive path to common good.8 Another novel and insightful aspect of EA is the focus lent to long term goals, in particular existential threats. Characteristically, EA is motivated by risk awareness and aversion, benefits, and a view to the future.9

Established venues of giving will continue to hold a place in our society, we need to take care of one another today if we have any expectation for a tomorrow, and it would be inhumane to ignore the pressing needs that we are acutely reminded of on a daily basis. Nonetheless an eye towards preemptive action and far-reaching results satisfies the demand that existential threats, both current and forthcoming, will require. Though, or perhaps because, they are more obscure, they are no less compelling. We have seen evidence of the potential that threats hold and 80,000 hours is a lot of work, and there’s a lot of work to do. Whatever shape our approaches to this undertaking, and the solutions we come up with, will take, policy types, rigors, adjudicators, the fact remains that action is required now. And action will cost us. The spirit of Effective Altruism behooves us to at least examine how we may be obliged, willing, or able, somehow or other, to pay.

framing #risk #salience #EA #solutions #personalresponsibility

Ord, Toby. The Precipice, Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. 2020. Hachette Books. New York.

You have 80,000 hours in your career. 80,000 HOURS. 2021. 80,000hours.org. https://80000hours.org

Matthews, Dylan. Future Perfect, explained. Vox. Oct.25, 2018. Vox.com. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect

Koehler, Arden, Todd, B., Wiblin, R., Harris, K., Benjamin Todd on the core of effective altruism and how to argue for it. 80,000 Hours Podcast. Episode: 80k team chat #3. Sept. 21, 2020. 80000hours.org. https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/ben-todd-on-the core-of-effective-altruism/#how-to-talk-about-effective-altruism-011051

Davies, Rhodri. Philanthropy is at a turning point. Here are 6 ways it could go. World Economic Forum. Apr 29, 2019. weforum.org. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/philanthropy-turning.

[jane-uc21]

solutions #academia #policy

The Precipice is Ord’s fervent call to action, as he invokes the reader to “steer your career to where your tens of thousands of hours will have the most impact,” to secure existential safety and safeguard the future of humanity. While Ord indicates that all professions can help address existential threats, through a career shift or by donating, I contend that doing so is a privilege. In particular, the policies and standards of academic institutions prioritize specialization at the expense of academic freedom and humanity’s security.

Ord’s cry for humanity “to increase our wisdom” relative to our power, and “to better understand the existential risks- how likely they are, their mechanisms, and how to reduce them” is targeted in particular at academics [1]. He explains how “analytical mind[s] looking for patterns, tools, and explanations” [1], such as those at the CSER and FHI, can provide actionable insights and solutions for existential threats. Individuals such as Ord, who transitioned from computer science to ethics, Benjamin Todd, who left investing to found the effective altruism organization 80,000 Hours, and Hillary Greaves, a tenured philosopher at Oxford who transitioned from the philosophy of physics to existential ethics and work at the Global Priorities Institute, are outliers who made drastic career changes and landed on their feet. In a 2018 interview for 80,000 Hours, Greaves bemoans the academic “fallow period” that followed when she transitioned to ethics. She suffered 2-3 years without publications, was “reduced to the status of a first year graduate student again,” and felt ashamed to share her career transition [2].

Even now, she grapples with encouraging academics to transition to the big problems they are most passionate about, while still thinking it “a bit inappropriate” to advise those without tenure to risk their own careers to engage with new issues [2]. The oversaturation of the academic job market has made peer-reviewed publications the sole (and highly inflated!) currency of success. Many PhD programs in the natural sciences require at least 2-3 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and a minimum of one first-authored work, to earn one’s degree. Furthermore, an article on publishing to achieve tenure suggests that postdocs and assistant professors should “establish a publishing cycle in which you always have two manuscripts under review, are actively working on another manuscript or two, and are proposing/brainstorming a separate manuscript” [3]. This is not feasible for academics navigating a career change.

Humanity’s long term future requires legions of great minds, and so academia must stop forcing individuals contemplating a shift towards more recently publicized existential threats to choose between their own financial security, and humanity’s existential security. While organizations such as CSER, FHI, and 80,000 Hours have spearheaded the effort, only the full engagement of prominent research institutions can foster this movement. Early examples of such interdisciplinary, humanity-focused efforts include UChicago’s own Stevanovich Institution on the Formation of Knowledge, Stanford’s Existential Risks Initiative, and this class itself! By encouraging academics to apply their expertise to new, existential threats, prominent research institutions might provide sufficient manpower, resources, publicity, and societal initiative to address these existential threats more fully.

References [1] Ord, Toby. 2021. The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. Hachette Books. [2]Wiblin, Robert, and Keiran Harris. 2018. “Philosopher Hilary Greaves on Moral Cluelessness, Population Ethics, Probability within a Multiverse, & Harnessing the Brainpower of Academia to Tackle the Most Important Research Questions - 80,000 Hours.” 80000Hours.Org. October 23, 2018. https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/hilary-greaves-global-priorities-institute/. [3] Whitaker, Manya. “Which Publications Matter at Which Stages of Your Career?” Chronicle.Com. Accessed May 5, 2021b. https://www.chronicle.com/article/which-publications-matter-at-which-stages-of-your-career/. [4] Penington, Nathan. “Just Take My Money!” Tellermate.Com. June 4, 2020. https://www.tellermate.com/news-and-resources/just-take-my-money/. [5]“Publication Support Services.” n.d. Enago.Com. Accessed May 5, 2021. https://www.enago.com/publication-support-services/.

[Samcorey1234]

origin

This week’s readings focused on policy solutions to existential threats. The lead up to these articles was a piece by former California governor Jerry Brown, where he discussed the need for more people to care about nuclear proliferation. In the article, Brown discussed William Perry, a brilliant scientist who had been working on nuclear nonproliferation for decades. For some reason, Brown could not comprehend why more people didn’t care about nuclear war, as it is one of the biggest threats facing humanity and all of civilization. More specifically, he did not know why less people care about the potential for nuclear war today, especially as the probability of “greater than it was during the Cold War”? Perry gave a bunch of solutions to galvanizing a movement around nuclear nonproliferation, but I didn’t feel he got to the root of the problem: a lack of direct exposure to the issue. The result has allowed nuclear warheads to grow over time with little notice or concern.

Before I explain this, let me just note that intransigence around the movement against nuclear proliferation is similar to not-yet-developed movements on other existential issues that we face, including climate change and (possibly) news deserts. In each case, the problem is hidden away from public view, or so difficult to interpret because it’s something that steadily grows worse overtime. The combination of these two things makes it difficult to even recognize the problem because of human adaptability.

The best example here may not be nuclear energy, but journalism. Just decades ago, local journalism in the U.S. was booming. A newspaper existed in almost every city in the U.S., including many rural areas. But, slowly, over time, that began to change. A combination of the internet’s rise, a crumbling local advertising industry, and the proliferation of national (often free) news helped collapse an industry. But what’s worse: almost no one noticed. Big news stories did not highlight the problem, nor did people didn’t protest on the streets outside their favorite paper. Mostly, no one cared. Climate change and confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have worked in similar fashion. (In the latter case, more animals suffer and are slaughtered in industrialized agriculture than ever before.) Slowly, over time, problems associated with these things have grown worse. But developments have been so slow that no one has really noticed, allowing the problem to worsen without protest. Today, burning forests are destroying California and Australia; industrial agriculture is worsening the lives of animals and making pandemics more likely; and, in the case of nuclear energy, a nuclear blast going off is much more likely today than it was during the 1970s.

In all of these cases, the issues are difficult to physically see: most don’t watch sea-level rise or notice burning forests across the country and the world; most don’t witness incredible levels of animal suffering; and the majority is not aware of a growing nuclear arsenal around the world. In order to galvanize enough people to react against these problems and ameliorate them, more people need to be made immediately aware in their lives. Building that hold murdered animals need see-through glass. Public trackers of sea-level rise and forest depletion have to be easily accessible for students in grade school. The uptick of nuclear warheads needs to be made known to vastly more people.

[stellaslorer]

framing

An existential threat that I feel like we hear so often from both American press and politicians is the rise of China. This wasn’t directly addressed in the readings for class, but I feel like it’s an interesting question to explore as it reveals fears about the United States no longer being a global hegemon and the consequences of a shift in the global balance of power.

There are a number of competing framings disseminated about what it would mean to us––as Americans––if we were to be outpaced and surpassed by China. We witnessed the Trump administration attempt to shape a narrative that China is malicious, aggressive, and predatory. In a number of ways, it seems the Biden administration is continuing to perpetuate this narrative. On March 19th, 2021 during a talk with Chinese officials, Antony Blinken stated that China’s actions, “threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.” This type of discourse ensnares the United States in an unending struggle with China to achieve dominance––and more importantly––fails to address the more salient, tangible threats that lurk in the background. To truly measure the risk that China poses to the United States, we must think about what the effect of China’s growth will be on our own future.

At this current point in time, it feels impossible to rationalize following Cold War-like tactics in our approach to China––as if we are predicting the end before we have even arrived there, and thus consequently, bringing it about ourselves by the course of actions we choose to follow. We have very little proof to uphold the claim that China poses the greatest existential threat to the United States. As these readings have highlighted, an existential threat is a threat to the very livelihood of our nation that leads to mass extermination of Americans. China cannot achieve this without doing the same to itself. Thus, we can understand the rise of China more so through the framing of China as an ideological threat to the United States and its economic and political ideologies of freedom. If this is then the case, can we continue to justify such substantial increases in military defense.

Sources: [1] Secretary Antony J. Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Director Yang and State Councilor Wang at the Top of Their Meeting - United States Department of State,” March 23, 2021. https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-chinese-director-of-the-office-of-the-central-commission-for-foreign-affairs-yang-jiechi-and-chinese-state-councilor-wang-yi-at-th/. [2] “Heng on Trump and U.S.-China Relations.” The New York Times. The New York Times, April 3, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/opinion/cartoon-heng-on-trump-and-us-china-relations.html. [3] Swaine, Michael D. “China Doesn't Pose an Existential Threat for America.” Foreign Policy, April 21, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/21/china-existential-threat-america/. [4] Gavyn Davies, “Chinese Risks to Global Stability Are Overblown,” Financial Times. Financial Times, July 8, 2018. https://www.ft.com/content/e84a22ea-7ea2-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d.

