The work was reviewed by experts, as I discuss in the other comment.
I do discuss tipping points at some length. I don’t see how the idea of cascading risks would change my substantive conclusions at all. If you want to argue that cascading risks would in fact affect my conclusions, I would be happy to have that debate.
In fairness to me, the Kemp et al paper was only published a couple of weeks ago, so I couldn’t include it in the report. I think much of that paper is incorrect, and the reasons for that are discussed at length in the report. The conclusions of the Beard et al and Richards et al paper are, in my view, refuted mostly in section 5 of my report. If you have a criticism of that section, which largely leans on the latest IPCC report, I would be happy to have that discussion
I have read the Richards et al complex systems paper. It contains the following diagram purporting to show how climate change could cause civilisational collapse
I am open to the possibility that my argument that climate change will not destroy the global food system is wrong. I am happy to discuss substantive criticisms of those arguments. I do not see one in the Richards paper, or in what you have said.
Your critique here seems to me to miss the mark, as illustrated by your own example. If I am assessing biorisk and categorise viruses according to whether they have an odd or even number of letters, then so long as I got my risk assessment right for the odd and even numbered letter viruses, I would have actually evaluated biorisk. I don’t know whether I am taking a ‘techno-utopian approach’ but I thought the Cremer and Kemp paper was not very good and I am not alone in thinking that (it’s also not peer reviewed, if that is the criterion we are using). As I have said, I seldom depart from the IPCC in the report. If you think I do, which of my arguments do you think are wrong?
It’s a bit weird to argue that a 400+ page report is radically incomplete without making any arguments and then to criticise my response as just making assertions. Which of my substantive arguments do you disagree with and why?
It is true that those papers are short but they also do not engage with literature that is inconsistent with most of their main claims. They lean heavily on the idea of planetary boundaries, which is extremely controversial and I argue against at length in the report.
Given the review process was not like normal peer review, would it be possible to have a public copy of all the reviewers comments like we get with the IPCC. This seems like it may br important for epistemic transparency
Indeed, knowing what I know of some of the reviewers Halstead named I am very curious to see what the review process was, what their comments were, and whether they recommended publishing the report as-is.
I’ve always been quite confused about attitudes to scholarly rigour in this community: if the decisions we’re making are so important, shouldn’t we have really robust ways of making sure they’re right?
Leaving aside the discussions on the specific value and/or variable used to measure a specific boundary -which the authors themselves caveat that may be temporal until finding better ones-, isn’t most of the controversy due to critiques conflating planetary boundaries and tipping points?
META: This + additional comments below from Halstead are strongly suggestive of bad-faith engagement: lazy dismissal without substantive engagement, repeated strawman-ing, Never Play Defense-ing, and accusing his critics of secretly being sockpuppet accounts of known heretics so their views can be ignored.
On the basis of Brandolini’s Law I am going to try to keep my replies as short as I can. If they seem insubstantial, it is likely because I have already responded to the point under discussion elsewhere, or because they are responding to attempts to move the conversation away from the original points of criticism.
I have specific criticisms to make, and I would like to see them addressed rather than ignored, dismissed, or answered only on the condition that I make a whole new set of criticisms for Halstead to also not engage with.
I suggest the reader read Halstead’s response before going back to Gideon’s and my comments. It was useful for me.
Climatic tipping points, cascading risks, and systemic risk are different things and you (hopefully) know it.
If you have refuted arguments made by relevant papers, why didn’t you cite them?
I’m not sure I understand your argument here: you are not under any obligation to discuss opposing perspectives on climate risk because a different paper on climate risk did not explicitly refute an argument that you would go on to make in the future?
In any case, this is not at all what Gideon or I said Your lazy and factually inaccurate dismissal of complex systems theory remains lazy and factually inaccurate. I am not sure where this point about Richards et al. comes into it.
You would have evaluated biorisk if the only possible use of a methodology was making sure you had a comprehensive categorisation system, which (as I hope you know) is not at all true.
I don’t really see how I have not made any arguments here. I suppose I could ask someone if it’s possible to write ‘Please cite your sources.’ in first-order logic.
I would like to hear your justification for how Beard et al, Richards et al, and Kemp et al all lean heavily on the idea of planetary boundaries, and how, if this was true, it would be relevant.
However, I doubt this would go anywhere. I suspect this is simply yet another way of ignoring people who disagree with you without thinking too hard, and relying on the combination of your name-recognition and the average EA’s ignorance of climate change to buy you the ‘Seems like he knows what he’s talking about!’-ness you want.
However, I doubt this would go anywhere. I suspect this is simply yet another way of ignoring people who disagree with you without thinking too hard, and relying on the combination of your name-recognition and the average EA’s ignorance of climate change to buy you the ‘Seems like he knows what he’s talking about!’-ness you want
The moderation team feels that this is unnecessarily hostile and rude, and violates Forum norms. This is a warning; please do better in the future.
Writing this as a moderator, but only expressing my own view.
Accusing someone of acting in bad faith on a public forum can be very damaging to the person, and it’s very easy to be mistaken about such a characterization. Even if the person is acting in bad faith, it might escalate things and make it hard to deal with the underlying problem well.
