I think Iād say this essay fills a valuable role of poking and prodding at prominent views, and thereby pushing people to grapple with ways in which those views may be flawed, in which those views may not have been fully argued for, or in which people may not understand the full justifications for those views (despite accepting them on authority). It has also updated my thinking somewhat.
And I appreciate the general Fermi estimate approach youāve taken in the Probability Estimates section. (On the other hand, it seems worth acknowledging that that approach may make it harder to account for disjunctive scenarios, or scenarios that are hard to predict the pathways of in advance, as alluded to in some other comments.) Iāve also added those estimates to this database of existential risk estimates.
That said, I disagree with many of the specific points made in this essay, and thus at least partially disagree with its conclusions. Iāll split my points into separate comments.
On historical and current pandemics
deaths from infectious diseases and pandemics in particular have decreased in recent centuries
This felt like a statement that should have a source. Hereās one. It doesnāt look super trustworthy, but does seem to match my previous (non-expert) impression from various (mostly EA or EA-adjacent) sources, which is: Number of deaths from pandemic in a given century seems to vary hugely, without following a clear trend. Deaths from pandemics per century have been lower each century since the Black Death than they were during the Black Death, but:
thatās just 6 centuries, so not a very large sample
the Black Death seems to mean deaths from pandemics havenāt been trending downwards since before that point
it doesnāt look like the deaths have trended downwards since the Black Death; just that Black Death was an extreme occurrence. Indeed, the Spanish Flu seems to have caused more deaths than almost any other post-Black-Death pandemic (based on that potentially not trustworthy source)
with no major pandemics in Western Europe since the early eighteenth century.
Wouldnāt COVID-19 count? Itās definitely been far smaller than e.g. the Black Death so far, in terms of numbers of deaths. And I expect that will remain true. Perhaps youāre therefore counting it as not āmajorā? But it still seems odd to say itās not a major pandemic.
(The public policy response to COVID does seem to more support than detract from your overall points; Iām just questioning that specific claim I quoted there, or at least its phrasing.)
I think Iād say this essay fills a valuable role of poking and prodding at prominent views, and thereby pushing people to grapple with ways in which those views may be flawed, in which those views may not have been fully argued for, or in which people may not understand the full justifications for those views (despite accepting them on authority). It has also updated my thinking somewhat.
And I appreciate the general Fermi estimate approach youāve taken in the Probability Estimates section. (On the other hand, it seems worth acknowledging that that approach may make it harder to account for disjunctive scenarios, or scenarios that are hard to predict the pathways of in advance, as alluded to in some other comments.) Iāve also added those estimates to this database of existential risk estimates.
That said, I disagree with many of the specific points made in this essay, and thus at least partially disagree with its conclusions. Iāll split my points into separate comments.
On historical and current pandemics
This felt like a statement that should have a source. Hereās one. It doesnāt look super trustworthy, but does seem to match my previous (non-expert) impression from various (mostly EA or EA-adjacent) sources, which is: Number of deaths from pandemic in a given century seems to vary hugely, without following a clear trend. Deaths from pandemics per century have been lower each century since the Black Death than they were during the Black Death, but:
thatās just 6 centuries, so not a very large sample
the Black Death seems to mean deaths from pandemics havenāt been trending downwards since before that point
it doesnāt look like the deaths have trended downwards since the Black Death; just that Black Death was an extreme occurrence. Indeed, the Spanish Flu seems to have caused more deaths than almost any other post-Black-Death pandemic (based on that potentially not trustworthy source)
Wouldnāt COVID-19 count? Itās definitely been far smaller than e.g. the Black Death so far, in terms of numbers of deaths. And I expect that will remain true. Perhaps youāre therefore counting it as not āmajorā? But it still seems odd to say itās not a major pandemic.
(The public policy response to COVID does seem to more support than detract from your overall points; Iām just questioning that specific claim I quoted there, or at least its phrasing.)