[blakemoss]

risk #policy

In The Precipice, Ord’s quantitative estimate of the likelihood of existential threats piqued my interest. I was primarily curious about his reasoning for the likelihood estimates given for each individual threat, as Ord does not speak in length about the factors or sources used to provide these estimates. So, I decided to pick a couple of the threats he mentioned, do a bit of my own research, and test if his estimates line up with those of expert reports on each threat. I’ll focus on anthropogenic threats, as it is likely that these threats do in fact make up the bulk of the existential risk for humanity.

Nuclear: Ord’s estimate for the existential risk of nuclear annihilation was 1 in 1000 in the next 100 years. In an article published recently by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Professor Martin E. Hellman of Stanford University proposes an analysis of Nuclear threat that pins the likelihood much closer to the range of 1 in 100 per year, making it much likelier than Ord’s estimate-- one could expect nuclear annihilation to occur once every 100 years. Although the methods Hellman uses are not airtight by any means, they seem to be more directly informed and thoughtfully reasoned than the somewhat handwave-y estimate Ord provides.

Climate: While slightly outside the scope of the 100-year timeline discussed by Ord, I feel that his listed 1 in 1000 existential threat of climate change is slightly misleading. While the definition of “existential threat” is up for debate, and it is not guaranteed that climate change will entirely eradicate humanity, current science indicates a strong possibility of reaching a “point of no return” within the next 100 years. Reaching this point is nearly guaranteed if current policy is not changed. When this point is reached, the damage to our climate will be functionally irreversible, and it is fairly likely that human civilization will proceed on a path of destruction given the massive swings in global temperatures and weather patterns. Because of this, I feel that the 1 in 1000 figure provided by Ord is not the most useful description of the risk of climate change to human civilization.

All in all, Ord’s 1-in-6 estimation of existential risk within 100 years does what it needs to do-- it provides a terrifyingly large chance of annihilation. However, according to experts in some of these fields, it seems that the risk is significantly larger, and in some cases all-but-guaranteed if current policies are not changed.

Sources:

“An existential discussion: What is the probability of nuclear war?” by Martin E. Hellman and Vinton G. Cerf. https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/an-existential-discussion-what-is-the-probability-of-nuclear-war/

“Existential climate-related security risk: A scenario approach” by David Spratt and Ian Dunlop. https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_a1406e0143ac4c469196d3003bc1e687.pdf

[Junker24]

Framing #Policy

My Memo for this week is going to talk about Chapter 10 from the reading The Button by William J Perry. One of the the more striking observations I made about the reading in the first few pages, was the almost certain tone from the author regarding the inevitable use of Nuclear Weapons as well as comparing the use of Nukes to that of the Titanic sinking back in 1912. It makes quite of a stretch for an argument when the author said that this complacency regarding the Titanic due to it having the nickname "Unsinkable" is comparable to people in the United States saying "We have had nukes this long and all is well, so what's the problem?" Perry then claims that past presidents have done nothing to combat this danger, and that there is a high probability of a nuclear incident happening, killing billions. Although this is all relevant information and hypothesis(s), i fail to recognize and agree with the author in the first half of this chapter. It seems as though he claims these arguments without rational facts and information to support himself, and I feel as though his argument was quite lackluster.

Although i disagree with much of what the author said in the beginning of Chapter 10, I agree with most of his list on the "Top Ten recommendations to have a safer world". I think this Author has made great points regarding what US Nuclear Policy should push for. I agree with his statements regarding "Eliminating the Football" but i feel as though this authority should not be given to congress. As many of us know today, Congress is quite split in their thinking, mostly based upon party lines. I think a great idea would have cohort consisting of around 9 people to vote on the use of Nuclear Weapons. I feel as though we should still have no first use policy, but these 9 people would be the most educated on the matters of Nuclear weapons, and would be able to make the EDUCATED decision. Overall, I liked the second half of this article regarding the rules of engagement and use, but i feel as though some of the points are less detailed and stretched to an extent.

[madisonchoi]

The more bystanders there are in any given situation of adversity, the less individual people feel pressure or responsibility to take action and help out themselves. The very presence of other people deters individuals from intervening in whatever harmful situation may be occurring in their presence. This social phenomenon is called the bystander effect, and I believe it is the greatest challenge society faces in the context of existential threats. For example, because individuals collectively exonerate themselves from being culpable for climate change, individuals feel less inclined to take action because they feel like there are so many other people who can and will deal with the problems we face. People don’t feel incentivized to reduce personal emissions because it seems like a minuscule difference in the greater scheme of all the people in the world. In reality, if every individual citizen was making an effort to decrease personal emissions and make climate-conscious decisions, this would have a large impact on the overall wellbeing of the atmosphere.

In “How Close Is Humanity to the Edge”, Corinne Purtill examines Toby Ord’s outlook on the future of humanity and the existential threats that pose grave dangers to civilization. Ord makes the point that if we are able to learn how to value the lives of people who live in the other locations with different lifestyles and backgrounds than our own, then we must also be able to value human lives in a broader temporal framework than the present moment. The lives of future generations will be affected greatly by the decisions we make today. However, the future seems distant and unrelated to our present state and quality of life. In addition, we are the first species to create the power to destroy ourselves through conscious action. Purtill points out that for many people, the idea of all of humanity perishing one day in the distant future—when no one we know or love is still around—doesn’t seem as alarming as the prospect of humans suffering in our present-day world. Specifically, Purtill says, “As individuals, we can do our part by giving to causes that support humanity’s survival, and by having the conversations that coalesce, over time, into collective action. I think this connects back to the bystander effect. If we perceived existential threats—not as some distant and unrealistic danger that future generations can deal with—but rather as something every individual could actively combat, there would be much more tangible change. Fear must be a motivator.

In addition, In “The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump”, Tom Collina examines the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to civilization and argues that significant changes in policy surrounding nuclear defense cannot happen without broad public awareness and support. Collina specifically focuses on the importance of ending the presidential sole authority to launch the US into a nuclear war. He believes that public education plays a crucial role in changing people’s minds about national defense and the unnecessary stockpiling of nuclear weapons. If people focused a little more on extending empathy to future generations, perhaps we could more clearly see that drastic action must be taken in order to prevent these existential threats from becoming realities.

[apolissky]

Our government has always been designed to move slowly. It’s entire purpose is to safeguard institutions and prevent rapid change or destabilization of our society. But what happens when society advances too fast for the government to keep up? This seems to be what happened with Nuclear weapons. In his book, The Button, William J Perry argues that we need to learn the right lessons from the Cold War, which we have failed to do. During the cold war we were terrified of the other country choosing to launch nuclear weapons at the other, yet we then came to realize that because of Nuclear deterrence, the risk of one consciously bombing the other is quite low. But we failed to reflect on what happened when we came close to launching Nuclear Weapons. As it turns out, the risk from failures in nuclear alarms and warnings or basic communication presents much higher risks, and this is before we consider the risks of cyber threats or terrorist threats. Furthermore, according to the Arms Control Association, there are over thirteen thousand nuclear warheads. Keeping track of 13,000 items any of which can cause tremendous human pain and death is a very difficult logistic problem. It seems that we have entirely missed the secondary risks of nuclear weapons. But this seems to be a pattern in our society, we consistently miss secondary or more complicated risks. Is our current form of government capable of assessing and dealing with these risks? Or has the need for specialized domain and policy knowledge grown so high that we can no longer rely on our current governmental system to solve these problems? It seems natural that if representatives in congress cannot get the job done they would delegate to a commission, but what happens if we are at the point where representatives can no longer even recognize what the issues are because they are so complex? It seems that we need to fundamentally rethink who holds responsibility for determining which issues need more attention.

[smshiffrin]

origin #solution #policy

I was very interested by Edmund Brown’s comparison of human behavior regarding nuclear war to that of addiction. The way in which the amount of nuclear weaponry has increased on each side of the conflict reflects the constant increase in dosage associated with addiction. Brown says “The addict may think that each ‘fix’ is like the previous fix, and indeed each is alike in staving off the feelings of deprivation. But, in truth, each fix differs from the previous fix in that the thresholds and magnitudes of all relevant variables have shifted,” (Brown 12). In the nuclear arms race, each player believes that increasing the number of weapons will help fix the problem for them by increasing the threat they pose for enemy nations. Do we reach a point, though, where an increase in weapons no longer makes any difference? Does it make a difference in the ‘outcome’ of this fight whether the US has 4,000 missiles, or 8,000? Either way, the destruction will be enough to significantly change civilization as we know it, if not end it.

A large factor in the addiction to arsenal expansion is the mind’s inability to imagine the magnitude of destruction nuclear war will cause. Corinne Purtill refers to “‘scope neglect,’ the cognitive bias that makes it harder to understand the full scale of problems the larger those problems get,” (4). This is similarly the case in a study that showed that many people found it difficult to imagine the consequences of the extinction of humankind (Purtill 4). This can be compared to humanity’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people, especially in middle and upper classes, aren’t directly experiencing the effects of the pandemic, making it harder for them to imagine the scale of the disease’s toll. As a result, even though they constantly hear of the high numbers of COVID cases and deaths, many continue on with their lives as though nothing were going on.

In all, because they lack the ability to wrap their heads around the consequences of nuclear war, nation leaders continue producing weapons, believing this will resolve the issue. Some suggest that the best solution is a nonnuclear defense, because the only plausible event in which the US would launch nuclear weapons is in response to an attack, guaranteeing our and our opponent’s destruction (Brown 13). It makes more sense to abandon the nuclear defense, as this would inevitably save countless lives and whole civilizations.

