Thanks for reading and responding. I certainly tried to review the ways Trump had been better than the worst case scenario: e.g. on nuclear use or bioweapons. Let me respond to a few points you raised (though I think we might continue to disagree!)
Authoritarianism and pandemic response—I’ll comment on Pablo and Stefan’s comments. However just on social progress, my point was just ‘one of the reasons authoritarianism around the world is bad is it limits social progress’ - I didn’t make a prediction about how social progress would fare under Trump.
Nuclear use and bioweapons—as I say in the post, there haven’t been bioweapons development (that we know of) or nuclear use. However, I don’t think its accurate to say this is a ‘worry that didn’t happen’. My point throughout this post and the last one was that Trump will/has raised risk. An increase from a 10% to a 20% chance is a big deal if what we’re talking about is a catastrophe, and that an event did not occur does not show that this risk did not increase.
On nuclear proliferation, you said “I am not aware of any of these countries acquiring any nuclear weapons, or even making significant progress”, but as I said in this post, North Korea has advanced their nuclear capabilities and Iran resumed uranium enrichment after Trump pulled out of the Iran Deal.
Hi Dale,
Thanks for reading and responding. I certainly tried to review the ways Trump had been better than the worst case scenario: e.g. on nuclear use or bioweapons. Let me respond to a few points you raised (though I think we might continue to disagree!)
Authoritarianism and pandemic response—I’ll comment on Pablo and Stefan’s comments. However just on social progress, my point was just ‘one of the reasons authoritarianism around the world is bad is it limits social progress’ - I didn’t make a prediction about how social progress would fare under Trump.
Nuclear use and bioweapons—as I say in the post, there haven’t been bioweapons development (that we know of) or nuclear use. However, I don’t think its accurate to say this is a ‘worry that didn’t happen’. My point throughout this post and the last one was that Trump will/has raised risk. An increase from a 10% to a 20% chance is a big deal if what we’re talking about is a catastrophe, and that an event did not occur does not show that this risk did not increase.
On nuclear proliferation, you said “I am not aware of any of these countries acquiring any nuclear weapons, or even making significant progress”, but as I said in this post, North Korea has advanced their nuclear capabilities and Iran resumed uranium enrichment after Trump pulled out of the Iran Deal.
Thanks again, Haydn