Instead, it would be better to go through the moderation and community health channels, which you can do by flagging comments/posts or by contacting us directly.
The work was reviewed by experts, as I discuss in the other comment.
I do discuss tipping points at some length. I don’t see how the idea of cascading risks would change my substantive conclusions at all. If you want to argue that cascading risks would in fact affect my conclusions, I would be happy to have that debate.
In fairness to me, the Kemp et al paper was only published a couple of weeks ago, so I couldn’t include it in the report. I think much of that paper is incorrect, and the reasons for that are discussed at length in the report. The conclusions of the Beard et al and Richards et al paper are, in my view, refuted mostly in section 5 of my report. If you have a criticism of that section, which largely leans on the latest IPCC report, I would be happy to have that discussion
I have read the Richards et al complex systems paper. It contains the following diagram purporting to show how climate change could cause civilisational collapse
I am open to the possibility that my argument that climate change will not destroy the global food system is wrong. I am happy to discuss substantive criticisms of those arguments. I do not see one in the Richards paper, or in what you have said.
Your critique here seems to me to miss the mark, as illustrated by your own example. If I am assessing biorisk and categorise viruses according to whether they have an odd or even number of letters, then so long as I got my risk assessment right for the odd and even numbered letter viruses, I would have actually evaluated biorisk. I don’t know whether I am taking a ‘techno-utopian approach’ but I thought the Cremer and Kemp paper was not very good and I am not alone in thinking that (it’s also not peer reviewed, if that is the criterion we are using). As I have said, I seldom depart from the IPCC in the report. If you think I do, which of my arguments do you think are wrong?
It’s a bit weird to argue that a 400+ page report is radically incomplete without making any arguments and then to criticise my response as just making assertions. Which of my substantive arguments do you disagree with and why?
It is true that those papers are short but they also do not engage with literature that is inconsistent with most of their main claims. They lean heavily on the idea of planetary boundaries, which is extremely controversial and I argue against at length in the report.
Given the review process was not like normal peer review, would it be possible to have a public copy of all the reviewers comments like we get with the IPCC. This seems like it may br important for epistemic transparency
Indeed, knowing what I know of some of the reviewers Halstead named I am very curious to see what the review process was, what their comments were, and whether they recommended publishing the report as-is.
I’ve always been quite confused about attitudes to scholarly rigour in this community: if the decisions we’re making are so important, shouldn’t we have really robust ways of making sure they’re right?
About planetary boundaries:
Leaving aside the discussions on the specific value and/or variable used to measure a specific boundary -which the authors themselves caveat that may be temporal until finding better ones-, isn’t most of the controversy due to critiques conflating planetary boundaries and tipping points?
META: This + additional comments below from Halstead are strongly suggestive of bad-faith engagement: lazy dismissal without substantive engagement, repeated strawman-ing, Never Play Defense-ing, and accusing his critics of secretly being sockpuppet accounts of known heretics so their views can be ignored.
On the basis of Brandolini’s Law I am going to try to keep my replies as short as I can. If they seem insubstantial, it is likely because I have already responded to the point under discussion elsewhere, or because they are responding to attempts to move the conversation away from the original points of criticism.
I have specific criticisms to make, and I would like to see them addressed rather than ignored, dismissed, or answered only on the condition that I make a whole new set of criticisms for Halstead to also not engage with.
I suggest the reader read Halstead’s response before going back to Gideon’s and my comments. It was useful for me.
Climatic tipping points, cascading risks, and systemic risk are different things and you (hopefully) know it.
If you have refuted arguments made by relevant papers, why didn’t you cite them?
I’m not sure I understand your argument here: you are not under any obligation to discuss opposing perspectives on climate risk because a different paper on climate risk did not explicitly refute an argument that you would go on to make in the future?
In any case, this is not at all what Gideon or I said Your lazy and factually inaccurate dismissal of complex systems theory remains lazy and factually inaccurate. I am not sure where this point about Richards et al. comes into it.
You would have evaluated biorisk if the only possible use of a methodology was making sure you had a comprehensive categorisation system, which (as I hope you know) is not at all true.
I don’t really see how I have not made any arguments here. I suppose I could ask someone if it’s possible to write ‘Please cite your sources.’ in first-order logic.
I would like to hear your justification for how Beard et al, Richards et al, and Kemp et al all lean heavily on the idea of planetary boundaries, and how, if this was true, it would be relevant.
However, I doubt this would go anywhere. I suspect this is simply yet another way of ignoring people who disagree with you without thinking too hard, and relying on the combination of your name-recognition and the average EA’s ignorance of climate change to buy you the ‘Seems like he knows what he’s talking about!’-ness you want.
The moderation team feels that this is unnecessarily hostile and rude, and violates Forum norms. This is a warning; please do better in the future.
How would you prefer people to react when someone acts in bad faith?
What aspects of this comment fall outside those bounds?
Writing this as a moderator, but only expressing my own view.
Accusing someone of acting in bad faith on a public forum can be very damaging to the person, and it’s very easy to be mistaken about such a characterization. Even if the person is acting in bad faith, it might escalate things and make it hard to deal with the underlying problem well.
Instead, it would be better to go through the moderation and community health channels, which you can do by flagging comments/posts or by contacting us directly.