Symbolic image of nuclear war being like a substance addiction

Sources Brown, Jerry, “Nuclear Addiction,” Thought Magazine, Vol. 59 No. 232, March 1984 Purtill, Corinne, “How Close Is Humanity to the Edge?” The New Yorker, November 21, 2020 Image: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2015/03/07/the-unkicked-addiction

[TimGranzow7]

solutions #risk #nuclear

Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry’s book the Button, and in particular, chapter 10 entitled the Atomic Titanic, acts as both a warning to policy makers and the public of the dangers of Nuclear “deterrence”, as well as advice for how to proceed from our increasingly precarious situation. It was unclear to me prior to reading this week’s selections how precarious the current situation is. The first week of this course explored some of the major points regarding the nuclear option, but Perry’s book and Jerry Brown’s own viewpoints and reviews of Perry’s memoir take approaches that are especially effective because of their proximity to these issues. As individuals with more experience than most politicians in this area, as well as with an active hand in the game of politics and policy, they illustrate that even from the perspective of politics, continued nuclear politics pose a grave threat to everyone on the planet. They outline the cracks in the armor of mutually assured destruction, and take a closer look at some of the less discussed aspects of this debate. In particular, they cite how the argument for an increased nuclear arsenal as a means of global defense via mutually-assured destruction falls apart with the realization that the United States maintains a first-use policy. This not only relies on the precipitous and unnecessary claim that the policy only exists as a means of deterring others, but, surprisingly, has been encouraged by allies of the US. Perry points out that this largely stems from fear and a lack of faith in the power of a conventional (non-nuclear) military deterrent, which must be overcome in order to gain support for abolishing first-use policy. It seems that such a plan garners little support, but when the additional aspects of this policy and its effects are considered, it is shocking that it has not been adopted already. A no first-use policy could be the key towards meaningful de-escalation. It has the power to do so firstly, by instantly eliminating several of the greatest risks of current nuclear policies, which include reliance on the infallible morality of the president (who is capable of making passion- or substance-fueled mistakes) to make the decision not to use nuclear weapons, the threat of cyber-attack false alarms or misinformation regarding missile launches forcing the president’s hand, and the pressure on other countries to arm themselves. Secondly, this policy would encourage other countries, though mainly Russia, to adopt similar policies, which would then gradually tend towards disarmament, as removal of the arsenal only serves to strengthen the message of no first-use. Through these means, the US, Russia, and other armed countries could make real progress toward phasing out the nuclear option and eliminating the most catastrophic existential risk currently facing humanity. Finally, this would save every armed country massive amounts of money, which could potentially be put toward countless issues of greater import than the building of nuclear weapons. This decision should not be partisan, but it MUST be human.

[jrgill-coder]

solutions #risk

Imagine this hypothetical. After a groundbreaking summit, the leaders of China, Russia, the United States, and all nuclear states agree to dismantle their stockpile of nuclear warheads. The designers of this treaty were most worried about countries not following through on their promise to disarm weapons, so their solution was to utilize the principles used to build up the stockpile to take it down. All countries involved were required to place a bomb controlled by the UN in their capital cities that would immediately go off in one year unless a UN governing board states that the country successfully disarmed all its nuclear weapons. Additionally, the UN would have the backing of all countries involved in the summit to drop a bomb on any countries that fail to comply in one years’ time. These events unfolding is obviously contingent on massive changes in public perception on the threat of nuclear war and the realization that nuclear peace principles are ineffective. Countries would go to this summit with enlightened self-interest, and they collaboratively built out an enforcement mechanism that makes the price of not complying a steep price to pay. This, to me, is the central issue present in nuclear policy. Countries have never had a large enough incentive (or disincentive) to downscale or eliminate their arsenals to a point where a nuclear winter is no longer an active threat. 
Obviously, there a lot of problems with this hypothetical. Chief among them is the task of the “governing board” to determine whether a state has successfully dismantled its nuclear arsenal. If faithful implementation were measurable, countries would have ample incentive to join in the agreement and follow-through; however, [without countries truly trusting each other to follow through on their promise, this type of agreement would never be reached](https://hti.osu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/100/public/AW_1.jpg?itok=HVSBzmuZ). Even if it was, this governing board would have little ability to know for certain whether a state has truly disarmed its stockpile, as information on these matters is usually highly classified. Nations put their own interests above those of the world (an oxymoron if you ask me), and a lack of international trust is the foundational reason why a scenario like this would not play out under current geopolitical circumstances. What would be needed for this to happen is societal transformation. People need to begin seeing themselves as global citizens globally for the type of nuclear disarmament needed to ensure a nuclear winter never becomes reality.

[BuffDawg]

policy #risk

For this week’s coverage of governmental policy and its role in the demise of civilization, I watched the Hunger Games (and Catching Fire) and saw many of the themes from the readings play out in the series that I initially read in middle school. From Edmund Brown’s response to the “Nuclear Addiction” as he calls it, we can take the lack of objectionable morality as a cause for some of these issues. As our society continues to secularize, as a whole humans no longer feel the need to be constrained by divine rules that we may or may not have conjured up a couple thousand years ago. As a result, we have turned away from these frameworks that provided society with a moral compass and now seek to adhere to the almighty profit margin. Well at least the venerable U.S. dollar, anyway. These nuclear weapons not only raise the risk that our enemies may perish, but also that we may as well. Brown specifically points to “time” and “scale” that makes this process such a deadly sin. We have not let up on our warmongering capabilities despite our knowledge that they are overkill at this point, and traditional uncooperative governments seem hardly concerned with this phenomenon. I saw this in Hunger Games, as the Capitol acknowledges the existence of District 13 (secretly), they show little regard for agitating the other districts even when they know that District 13 has nuclear threats that it could want to use to protect the other disaffected districts. The Capitol doesn’t bother to acknowledge that exterior threats could prevail because it is too concerned with controlling their populace and threatening mutually assured destruction (MAD). Purtill touches on this in the New Yorker article: “The responses of national governments, on the other hand—the inability of so many individual nations to work effectively on behalf of their own citizens and the global community—has worried him” (referring to Toby Ord of Oxford University). Basically the common threat here is that exceptional pride, hubris, and shortsightedness has caused an environment where hell could break loose at any moment, and the only way to win the game is by not playing. So long as these governments can push a button at the drop of a hat, we will never have true security and safety. Luckily, humanity has seen this play out during the Cold War between the USA and USSR, and cooler heads have prevailed. But when states with nuclear weapons face wise-scale unrest, the planet may not be so fortunate the second time around. Even in the Hunger Games, a world post-nuclear weapon usage, the population is shown to be significantly diminished from where it is in contemporary Earth.

Could this be how governments threaten their populace in the near future?!

[c-krantz]

risk #solutions

In the Ord reading for this week, I found it incredibly fascinating that the author was able to illustrate and not shy away from the fact that all existential threats currently possess varying levels of risk, yet we should not focus solely on the ones with “the most risk” because in doing so we may lose perspective and allow new threats to formulate. This belief derives from Ord’s understanding that all existential risks are connected to one another due in part to a potential domino effect that could occur if a smaller threat transpires. In this case, a threat would not need to wipe out an entire population by itself, but it would expose vulnerabilities in other threats allowing them to transpire. This connection requires both politicians and private citizens to treat all threats that we face with the same level of caution and concern. The idea that these threats are somehow intertwined with one another is frightening, yet their relationship to one another is not as unrealistic as some would hope.

The relationship that many of the current threats to civilization share is already in front of us. At the start of 2020, I witnessed for the first time in my life global incapacitation in response to a threat that was largely unknown at the time. Although the true origins of the coronavirus disease were unknown, this did not stop global division or the spread of nationalistic slogans to further widen the divide (i.e “Chinavirus). At the time, then President Donald Trump’s provocative language served as a reminder of how the rift between the United States and China was now greater than ever and could have led to the transpiring of cyber or even nuclear war.

The gap between these two threats might seem like an over exaggeration at face value; however, with leaders in charge whom many deem as unstable, anything is possible. Many other examples over the past few years can be seen to show the links of such threats. Russia’s cyber-attacks during the 2016 election served as a reminder that the U.S. and Russia were still adversaries, and the continual deterioration of our climate seems to be reaching a boiling point amongst nations regarding who will pay for what. All together, these threats we face work to show that their connections to one another continue to expose an even further divided world. If one of these threats gets exponentially worse, it should not be a surprise to anyone that the repercussions will reach levels previously unseen. Therefore, like Ord said, “Our ultimate aim is to spend the resources allocated to existential risk in such a way as to reduce total risk by the greatest amount.”

[AlexandraN1]

policy #existentialthreats

One aspect of the readings that struck me was the cognitive limitations faced by humans in their attempt to comprehend and acknowledge existential threats. While Perry spoke of passivity, defeatism, and even primal fear as obstacles, Ord identified the issue of scope neglect: people do not care ten times as much about things that are ten times more dangerous. Our sense of importance - and therefore our allocation of resources - is all disproportionate.

This makes wonder how we ought to bring people to fully grasp the importance of existential threats in proportion to their danger. I have two comments or suggestions:

1. In cases where threats are worsened by the behaviour of many individuals, we should try to make the costs of certain actions, within people’s lives, proportional to the level of risk their actions are bringing. We actually often do the complete opposite, worsening scope neglect rather than fighting it. For example, by heavily subsidising the fishing industry, governments are misaligning the cost that people experience with the true cost to humanity. When it comes to risk factors we should do the opposite of subsidising. We should influence people’s cost schedules to proportionally reflect the dangers they occur, or the importance of the issues they affect. A carbon tax is an example of a policy that helps people to care in proportion to risk.

2. This doesn’t help with everything, because not all of these risks are predominantly exacerbated by many individuals. They are risks which are best mitigated through cooperation and regulation, and therefore by global governments. For scope neglect in this area, we need to encourage people to support policy issues in proportion to how important they are. I believe a useful tool here for aligning perceived importance with actual risk is media: movies, novels and other story-telling devices shape the cultural understanding of existential risks and can influence an individual’s priority scale (aka. influencing the importance of voting behaviour). An example would be an increase in movies which demonstrated realistic existential risk scenarios and their immediate human impact on familiar lives.

In conclusion, the problem of scope neglect in individuals, and the governments they elect, is a significant one for existential risk policy. We should find active ways to close this gap.

image source

[vitosmolyak]

risk #policy #hopeforthefuture

The relationship between good policy and the risk of an existential world crisis is commonsensical and the abundance of the former would lead to a larger decrease in the latter. Throughout the readings of Toby Ord's Precipice and Corinne Purtill's How Close is Humanity to the Edge I could not stop thinking about the very high likelihood that there is a 1-in-6 risk of our extinction during this century. While that is a number much higher than the average person would guess, I think that is a fair number given all of the threats we have encountered so far in this class that our society faces. What struck me as most surprising however, is that Ord believes there is a significantly larger risk of 21st century extinction as a result of pandemics or unaligned artificial intelligence than nuclear war as the main cause. I am not including climate change for the argument that will follow as I believe climate change presents the largest risk to human extinction however not in the 21st century.

