In this talk on ‘Crucial considerations and wise philanthropy’, Nick Bostrom tentatively mentions some actions that appear to be robustly x-risk reducing, including promoting international peace and cooperation, growing the effective altruism movement, and working on solutions to the control problem.
Just to play devil’s advocate with some arguments against peace (in a not so well thought out way)… There’s a book called ‘The Great Leveler’ which puts forward the hypothesis that the only time when widespread redistribution has happened is after wars. This means that without war we might expect consistently rising inequality. This effect has been due to mass mobilization (‘Taxing the Rich’ asserts that there has only been mass political willpower to increase redistribution with the claims of veterans having served and feeling they should be compensated)
anddestructionn of capital (in Europe much of the capital was destroyed in WW2 → massive decrease in inequality, US less so on both front) (haven’t read the book though).
Spinning this further we could be approaching a time where great power war would not have this effect. This is because less labor is required and it would be higher skilled. Perhaps there would be little use for low skilled grunts in near future wars (or already). If we also saw less destruction of capital (maybe information warfare is the way of the future?) Then we lose the mechanisms which made war a leveller in the past.
SO we might be in the last time where a great power war (one of the only things we know reduces inequality) would be able to reduce inequality. If inequality continues to increase we could see suboptimal societal values which could continue on indefinitely and/or cause large amount of suffering the mediumrun. This could also lead to more domestic unrest in medium-run which would imply a peace now vs peace later trade-off. Depending on how hingey the moment is for the long-term future now, it could be better to have peace later.
ALSO, UN was created post WW2. Maybe we only have appetite for major international cooperation after nasty wars?
Anyway… Even after considering that, peace and cooperation is probably good on net, but not as obvious as it may seem.
(Wrote this on mobile, sorry for any errors and lack of having read more than a few pages of the books I cited)
ALSO, UN was created post WW2. Maybe we only have appetite for major international cooperation after nasty wars?
This seems like point worth highlighting, especially vis-à-vis Bostrom’s own views about the importance of global governance in ‘The Vulnerable World Hypothesis’. Worth also noting that the League of Nations was created in the aftermath of WW1.
This line of inquiry (that rebuilding after wars is quite different from other periods of time) is explored in G. John Ikenberry’s After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. A quick and entertaining summary of the book—and how it has held up since its publication—was written by Ikenberry in 2018: Reflections on After Victory.
In this talk on ‘Crucial considerations and wise philanthropy’, Nick Bostrom tentatively mentions some actions that appear to be robustly x-risk reducing, including promoting international peace and cooperation, growing the effective altruism movement, and working on solutions to the control problem.
Just to play devil’s advocate with some arguments against peace (in a not so well thought out way)… There’s a book called ‘The Great Leveler’ which puts forward the hypothesis that the only time when widespread redistribution has happened is after wars. This means that without war we might expect consistently rising inequality. This effect has been due to mass mobilization (‘Taxing the Rich’ asserts that there has only been mass political willpower to increase redistribution with the claims of veterans having served and feeling they should be compensated) anddestructionn of capital (in Europe much of the capital was destroyed in WW2 → massive decrease in inequality, US less so on both front) (haven’t read the book though). Spinning this further we could be approaching a time where great power war would not have this effect. This is because less labor is required and it would be higher skilled. Perhaps there would be little use for low skilled grunts in near future wars (or already). If we also saw less destruction of capital (maybe information warfare is the way of the future?) Then we lose the mechanisms which made war a leveller in the past. SO we might be in the last time where a great power war (one of the only things we know reduces inequality) would be able to reduce inequality. If inequality continues to increase we could see suboptimal societal values which could continue on indefinitely and/or cause large amount of suffering the mediumrun. This could also lead to more domestic unrest in medium-run which would imply a peace now vs peace later trade-off. Depending on how hingey the moment is for the long-term future now, it could be better to have peace later. ALSO, UN was created post WW2. Maybe we only have appetite for major international cooperation after nasty wars? Anyway… Even after considering that, peace and cooperation is probably good on net, but not as obvious as it may seem. (Wrote this on mobile, sorry for any errors and lack of having read more than a few pages of the books I cited)
This seems like point worth highlighting, especially vis-à-vis Bostrom’s own views about the importance of global governance in ‘The Vulnerable World Hypothesis’. Worth also noting that the League of Nations was created in the aftermath of WW1.
This line of inquiry (that rebuilding after wars is quite different from other periods of time) is explored in G. John Ikenberry’s After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. A quick and entertaining summary of the book—and how it has held up since its publication—was written by Ikenberry in 2018: Reflections on After Victory.
Thank you for those references!