My model of dealing with info-hazards in policy advocacy is to remember that most people are not scope sensitive, and that we should go with the least infohazardous justification for a given policy idea.
Most policy ideas in GCBR response can be justified based on the risk of natural pandemics, and many policy ideas in GCBR prevention can be justified based on risks of accidental release. Discussing the risks of deliberate bioterrorism using engineered pathogens is only needed to justify a very small subset of GCBR prevention policy ideas.
Do you think the PPE/PAPR example is part of that very small subset? It just happens to be the area I started working on by deference, and I might’ve gotten unlucky.
I think PAPR / developing very high quality PPE can probably be justified on the basis of accidental release risks and discussing deliberate threats wouldn’t add much to the argument, but stockpiles for basic PPE would be easily justified on just natural threats
I think in addition to policymakers not being scope sensitive, they’re also rarely thinking in terms of expected value, such that concern around accidents can drive similar action to concern around deliberate threats, since the probability of accidents is greater
Actually big caveat here is that policymakers in defence / national security departments might be more responsive to the deliberate threat risk, since that falls more clearly within their scope
+1 for the idea of a gatekept biosecurity forum.
My model of dealing with info-hazards in policy advocacy is to remember that most people are not scope sensitive, and that we should go with the least infohazardous justification for a given policy idea.
Most policy ideas in GCBR response can be justified based on the risk of natural pandemics, and many policy ideas in GCBR prevention can be justified based on risks of accidental release. Discussing the risks of deliberate bioterrorism using engineered pathogens is only needed to justify a very small subset of GCBR prevention policy ideas.
Do you think the PPE/PAPR example is part of that very small subset? It just happens to be the area I started working on by deference, and I might’ve gotten unlucky.
Or is the crux here response vs prevention?
I think PAPR / developing very high quality PPE can probably be justified on the basis of accidental release risks and discussing deliberate threats wouldn’t add much to the argument, but stockpiles for basic PPE would be easily justified on just natural threats
I think in addition to policymakers not being scope sensitive, they’re also rarely thinking in terms of expected value, such that concern around accidents can drive similar action to concern around deliberate threats, since the probability of accidents is greater
Actually big caveat here is that policymakers in defence / national security departments might be more responsive to the deliberate threat risk, since that falls more clearly within their scope