Throughout the last six weeks of this course, it seemed to me that nuclear war and a nuclear holocaust is by far the biggest risk that we face as a society. Weapons of mass destructions could easily wipe out a huge chunk of the planet with the authorization of a nation's leader and the simple click of a button. Something that is definitely in the control of humans can so easily lead to the "end of the world" whereas pandemics and unaligned AI can be seen as outside of the control of humans. Why is it then that nuclear war only carries a 1-1000 risk of wiping out humanity? On a larger scale this led me to think about policy and how these sort of risks are mitigated because of policy. As we have seen in the last year and a half, not all nations are capable of creating good enough policy to prevent a threat such as a pandemic from ravaging an entire nation. While the Covid-19 pandemic does seem to be heading in the right direction with vaccine policy and social distancing policy, it could've been much worse if the virus was much more severe. Nonetheless, the room for error in the response to this pandemic with policy was very small however millions of people have died and economies plundered because of poor policy. With relation to nuclear war, which can destroy the world much quicker, does that mean that we currently have good enough policy in place to prevent it from happening? All of the nuclear powerhouses currently have enough missiles and nukes to wipe off the entire planet and only one button is stopping that.

Something that is in the control of humans can become much less of a threat than normal with effective policy and cooperation between powerful countries. I think the fact that there has not been a nuclear holocaust is an example of good policy (i.e. no first use nuclear policy). The Covid-19 pandemic could also have been much less of a threat to our existence if better policy was in place. This reading really left me wondering as to whether any sort of existential threat can really be prevented by good policy or is it inevitable that humanity does not survive. We know that pandemics are deadly and history has taught us that the current pandemic won't be the last one humanity sees. By creating institutions, as Ord says, and putting emphasis on good policy, can we truly eliminate existential threats? I believe so, however humanity must come together. If we do that, I agree with Ord that humanity can reach a place in society that is much greater than where we are now.

[chasedenholm]

policy #carbonfarming #climate

In the readings for this week, we were introduced to certain policy responses to existential threats in the past and potential policy recommendations for existential threats in the future. Civilization can no longer rely on treaties to ensure safety as the turnaround of leaders means the turnaround of policy and thus a president can leave a treaty at their discretion. With regards to climate change policy, we have seen some effort towards limiting carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. For example, President Biden has re-entered the Paris Agreement which is an international treaty on climate change that was adopted by 196 parties in 2015. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the result they are looking for is to achieve a climate-neutral world by 2050. Behind this treaty, each nation that joined has committed to implement economic and social transformation. This will come in the form of increased investment into sustainable resource development and aim to change some actions society has become accustomed to today.

Looking toward the future, there are a number of circulating ideas to protect us from our demise. One of these proposed policies is carbon farming. Carbon farming is climate-smart agricultural practices that will help in aiding our reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through storing carbon in the soil. Agriculture is one of our main greenhouse gas emission sources. Additionally, placing carbon in the soil will benefit the health of the soil itself. Carbon will help in plant health and therefore would contribute to removing atmospheric carbon. It is simple to say that we need to implement carbon farming and store carbon in the soil, but how will that be done? One of the proposed methods is Blue Carbon. This refers to taking carbon dioxide out of marine environments. As a society, we need to implement and, more importantly, protect blue carbon environments. An example of one of these environments is mangroves. They are flooded by tidal water and are extremely rich in carbon. The sequestration rate for mangroves is between 6 and 8 tons of CO2 per hectare. If you compare that to a normal forest, it is about 4 times as efficient. However, 30-50% of mangroves globally have been lost in the past 50 years as humans continue deforestation practices and other unsustainable coastal development projects. Moving forward, we absolutely have to implement policies to protect these environments, as if we get rid of them, we are only hurting ourselves even more. References: https://www.thebluecarboninitiative.org/about-blue-carbon#ecosystems https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement Pictures: https://www.google.com/search?q=carbon+farming+mangroves&sxsrf=ALeKk02AAAloa6PTM6JaIfBPlGjMztobMw:1619884269608&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjE_d2T66jwAhXGGzQIHenICKQQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=821&bih=718#imgrc=5yGHWJ07yCw0bM https://www.google.com/search?q=carbon+farming+mangroves&sxsrf=ALeKk02AAAloa6PTM6JaIfBPlGjMztobMw:1619884269608&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjE_d2T66jwAhXGGzQIHenICKQQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=821&bih=718#imgrc=y4oSYHRNgXYt0M

[a-bosko]

origin #solutions #nuclear

In the polls conducted in this class, we often choose climate change as the issue that will cause the end of the world. In the article “How Close is Humanity to the Edge?” by Corinne Purtill, the author mentions Toby Ord, a philosopher who studies the existential risk of humanity, and his views on the end of the world. The author states that Ord believes the biggest concerns about the end of humanity are “empowered artificial intelligence unaligned with human values and engineered pandemics.” This idea is very relevant to today’s times with the current COVID-19 pandemic. In the earliest recorded pandemic, occurring in 430 B.C., almost 2/3 of the population died. In today’s age, if the whole world was affected, that would add up to about 5.2 billion deaths. Even with current advancements in technology with vaccines and medicine, it is important to understand how deadly pandemics are and their ability to wipe out large portions of the population.

In the same article by Purtill, the author mentions that Ord has given the name “The Precipice” to our current phase of history which began on July 16th, 1945. This marks the moment of the Trinity test, which is the first-ever nuclear bomb detonation. The bomb was nicknamed the “gadget”, which was a plutonium-based implosion-type device that yielded 19 kilotons and created a crater over 300 meters wide. This explosion demonstrated the true impact of nuclear weaponry and highlighted the damage that humans are capable of creating.

Therefore, how do we prevent this disaster from occurring? In The Atomic Titanic by William Perry, the author provides his top ten recommendations for a safer world. The number one recommendation is to “end presidential sole nuclear authority”, which would force Congress to share authority amongst other branches of the government. I believe that spreading authority across more individuals can result in a lower risk of nuclear war, but how should we respond in situations where immediate response is required, such as an incoming attack?

One possible solution is to focus less on retaliation through nuclear weaponry and focus more on electronic countermeasures. Electronic countermeasures are capable of tricking or deceiving radar, sonar, and other detection systems. In today’s age, air forces use these devices to protect their aircrafts from external attacks. By focusing strongly on defense during nuclear attacks, we can save many lives, rather than ending more lives through retaliation.

The picture below explains how electronic countermeasures work in aircrafts.

Works Cited: https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/pandemics-timeline https://www.ctbto.org/specials/testing-times/16-july-1945-trinity-worlds-first-nuclear-test#:~:text=On%2016%20July%201945%2C%20the,crater%20over%20300%20metres%20wide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_countermeasure https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/how-northrop-grumman-is-giving-aircrews-an-edge-in-electronic-warfare

[benindeglia]

framing #solutions #existentialthreats

While reading Ord’s text, the table of existential catastrophe is one that viscerally stood out to me. His odds are so much more different then mine, is what first came to mind. Only 1 in a thousand for climate change? 1 in a thousand for nuclear war? 1 in 10 for Unaligned AI? All estimates I disagree with. The first is already a battle we are actively losing and have already passed the point of no return. The second can happen at any moment and our species would be instantly whipped off the face of the earth. The last hasn’t even been invented yet. These numbers don’t make sense in my mind, and then I realized it didn’t matter.

There is a bigger problem with these numbers than is what meets the eye. One can see Ord is very optimistic for the potential of humanity, giving us an 83% chance of no long term damage. He very well may be true, but this approximation is damaging. It can be interpreted to mean that with no action, humans right now will be able to live their lives without seeing the long term consequences of these actions. One of my greatest points of argument with parents and friends of parents is the fact that they say “they will die before this will ever affect them”, so why would they care? They can live the next century without concern, for a decent percent of people don’t have Ord’s beautiful belief of the sheer potential of the human species, and that being something worth sacrificing for. He adjusts for this by adding another bullet in the chamber for Russian roulette, saying if we don’t try it's 2 in 6. That’s too kind. It enables the worst parts of our society, laziness and procrastination to say we are more likely to survive then perish if we don’t act. Our culture has already kicked the bucket down the road for decades, policies being made for short term cash instead of long term survival.

The number needs to be worse than 3 bullets in. The framing needs to be harsh, to make it impossible to simply ignore. We need to act, and act soon to push past that miasma of focusing on the small tasks of a lifetime rather than focusing on the bigger picture. The human species is making up for lost time, and if we work hard, it won’t be a fully loaded gun by the end of the century.

[EmaanMohsin]

salience # origin

Tribalism: A Hurdle in Protecting Our Future

In the Precipice, Ord provides suggestions as to what we should not be doing if we want to protect our future. These suggestions include: "don't spread dangerous information," "don't act without integrity", "don't be fanatical," to name a few. The most important one, in my opinion, would be the suggestion not to be tribal. He states, "[s]afeguarding our future is not left or right, not eastern or western, not owned by the rich or the poor. It is not partisan. Framing it as a political issue on one side of a contentious divide would be a disaster. Everyone has a stake in our future and we must work together to protect it" [1]. It seems that for every major disaster that could lead to our destruction: nuclear war, global warming, and pandemics, we face a strong tribal divide. Protecting our future, therefore, has become very political. This political divide poses a significant risk since policy changes will be much slower to be implemented if we cannot even agree on the existence of certain disasters or the extent to which they pose a threat to humanity. Even if laws are implemented that try to slow down these potential disasters, who is to say that society will be receptive to these new laws?

In this pandemic, we have clearly seen that both vaccines and masks have become politicized issues. Implementation of wearing masks was the earliest form of policy that was put in place to limit the spread of the pandemic. Ideally, swift action by all individuals to wear masks could have helped slow down the pandemic. Yet, we have see masks become politicized by both democrats and republicans. No longer do they serve as representations of safety. Rather, wearing or failing to wear masks becomes a political symbol. Just recently, Tucker Carlson has stated that wearing masks was a "sign of political obedience," and those that do wear masks are "zealots and neurotics" [2]. If regulations as simple as wearing masks has strongly divided America, what is the chance that in the future, when we face graver threats to our world, we will be more bipartisan. It seems like no matter the issues we face today there is little to no bipartisanship. In contrast to the world Ord ideally imagines, in the present day our future safety is rooted in tribalism, and little is being done to cross political lines. Before even thinking about the policies that need to be implemented, we need to be more careful in choosing who we want to serve as our representatives. In reality, even if lawmakers can pass policies that may help protect our future, who is to say that state governments, industries, and American citizens will actually be receptive. Let us begin by trying to bring bipartisanship back to the government, through better elections of representatives who are less tied down to a political party. Additionally, the way in which media sources have functioned as a way to spread biases of different political groups must be reduced. Making news independent from political parties can certainly help citizens begin to depart from such a depolarized society. Only then will any policies be able to be implemented and well received by the general public.

