I want to give a brief update on this topic. I spent a couple months researching civilizational collapse scenarios and come to some tentative conclusions. At some point I may write a longer post on this, but I think some of my other upcoming posts will address some of my reasoning here.
My conclusion after investigating potential collapse scenarios:
1) There are a number of plausible (>1% probability) scenarios in the next hundred years that would result in a “civilizational collapse”, where an unprecedented number of people die and key technologies are (temporarily) lost.
2) Most of these collapse scenarios would be temporary, with complete recovery likely on the scale of decades to a couple hundred years.
3) The highest leverage point for intervention in a potential post-collapse environment would be at the state level. Individuals, even wealthy individuals, lack the infrastructure and human resources at the scale necessary to rebuild effectively. There are some decent mitigations possible in the space of information archival, such as seed banks and internet archives, but these are far less likely to have long term impacts compared to state efforts.
Based on these conclusions, I decided to focus my efforts on other global risk analysis areas, because I felt I didn’t have the relevant skills or resources to embark on a state-level project. If I did have those skills & resources, I believe (low to medium confidence) it would be worthwhile project, and if I found a person or group who did possess those skills / resources, I would strongly consider offering my assistance.
1) There are a number of plausible (>1% probability) scenarios in the next hundred years that would result in a “civilizational collapse”, where an unprecedented number of people die and key technologies are (temporarily) lost.
Are you saying here that you believe the scenarios add up to a greater than 1% probability of collapse in the next hundred years, or that you believe there are multiple scenarios that each have greater than 1% probability?
I want to give a brief update on this topic. I spent a couple months researching civilizational collapse scenarios and come to some tentative conclusions. At some point I may write a longer post on this, but I think some of my other upcoming posts will address some of my reasoning here.
My conclusion after investigating potential collapse scenarios:
1) There are a number of plausible (>1% probability) scenarios in the next hundred years that would result in a “civilizational collapse”, where an unprecedented number of people die and key technologies are (temporarily) lost.
2) Most of these collapse scenarios would be temporary, with complete recovery likely on the scale of decades to a couple hundred years.
3) The highest leverage point for intervention in a potential post-collapse environment would be at the state level. Individuals, even wealthy individuals, lack the infrastructure and human resources at the scale necessary to rebuild effectively. There are some decent mitigations possible in the space of information archival, such as seed banks and internet archives, but these are far less likely to have long term impacts compared to state efforts.
Based on these conclusions, I decided to focus my efforts on other global risk analysis areas, because I felt I didn’t have the relevant skills or resources to embark on a state-level project. If I did have those skills & resources, I believe (low to medium confidence) it would be worthwhile project, and if I found a person or group who did possess those skills / resources, I would strongly consider offering my assistance.
Are you saying here that you believe the scenarios add up to a greater than 1% probability of collapse in the next hundred years, or that you believe there are multiple scenarios that each have greater than 1% probability?