A realist Millennial’s view of nuclear weapons by Matthew R. Costlow is a recent, interesting, and problematic short essay which more asserts than argues that the US would be more secure maintaining a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.
More interesting, I think, is the author’s assertion that current young activists have a weak understanding of the relevant policy, security and history issues. Costlow doesn’t mention Effective Altruism by name, but I suspect that within the movement we probably could stand to level-up our expertise on the area. Nuclear risks are easily existential level and complex problems, yet also potentially tractable over time, given focused attention and advocacy, both of which dropped off considerably after the end of the Cold War. Perhaps Effective Altruism should begin focusing a significant amount of energy on nuclear proliferation and deterrence theory, as well as the associated political, diplomatic, military, economic and historic concerns? The goal would be to find policy proposals and solutions intended to decrease the risk of large-scale nuclear exchanges.
A realist Millennial’s view of nuclear weapons by Matthew R. Costlow is a recent, interesting, and problematic short essay which more asserts than argues that the US would be more secure maintaining a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.
More interesting, I think, is the author’s assertion that current young activists have a weak understanding of the relevant policy, security and history issues. Costlow doesn’t mention Effective Altruism by name, but I suspect that within the movement we probably could stand to level-up our expertise on the area. Nuclear risks are easily existential level and complex problems, yet also potentially tractable over time, given focused attention and advocacy, both of which dropped off considerably after the end of the Cold War. Perhaps Effective Altruism should begin focusing a significant amount of energy on nuclear proliferation and deterrence theory, as well as the associated political, diplomatic, military, economic and historic concerns? The goal would be to find policy proposals and solutions intended to decrease the risk of large-scale nuclear exchanges.