[1] Ord, Toby. The Precipice. Hachette Books 2021. [2] Petrow, Steven. "Fox News should fire Tucker Carlson before his bullying on COVID masks gets someone killed." USA Today. May 2021.

[omarh4]

As we continue to learn about existential threats and our policies to prevent them, we have discussed options such as ending sole control of nuclear weapons, societal change to reverse climate change, and technological innovation to prevent cyber and AI threats, but we have yet to discuss the threats that have caused the most devastation on record. In the timeline of all life on earth, humans represent only a mere moment, yet we have failed to look outside our own limited history to look for potential threats on the horizon. 5 major extinction events have occurred over the span of life existing on Earth, with causes varying from rapid climate changes to volcano eruptions and asteroid impacts. It is not unreasonable to think that these threats could still pose an existential crisis for humanity. While we have already the devastating effects of climate change, we have yet to discuss how the eruption of a super volcano, perhaps like the one under Yellowstone, could cover half of the North American Continent in ash, possibly in our lifetime. Even with ample time to prepare for an eruption, there is little that a government could do short of evacuating the country to minimize the damage of such a disaster. Similarly, popular media tells us that the most likely extinction of the dinosaurs we are familiar with was caused by an asteroid striking Earth, but as of this day, humanity has yet to come up with a plan or some policy in the scenario that an asteroid is barreling towards earth. Unless the governments of the world have been secretly sitting on a cartoonishly large laser to blast the asteroid out of the sky, we would have no real way to prevent it from hitting Earth and devastating life as we know it. Another natural disaster that could potentially see all technology on earth be wiped out with very little warning time is a solar flare. Scientists are warning of a potential superflare from the Sun within the next 100 years that could bombard the planet with electromagnetic waves. Aside from essentially dropping an EMP on the entirety of the planet's electronic systems, this blast of radiation could annihilate portions of humanity by stripping away parts of our atmosphere. In 1855, the Carrington event was a solar flare that hit Earth and sent the world telegraph systems into disarray. The technology we have today is far more vulnerable to this sort of disaster, and has far greater implication in its absence. We have seen the potential for another event like this hitting Earth in 2012, which missed Earth by days, that could have caused blackouts worldwide. Historically, these events have already been more devastating towards life on Earth, so it is important that we turn our awareness to threats such as these and begin developing plans for how to prevent (or at least survive) these extinction causing events.

[nobro011235]

nuclear #solutions

Many of this week’s readings focus on the threat of a nuclear war and policy options to counteract the nuclear threat. In a previous memo, I discussed the game theoretics of nuclear policy, and landed on the fact that in order to create a scenario in which a country would be fine disarming its nuclear weaponry, there must be little to distinguish between your country and other countries politically. In other words, we need to form a world government that renders national governments powerless. If there is any power differential between national governments, there will always be a reason for a government to keep an armed nuclear arsenal. Unless a true world government does form, we have to hope that national governments simply give up their nuclear arsenal out of enlightened selfishness, which seems unlikely given the current trajectory of armament that many top countries seem to be following. What would a true world government look like? After all, as long as there are noticeable differences between the socioeconomic makeup of two different countries, how could their interests and power structures align? Furthermore, why would national governments seek to give up certain powers without being forced to? One idea could look something like the modern U.S.A. We are a collection of diverse states with diverse industry, yet we are united under one government, and it would be outlandish to imagine states having nuclear weaponry to use against each other. This government would likely need to be formed out of necessity or out of society elevating past modern politics. While this may sound far into the future, it does not seem too unlikely that artificial intelligence and the modern technology boom brings the world together. When people don’t need to have jobs, it is more likely that national governments don’t need to exist. One problem that could come from this world government is that it would require a centralization of power- potentially into the wrong hands. Once all of the voices in the world are concentrated into one body of power, it would be tricky to take back power once a bad player is involved. Unfortunately, the body would need to wield power over everyone. If a weaker body like the modern day E.U existed, there would be nothing to stop members from deciding that it was in their best interest to govern themselves and leave just like the U.K did recently. So, to be more specific, the world government would need to be very powerful and centralized, but hopefully have mechanisms in place to stop a bad actor from holding office.

[blakekushner]

I was particularly struck by the comparison of our risk of extinction to that of the odds of Russian roulette in the article "How Close is Humanity to the Edge". This analogy not only emphasizes the strikingly high chance of extinction (one in six), but it also highlights how much luck and chance play into the course of our civilization. These instances of lucky near-misses are enumerated in the article "A Stark Nuclear Warning". I did not know about many of these near-miss scenarios, and now realize how lucky it is that nuclear war had not already started. I think in framing this threat of nuclear war and trying to make it more salient for people to mobilize around it is to broadcast how lucky we all were in these scenarios. This website (https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/i-wish-i-didnt-know) allows users to spin the "wheel of near misfortune" to teach them about these numerous close-calls that have happened. Of course there are some agencies like the military branches who wish to downplay these mishandled, potentially catastrophic events. I believe that if more of these events and their details were divulged to the public, it would lead to more people realizing just how close we could have come to a nuclear winter and our own extinction, and encourage them to act to prevent these events from ever happening again. Analyzing these situations could also serve to create policy to make sure that there are a set of procedures to follow (on all sides) to prevent misfiring or nuclear weapons. These could be the first step to ramping down the possibility of nuclear war, hopefully leading to more drastic measures to lower the amount of nuclear weapons and countries with nuclear capabilities. I also found it interesting that Ord is most concerned with two world-ending possibilities: unaligned ai and engineered pandemics. Our end-of-class poll consistently shows that most of us are more concerned with climate change rather than ai or pandemics. Since this week is focused on policy responses, it made me question whether some challenges are better met with policy response than others. For example climate change policy within a country or among multiple countries would be a great step in the right direction since it applies to the whole globe, but policy surrounding ai or nuclear weapons has a little less of an effect since not every country has nuclear weapons or is focusing on developing ai. For cases like the nuclear existential challenge, I think maybe societal transformation/cultural realization may be a more effective tool in addressing the threat rather than policy response since the ramping up of these weapons occurred because of human nature to compete, so in theory they should be able to come down with human empathy. Though that may be a long shot to believe that this will happen.

[dnaples]

policy #nuclear

In our "Atomic Titanic" reading, William Perry discusses ten recommendations on how to improve the nation's safety in regards to nuclear weapons. In one of his recommendations, he advises not to wait for treaties as he believes that we cannot rely on the U.S. senate to vote in favor of treaties that could benefit the country. He also cites two treaties, the CTBT and the New START Treaty, as examples of policies that would be beneficial to the United States, yet they struggled to make it through our Senate, and even lead to the rejection of the CTBT. This one bit of information gives a lot of insight into the policy making of our senators, and reading this makes me consider the reasons for not wanting to accept treaties that make efforts to limit the use of nuclear weapons.

I'm sure these reasons vary across every political figure, but I imagine a big reason for the disagreement would be the differing views on what safety means for our country, as well as how to achieve it. Rather than making greater attempts to remove such devastating weapons, policy makers seem more inclined to have them as safety against other countries. This is a difficult dilemma in policy making raised by the existence of nuclear weapons. Man-kind has already gone as far as to create these horrendous weapons, and there is no possible way to reverse that. The choice becomes whether to attempt to remove the weapons from existence, or to accept the fact that they are something we must now be able to use and prepare for. The former would seem to be possible if it weren't for the distrust across some nations that possess these types of weapons. However, it still seems to me that treaties attempting to limit nuclear weapons can ultimately be useless. If a country were to decide to attack, or if something were to happen to make it appear as though a country had decided to attack, devastation would still follow. Only a complete removal of nuclear weapons from all countries would guarantee safety from these sort of threats. This however, is not even a perfect solution. Simply, the existence of these weapons guarantees their use, and at any point a leader could still potentially decide to create a nuclear weapon and use it. The other option is to reject these treaties, and continue the arms race that has been going on for decades, contributing to the powder keg of devastation that will inevitably be set off one day. Taking this option does have benefits of some sorts, for example, I could imagine politicians favoring this in the sense of industry making, and maybe some would argue that since the use of nuclear war is likely inevitable, it might be better to have the means to fight back.

In a national perspective, it is clear that many people have different visions for the future of the United States, and while we are one nation, these contrasting values constantly divide us, which has become ever so clear in recent years. Unfortunately, these types of disagreements have made the United States more and more arrogant toward their influence across the globe. While the rejections of treaties may be purely based on decisions of safety to some, it impedes the motions of a global agreement on nuclear weapons.

[brettriegler]

[LucLampietti]

framing

In our AI week, the discussion of alignment–aligning AI with human values–centered on what laws could guide AI to act within the bounds of what's "moral". I think that's an apt way of summarizing the alignment issue: how do we give AI morality? This conversation was motivated by the fear of instrumental convergence, commonly illustrated by the paperclip maximizer scenario in which an AI program inadvertently decimates mankind so as to maximize paperclip production. It is worth noting here that mankind's decimation is not inadvertent to the AI, rather it is inadvertent to the AI's designer. Or is it? This scenario is seen as an absurd and extreme doomsday warning of the dangers of AI, even though the sentiment should be taken seriously. However, this week's readings on policy in the face of existential crisis had me thinking. What if we alter the scenario a bit? For example, switch out paperclips for oil and AI for the Bush presidency circa the Iraq invasion? The scenario certainly seems less farfetched now. It makes me wonder if the fundamental flaws in hypothetical AI thinking, something we view as a result of primitive coding lacking human intuition, is in fact human intuition. Do we already prioritize the present at the expense of the future? The way we deplete natural resources certainly seems to suggest so. During that AI week, I pondered what laws of morality could be programmed into AI so as to thwart a paperclip maximizing scenario. At the time, I was patting myself on the back for thinking of something that had not come up in the reading, a weight function that priorities future generations over the current one. The AI would understand that the existence of future generations biologically relies on the survival of the current generation, but the AI also knows that any action it takes must consider the well-being of those down the road. Yet, in this week's reading, I've heard this same sentiment echoed twice. By this same sentiment, I mean that a fundamental aspect of morality is protecting the next generation. However, the two instances of this were used with completely opposite intentions. In the first, Toby Ord employs this argument as a way of convincing readers to curb their development and use of deadly technologies for the sake of future generations. For comparison's sake, I will include both quotes, so here's Toby's: "A concern for existential risk seemed, to Ord, to be the next logical expansion of a broadening moral circle. If we can learn to value the lives of people in other places and circumstances equally to our own, then we can do the same for people situated at a different moment in time." (Ord, 2020). The second instance is at the outset of Brown's "Nuclear Addiction: A Response". In it, he quotes Secretary Weinberger's defense of current American nuclear policy, "... I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live." Weinberger is borrow from Moses here but regardless its the same exact sentiment as Ord, used in a completely oppositional way. One is advocating curbing deadly technologies while the other is saying let's develop them! Both of their arguments hinge on the idea that we must value the lives of future generations. Therefore, if we have two sides using the same argument to convince others to switch sides, how can we expect any sensible resolution? Must we abandon this idea of protecting future generations for something more salient?

[brettkatz]

risk #framing #salience #nuclear #climate #policy

William in “The Atomic Titanic” likens the short-term security offered by nuclear proliferation as a deterrent to passengers enjoying the titanic, unaware at the impending iceberg. I believe this assertion underlines a fundamental issue affecting most issues discussed in this apocalyptic class. Jerry Brown, in “Nuclear Addiction”, summarises this thesis by describing how as “in biological systems, the short-term deterrent effect is achieved at the expense of long-term cumulative change”. However, this theme has a twist when it comes to discussions of the policy specific to nuclear. The threat of nuclear disaster is largely presented as an all-or-none problem. Nuclear winter will either come, or no major nuclear war will take place in the future. Take this in contrast to issues such as climate change. Climate change, like nuclear, involves short term gains, in this case short term profit, at the expense of long-term equity when considering future environmental damage costs. Same issue with non-reusable plastics. However, these effects are largely cumulative, and will present over the course of decades. Conversely, nuclear proliferation builds up a swathe of potential catastrophe, which just needs a match to let it all loose. The factors that contribute to global policy proposals include what countries will get hit the worst in a worst-case scenario, which of these countries have prominent positions on said global governing body, and what countries will be detrimented by such policy. Let’s examine climate change. Climate change is projected to impact developing countries much more than wealthy countries in the global north, not to say wealthy countries won’t still face some impacts. However, climate change legislation would hinder the growth of developing countries, which are more likely to use fossil fuels, than nations that can afford to invest in renewable energy infrastructure. Since wealthy countries have disproportionate power in global governing bodies, climate change legislation that could create a global market for renewable energy production infrastructure sold by wealthy countries may be likely to be implemented. On the other hand, with regard to the risks of nuclear proliferation, the complete opposite is the case. Wealthy countries are much more likely to have nuclear weapons, and thus legislation limiting these weapons would more negatively impact wealthy countries. However, in the case of a massive nuclear war, most likely this war would be between two large, relatively wealthy nuclear powers. Much of the developing world is unlikely to get specifically targeted. Of course, indirect effects will definitely affect developing nations. Therefore, the motivations for climate change policy from the perspective of both wealthy and poorer nations are the complete opposite to such motivations for policy limiting nuclear proliferation.

[panunbali]

This is a thought I’ve had throughout this class, but I’ve thought consistently that a lot of the threats that the world faces would be faced better if these very nation-wide threats or threats that we dealt with on a national scale. Specifically, it feels like it would be easier to mobilize populations of countries around fighting off national threats, rather than mobilizing the world’s population around fighting off a threat of a global scale. People’s patriotism and national pride seems to inspire more of a desire to fix/change/improve rather than any collective pride over ‘being human’.

This reminds me of an idea that a German philosopher - who’s name escapes me – proposed. (I think the guy was also a Nazi and a fascist, so I’m not endorsing anything he says, but I do think this idea is interesting.) But the idea is that there will always be internal class strife and inter-group conflict in any society/country. So, the way to actually achieve peace and a thriving nation is to focus all concerns at an external threat, tapping into every citizen’s nationalism and national pride to fight off this constant, but unifying risk of apocalypse. That way, a country will not have to deal with any internal strife and infighting but will only have to facilitate the unified nation’s fight against these world-ending threats. As per this philosophy, it is even beneficial for the unity of a nation for there to always be an external threat that must be fought and defeated (but only temporarily, until it returns again). Any loss of quality in life from these threats will be more than made up for by the strength and force of the unified nation.

This is a very interesting idea to me (even if I don’t necessarily agree with the whole idea) and does highlight how patriotism over (more or less) arbitrary borders and imaginary lines can be such a powerful source of change, but the same does not apply to the collective globe when it comes to issues that we face as a planet. It feels weird that one might care about fighting for Americans or Indians or Germans or Australians but not for ‘humans’. In the context of this week in the course, I wonder if there is a way through policy that we would be able to incentivize thinking about the whole globe in the same way that one might think about one’s own countries. Despite there being a shared common threat, we are still a divided planet and for some reason, it seems hard to unify around the banner of ‘human’. Maybe the unity comes not from inside but a fear of the other. In that case, our unity may only come around when we’re faced with aliens. But here’s hoping we figure it out before then.

[nicholas-rose]

risk

Centralized Policy vs. Decentralized Technology

Pictured above is the BioXp™ 3250, a machine which “provides hands-free, end-to-end automation of DNA assembly, cloning, amplification, and mRNA synthesis in a single overnight run” [1]. At a hefty price of $50,000 per machine, it’s not cheap. Yet considering that the entire field of synthetic biology 15 years ago did not possess the capabilities of this single machine today, we can begin to contextualize the rate of technological development on the cutting edge of this discipline.

Breakneck technological progress carries with it many benefits: our devices are simultaneously becoming exponentially cheaper, faster, smaller, and smarter. Whereas personal computing was a pipe dream in the 70s, its saturation into every facet of our lives makes it laughably obvious in retrospect. Once employed and developed strictly by academics and experts, technology trickles out into increasingly uninformed and uneducated hands. Mostly, this is an awesome phenomena. But in some cases, this democratization can introduce externalities. In the case of the BioXp 3250, many researchers fear the increasing possibility of manufactured super pathogens: the cost of technologies like the BioXp will continue to fall precipitously, thus giving access to an exponentially increasing audience. Such an audience may at some distant point include groups like Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese doomsday cult responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attacks. In short, while we can be reasonably confident that researchers working on cutting edge technologies do not wish doomsday upon the world, as those technologies become distributed throughout the world, it becomes increasingly difficult to remain confident that those technologies will not be utilized in the production of great harm.

Furthermore, such decentralization is extremely difficult to regulate effectively. Take, for example, the case of ghost guns: whether 3D printed, or assembled from a variety of independent pieces, ghost guns are exceptionally hard to track and/or confiscate. As 3D printing technology becomes ever more ubiquitous and effective, it seems undoubtable that the number of ghost guns will grow. There are certainly methods by which we can begin to address these kinds of decentralized issues, however they aren’t cheap or easy.

[1] https://codexdna.com/products/bioxp-system/

Some ghost gun links: https://youtu.be/X4xgFbDzJtk https://youtu.be/mvy1QTQ_K3Y

[nataliamedina1202]

policy #framing

This week's set of readings were surprisingly motivational and I appreciated the various sentiments surrounding saving humanity. While I agree with ideas of bettering policy responses to risks instead of just statistically accepting our doom, I do see flaws in overly optimistic framings.

In “How Close is Humanity to the Edge?” by Corinne Purtill, I found her expansion and reflections of Toby Ord’s “The Precipice” interesting with applications to COVID-19. The positive-twist on framing the pandemic by Ord and Purtill is different from what I’ve considered; they argue that despite all the grief and pain that COVID-19 has brought, it has the potentiality to serve as a great wake up call. This sentiment follows the idea that a “small-scale catastrophe may be good in preventing disasters of greater magnitude in the future” (Purtill). Though I do see how reflections on current handlings of the virus could be used to craft better response policy plans for the future, I think this framing alone may be a little too optimistic considering the US government and citizens' disunited response towards COVID-19.

One reason that I argue coronavirus's 'small-scale catastrophe’ won’t itself necessarily result in better equipped policy responses the next time around is because of the partisan responses to the pandemic. The Trump Administration played their fair share in making the pandemic mobilization fall on party lines (Altman). It was not long after politicians started using the rhetoric ‘Democrats and their masks’ or ‘Republicans and their anti-science’ that there started being a sharper divide in how people were considering the severity and urgency of the virus. A CBS and YouGov poll exemplified this divide; it found that 57% of Republicans thought the number of coronavirus deaths were acceptable because they believed the death toll was exaggerated, while 90% of Democrats said the deaths were unacceptable (Altman). This has a lot to do with our current state of affairs and the increasing polarization in government, which make collaboration and unified action to such threats nearly impossible.

In addition to political polarization, there is reason to believe that the inefficient response was not only due to the partisan nature of the pandemic. The failed response may truly have a lot to do with human nature and the inability or unwillingness to think of these threats as potentially existential. This argument can be supported by the psychology experiment at Oxford University, which found that people consider human extinction just slightly worse than an event which would wipe out 80% of the human population (Purtill). The thought of humanity’s existence being wiped out for eternity is something so incomprehensible that it is difficult to mobilize, but such apathy and lack of foresight is making responses even more difficult to improve.

With all this in mind, it is evident that it is time to take efforts in improving our responses to existential threats with better policy implementation. However, considering our current state of affairs, marked with apathy, increasing polarization, and little to no progress or consensus, the question that remains is how?

Works Cited:

Altman, Drew. “Understanding the US failure on coronavirus—an essay by Drew Altman.” BMJ, 14 Sep 2020, doi:10.1136/bmj.m3417. Accessed 5 May 2021. Heller, Joe. “Elected officials reacting to Covid-19.” Found, The Week, 13 Mar 2020, www.theweek.com/articles/901476/7-cartoons-about-trumps-coronavirus-response. Accessed 5 May 2021. Purtill, Corinne. “How Close Is Humanity to the Edge?” The New Yorker, 21Nov 2020. PDF.

[kaiyamerz]

#policy #framing

Looking back on our first week of the class, in the reading "Why is America Getting a New $100 Billion Nuclear Weapon" the author points out how US defense contractors like Northrop Grumman make outrageous campaign contributions to politicians in states where nuclear weapons are currently housed in underground missile silos. This plays on a prominent question of the first reading from Thought Magazine, where the author ponders whether a $220 billion Reagan era plan to add 7000 new nukes to our arsenal was the “promise of life or a curse that speeds us along a course that risks the extinction of our civilization” (1). Therein we can see that corporate interests will always take precedence over that which is truly best for the country, for national defense. By couching the expansion of our nuclear arsenal in the fluffy language of “ the blessing of national defense”, these companies pocket our tax dollars, funneling just enough into the hands of politicians to keep them sympathetic.

What has changed between now and then, however is the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United vs. the FEC, wherein it was decided that corporations are allowed to make unlimited campaign contributions to political campaigns. Not only has this resulted in the further expansion of our nuclear arsenal, but it also allows for even more greed to supplant our democracy, tainting policy to fit their agenda. This leaves precious little space for efforts at deescalation, particularly in a time following the so-called “War on Terror” (which began in 2001 after 9/11) through which we saw the rapid escalation of the military budget in the United States. So now more than ever the idea of our nuclear arsenal’s position as a deterrent, a necessary evil in promoting national defense is seen as moral, as just. Thinking as many of the readings do, then, of nuclear armageddon playing out like a game of Russian Roulette -- if nuclear armageddon is the bullet, then defense contractors are the hand which loads the revolver, greed the hand that spins the cylinder, and policy that pulls the trigger. At this point, the gun is loaded, poised to go off any minute now.

(from Wikipedia)

(Just as an aside I also think couching the United States' military budget as "defense spending" serves to de-fang the issues surrounding our military in general and the ludicrous amounts of tax dollars being spent on what essentially have amounted to the escalation of our policies surrounding war to the extent that the extrajudicial murder of people halfway across the world on the basis of "defense" is now legalized and excused by our leaders)

[atzavala]

solutions #risk #framing

The New Yorker article that read this week included Toby Ord’s take on the nuclear crisis that really caught my attention. He says “If we can learn to value the lives of people in other places and circumstances equally to our own, then we can do the same for people situated at a different moment in time”, which I really thought of as a new way of looking at the situation. He compares our current moment in time as the adolescence of humanity, similar to a 16 year old who is capable of ruining their future with one mistake. He ends by saying that to save the future you have to actually believe in one, and I think there lies the dilemma that we may face with the current mindset and mental state of western millennials and gen-z individuals. A 2020 Deloitte Global Millennial Survey found that before the pandemic there were high numbers of gen-z and millennials who report they were frequently suffering from stress and anxiety (link). There have been high numbers of reported pessimism and uneasiness since before the pandemic, and an APA survey found that “For Gen-Z teens, ages 13 to 17, 51% said that the pandemic made it impossible to plan for the future, and 67% of Gen-Z adults in college said the same” (link). There could be a concern that the upcoming generations of voters may be too stressed to plan so far ahead for the future. With so many reporting stressed-based emotions, it could be hard to convince them to add this stressor to their plate. But, I also hold onto hope that maybe this stress can be managed by proactively handling it. I’m hoping that our generation and the next aren’t discouraged by the pandemic and current state of the world to give up on the future. Although mental health does play a large role in how people see and plan for the future, the normalization for talking about mental health related issues has also normalized reaching out for help. In the long run, the overall stress of these generations may improve and the outlook on the future may be one that they would fight for.

[nikereid]

risk #salience #solutions!

I have found this class to be useful in not only learning about existential threats but also learning how to interpret and address such complicated issues. The readings and discussions in particular have helped in the way I mentally frame these scenarios to get a better understanding of some of the more important questions of which a few examples could be: how did we get here, what are the implications, and how can we alleviate this threat? One question that Ord considers in his 2020 book, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity is the likelihood with which any of the many existential threats may occur. In the beginning of chapter 7, “The Risk Landscape”, Ord presents a table where he attempts to quantify each existential crisis’s probability. The table includes some anthropogenic threats we studied earlier in the quarter including nuclear fallout, global climate change, and unaligned artificial intelligence as well as some natural threats like volcanic eruptions and asteroid impact. What surprised me most with these subjective probabilities was him suggesting unaligned AI having a 1 in 10 chance of happening within the next 100 years while climate change only having a 1 in 1000 chance within the next 100 years. He does explain that these are his “best estimates” for each crisis to occur within the 100 years to “the point of no return”. I would argue that these estimates could be reversed and it would probably be more accurate, especially considering that climate change is currently happening and that level of AI has not yet been achieved (though maybe closer than we anticipate). I feel like a much higher probability is warranted for the chance of an existential climate crisis given how much more needs to be done to address climate change both now and in the future. Based on the initial survey taken in this class, I would go on to say that there is a sizable portion of the class who would agree 1 in 10 is more appropriate, if not even higher.

[smichel11]

origin #policy #climate

Something that stuck in my head was from the How Close is Humanity to the Edge piece, which states that "the challenge is to adopt a new frame of mind in which distant threats aren’t confused with impossible ones." This got me thinking about when I went to a talk at the Law School with Professor Carlson from UCLA, where she discussed the Clean Air Act of 1980 in comparison to the Green New Deal, discussing achieving the perceived impossible. With the Clean Air Act, the EPA gave auto industries until 1975, a timeline of five years, to meet their standards. The NAAQS was quickly met with criticisms that it was not enough time, that it would slow and ruin the economy, and that it was too extreme so that it would be rendered impossible to complete. The catalytic converter diminished toxins and pollutants from exhaust pipes would be integral in achieving the NAAQS. Even with all the pushback and lawsuits, the Clean Air Act met its standards in 1981, a feat that proved the impossible to be possible. Air quality drastically changed, and people could breathe a sigh of relief knowing that at this moment in time, the government was more concerned about the public’s health than the industry elites, thinking beyond technological limitations rather than being constrained by them. Like the Clean Air Act, the Green New Deal aims to do what is considered impossible for the benefit of the public. Echoing the construction of the Clean Air Act, there are no precise plans or specifications on how to achieve these set goals—only the ten-year deadline. This allows competitors to take it upon themselves to find the most effective solution to meet the standards expected of them by the government. People have said that it is not feasible, that it expects too much for such a short time frame. The criticisms haven’t changed from the Clean Air Act fifty years ago—but look at how far we have come since then. Although both legislations aim to improve the environment, the Clean Air Act was targeted at air pollution, which has more immediate results. The Green New Deal, however, is targeted at Climate Change--it takes time to see a difference. Professor Carlson notes that we are currently experiencing the impacts of emissions into the atmosphere from thirty years ago, and it might be another thirty years before we can observe the impact of the Green New Deal on Climate Change if we were to implement it today. The delay between implementation and impact is dangerous in the sense that it gives a false sense of failure without immediate results—but it could also encourage a greater sense of urgency to speed up action to not slow the process anymore. The impacts of the legislation will take longer than it did for air pollution in the 70s, but its effects will be grander in the long run. So why is there so much hesitation? As Professor Carlson said, the investment that would be placed in the Green New Deal is much like investing in insurance. Even though you cannot be certain of the exact destruction Climate Change will have, it is better not to risk it. The Clean Air Act of 1970 dramatically changed the state of air quality across the country, proving an unfeasible act to be feasible. It is time to let the Green New Deal do the same with Climate Change, where the wellbeing of our people and the environment is once again the primary concern.

[brycefarabaugh]

nuclear #policy #solutions

Policy responses to existential risks should aim to do two things: they obviously need to attempt to reduce a risk in some meaningful way, but they also need to be politically viable/ realistically achievable. Using the suggestions laid out by William Perry and Tom Collina in chapter 10 of “The Button”, we can assess the realistic odds of some of them being adopted and whether such policies would plausibly reduce nuclear risks.

Some policy changes can be done unilaterally by heads of state: for example, the U.S. president possesses “sole authority” over decisions to launch nuclear weapons, which s/he could disavow or be forced to give up as a result of legislation by the Congress. Based on the fact that a) having one person in the U.S. government responsible for all nuclear launch decisions is not particularly democratic nor safe and b) the American public would hardly notice such a change in the nuclear decision-making chain of command, this policy response seems reasonable. However, policymakers rarely consent to reducing their own authority regardless of the issue, and Congress has so far been unwilling to demand changes to the process already in place, citing things like time constraints during emergencies, difficulties determining who would be an appropriate check on a president’s power (vice president, speaker of the house, etc), and other considerations. Taking these difficulties into consideration, changing “sole authority” policy would likely reduce nuclear risks but seems politically dubious given the structure of the American political system.

Another suggestion by Perry and Collina is “retire all ICBMs”. This policy change could arguably result in reducing nuclear risks as well: U.S. ICBMs are often considered “use ‘em or lose ‘em” weapons as they are fixed targets that can be destroyed if attacked during a first strike, incentivizing launching said weapons after detecting an incoming volley but before detonation. ICBMs are also the leg of the nuclear triad most prone to mistakes or miscalculation: numerous examples throughout history show how computer errors, human misjudgements, radar malfunctions, and other unforeseen circumstances led both the United States and the Soviet Union to occasionally believe a nuclear strike was imminent, resulting in close-calls and near-catastrophes. Finally, ICBM’s can’t be recalled unlike ballistic missile submarines and strategic bombers, meaning once a missile is launched it will detonate at its predetermined location.

Based on these facts, it seems reasonable that eliminating ICBMs while maintaining the other two legs of the triad would reduce nuclear risks, but it remains to be seen whether such a move would be politically viable. That uncertainty stems from the fact that ICBMs are based in only a handful of Midwestern states, meaning there exists strong opposition from those states’ senators and representatives who fear job losses and economic decline in those communities that maintain ICBM forces. Additionally, significantly cutting the nuclear modernization budget (which includes the new GBSD ICBM) would require opposing defense firms like Northrop Grumman, which have considerable influence in Washington DC. Similar to the policy proposals for changing “sole authority”, eliminating ICBMs seems politically difficult but not impossible.

Taking these two policy responses and others into consideration, what method seems most reasonable for reducing nuclear risks? Research by some political scientists has shown so-called “elite theory” is more effective at policy change than grassroots organizing: convincing policy elites to change their minds eventually “trickles down” to the general population. Under this framework, enacting some of these changes may depend on foreign policy specialists in government and academia to come to a consensus on reasonable steps to take to reduce nuclear risks.

[ABacotti]

solutions #nuclear #policy #salience

After reading Edmund Brown's work Nuclear Addiction: A Response I began thinking about the problem of nuclear weapons in the context of probability theory. If we think about every possible set of actions that can occur at this point in time, and every action that could potentially follow from that action, and all the actions that can follow from those, and narrow them by likelihood, we create a tree starting from this very moment and leading to every possible outcome. The higher the likelihood of a particular outcome to occur, the more paths will lead to it. This is similar to the way that Chess robots used to be structured according to difficulty. The easier robots would select moves that had less potential ways of winning than the more difficult robots. The best robots can select the option with the most potential outcomes for winning at every move, almost ensuring a victory, and creating the "behavior" that many chess players hate. We learned in our AI class that they find traditional robots too robotic. More modern chess robots use AI to seem more human like.

If we think about probability trees in the terms of nuclear acceleration we must think about all the possible outcomes that can lead to nuclear annihilation. If we are hoping to prevent nuclear war, like a chess robot trying to win, we must think about what actions we can take to reduce the number of potential paths, weighted by likelihood, that lead to nuclear war. Statisticians have often tried to predict the likelihood of nuclear war, some even predicting the current likelihood is upwards of 93% (Bertschler), but how can we bring that down? There are many possible ways that nuclear weapons in existence can reduce the likelihood of nuclear war, this is why the nuclear arms race occured. It was treated as a problem of game theory, of two side. How do I react to the actions of the other party, and spur their action? It should instead be treated as a problem of statistics. As a world, what reduces the likelihood of the usage of nuclear weapons? Not having them in the first place. The absolute removal of nuclear weapons is the most desirable solution, albeit the most difficult one, to prevent a nuclear war because it reduces the paths towards a nuclear war the most considerably. This brings in Brown's comments about the ability of competition between hostile nations to breed distrust. It is impossible for us to act in the statistically optimal way because nations still see each other on opposing sides, and that brings us to where we should then focus our energy. Instead of focusing on beating the other party, we need to realize that in most of our greatest looming catastrophes, we are on the same team. Easier said than done, obviously, but changing the narrative would most definitely be helpful. Lets not beat Russian, lets beat the threat, the true problem, of which we are a contributing party.

Flow chart from A Model for the Probability of Nuclear War by Seth Baum, Robert de Neufville, and Anthony Barret (2018)

https://medium.com/dataseries/likelihood-of-nuclear-war-we-have-no-idea-fb38d812912d

[cjcampo]

policy #salience

A few weeks ago, I posted a memo that referenced the accelerated passage of the Patriot Act following intense nationalism and fear surrounding 9/11. In this week's readings from guest speaker and former governor Jerry Brown, he makes references multiple times to the idea that politicians may be incentivized to pursue conflict because of the bump it will give to their public support:

"[Perry] observes that political leaders seemed to gain approval with the public based on their willingness to initiate a war" (A Stark Nuclear Warning, P.3)

"Although he didn't believe that nuclear deterrence required that we match our adversary weapon for weapon, he acceded to the political pressure to keep up with the other guy" (P.5)

In his article in Thought Magazine, he alludes to the concept that the arms race is politically motivated and supported, which rings to the same tune. Taking this all together, it reminded me of the "Rally Around The Flag" effect whereby elected officials' approval ratings tend upward during times of international crisis. I'm writing to elaborate on this phenomenon--particularly, the factors that determine the magnitude and direction of the approval shift spell trouble for policy-making in times of crisis or potential world-ending nuclear war against foreign powers.

As the images below the post show, here are a few notable spikes in approval for U.S. presidencies:

• JFK following both the Bay of Pigs in 1961 (his peak) and the Cuban Missile Crisis
• LBJ when troops arrived in Vietnam in 1965
• George H.W. Bush when the U.S. announced operation Desert Storm in Iraq
• George W. Bush after 9/11 and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003

Before doing a bit of research, I didn't realize that studies had been done linking the nature of the conflict to the bump or dip in approval. Shoon Murray found that positive bumps in approval rating are associated with media coverage of the crisis event, the White House's framing of the issue, the amount of criticism from opposing politicians, and the time since the last concluded war. Furthermore, approval bumps have been smaller for simple deployments of force/troops than they have been for all-out warfare.

It remains to be seen whether increasing polarization in the U.S. will work to dampen this phenomenon. What we can all agree on is that the ingrouping and impulse policy decision-making is problematic for the future with a bevy of nuclear weapons and cyber capabilities.

Image + Info Sources on approval rating:

The Guardian: Rally round the flag: do wars boost presidential popularity?

David Coleman: JFK's Presidential Approval Ratings

Visualize Curiosity: A Short Stroll with Historical Presidential Approval Ratings

[Aiden-Reynolds]

Risk #Policy #Salience

While this week’s readings did a great job outlining the extreme and constant risk of nuclear conflict, I still do not see any practical solutions to prevent such an extreme event from happening. There is much to be said about the risk the United State’s first use policy in terms of starting a nuclear war, but the issue the U.S. faces is that if we stop providing nuclear protection for our allies they will be heavily incentivized to pursue building their own nuclear arsenal. Nuclear weapons can essentially indefinitely ensure the survival of a state faced with any external threat. These weapons furthermore allow states to negotiate with other nuclear powers on more equal terms as very few states are willing to engage in a nuclear conflict except for the most extreme circumstances. It is because of our first strike policy and extension of nuclear protection to our allies around the world that many of these allies don’t feel intense pressure to develop a nuclear arsenal of their own. Our nuclear protection means that these states already receive many of the benefits of having nuclear weapons without needing to develop their own and face the international political consequences of pursuing a nuclear program. As long as these states feel that the United States will use its nuclear weapons to ensure their survival and ability to negotiate on relatively equal terms they are under no immediate pressure to acquire their own. However, should the United States withdraw its nuclear support for its allies, they would immediately face an entirely different situation and feel intense pressure to find a new way to give their governments nuclear backing. This would inevitably result in rapid nuclear proliferation as all of the United States’ allies who were previously protected implement their own nuclear programs. While the United States’ maintenance of a massive nuclear arsenal and use of a first strike policy is certainly dangerous, is it really more dangerous than at least dozens of other states around the world also having their own nuclear arsenal? Although increasing the number of nuclear weapons in one nation’s arsenal certainly increases the risk of a nuclear accident, it seems that allowing several other nations to acquire nuclear weapons would increase the risk of an accident to a much greater extent. If more international actors have direct access to nuclear weapons then these weapons will inevitably be involved in more international conflicts, drastically increasing the opportunities for these weapons to be used accidentally or irresponsibly. When merely protected by another nation’s first strike policy these nations will at least have to gain the approval of a second, and very hesitant power, before they would actually be able to use any nuclear weapons.

[ZeyangPan]

risks #framing #solution

When I was reading chapter 6 of the book, “The Risk Landscape” and “Saving Humanity” by Toby Ord, the author ranked the chance of each existential catastrophe occurring at some point in the next 100 years. One of the existential catastrophes listed there is climate change, and it has the chance of happening of 1 in 1,000 within the next 100 years. I disagree with the way Toby Ord categorized it. First of all, climate change is not something that will happen in the future but already happening now. Climate change naturally includes warming and cooling. Scientific research has found that the average temperature of the earth has an abnormally rising trend in the past 100 years since the industrial revolution, which is called global warming. In other words, the global abnormal temperature rise in the past 100 years is higher than that in the past 1,000 years or even longer. The climate change we generally discuss refers to this phenomenon. More and more studies have shown that in addition to the abnormal temperature rise, there are more frequent extreme weathers and Etc. These abnormal phenomena are collectively referred to as climate change. Therefore, I can't agree with the author that climate change will happen in the next 100 years because it is happening right now.

On the other hand, the author included 'asteroid or comet impact', 'supervolcanic eruption', and 'stellar explosion' as natural risks. But he didn't give any solutions to overcome these potential risks. As an astronomy major student, I think one possible solution is to migrate to another planet before the appearance of these risks. Given that the chances of these risks occur in the next 100 years are extremely low, we still have enough time to prepare for interstellar travels. If we are able to foresee a lethal asteroid heading to us or predict a supervolcanic eruption, then the best place we can go is Mars, which is the most habitable planet in our solar system. However, migrating to Mars does not overcome the risks of 'stellar explosion'. When it occurs, the entire solar system would become inhabitable. The only chance to sustain human civilization is to migrate to a habitable planet outside the solar system. Given the limited technologies, the chance of bringing humans on Mars in 50 years is high. But the chance of bringing humans on a planet outside the solar system is nearly zero in the next 100 years. I suggest that people should pay more attention to natural risks because these risks are not something that can be easily overcome. Without long-term preparation, the chance of survival of humans would be extremely low when one of the natural risks happens.

[ChivLiu]

framing #salience

In the past years, many foreign policies have been used by powerful countries to benefit themselves. The so-called social justice has been defined differently while facing regional crises on one side and dealing with foreigners on the other. Two great instances are how the western world keeps criticizing Chinese human rights and how they created wars in the Middle East. Government-supported organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Better Cotton Initiative focused on their attacks on internet speaking, Hong Kong independence, and Xinjiang human rights. However, while some of those Chinese writers have defected for many years, few other writers have visited China and check the situations themselves. Many western media or researchers criticized the censorship and filters of Chinese social media platforms, but none supported former President Trump to continue tweeting and speaking online. While the US government supported Hong Kong to "free themselves", they chose to ignore how those terrorists burned shops, people, and civil facilities. When the BLM paraders came to cities, the government called National Guard to dismiss them. While the US and China negotiating on trade terms, the U.S. Department of State's 2020 human rights report classified China's actions in Xinjiang as "genocide and crimes against humanity". The US government and many politicians believe that American Exceptionalism would always be correct no matter the world comes to a union or not. Those policies have led to the Cold War against Russia once, and they now seek to use the same ideology against China. In 2020, the pandemic has proven that humans cannot face catastrophes as individuals, and countries have to help each other achieve common goals. People do not want wars as they do not want to be treated like fools. It is the duty of the governments to stop disseminating fake news and bring equality to the table for diplomacy. If they keep using foreign policies to divide other countries or destroy an industry of others, it would be the shame of humanity and the risk for the whole planet.