On a 2018 episode of the FLI podcast about the probability of nuclear war and the history of incidents that could’ve escalated to nuclear war, Seth Baum said:
a lot of the incidents were earlier within, say, the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and less within the recent decades. That gave me some hope that maybe things are moving in the right direction.
I think we could flesh out this idea as the following argument:
Premise 1. We know of fewer incidents that could’ve escalated to nuclear war from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s.
Premise 2. If we know of fewer such incidents from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s, this is evidence that there really were fewer incidents from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s.
Premise 3. If there were fewer such incidents from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s, the odds of nuclear war are lower than they were in the 40s-60s.
Conclusion. The odds of nuclear war are (probably) lower than they were in the 40s-60s.
I don’t really have much independent knowledge regarding the first premise, but I’ll take Baum’s word for it. And the third premise seems to make sense.
But I wonder about the second premise, which Baum’s statements seem to sort-of take for granted (which is fair enough, as this was just one quick, verbal statement from him). In particular, I wonder whether the observation “I know about fewer recent than older incidents” is actually what we’d expect to see even if the rate hadn’t changed, just because security-relevant secrets only gradually get released/filter into the public record? If so, should we avoid updating our beliefs about the rate based on that observation?
These are genuine rather than rhetorical questions. I don’t know much about how we come to know about these sorts of incidents; if someone knows more, I’d appreciate their views on what we can make of knowing about fewer recent incidents.
This also seems relevant to some points made earlier on that podcast. In particular, Robert de Neufville said:
We don’t have incidents from China’s nuclear program, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any, it just means it’s hard to figure out, and that scenario would be really interesting to do more research on.
(Note: This was just one of many things Baum said, and was a quick, verbal comment. He may in reality already have thought in depth about the questions I raised. And in any case, he definitely seems to think the risk of nuclear war is significant enough to warrant a lot of attention.)
On a 2018 episode of the FLI podcast about the probability of nuclear war and the history of incidents that could’ve escalated to nuclear war, Seth Baum said:
I think we could flesh out this idea as the following argument:
Premise 1. We know of fewer incidents that could’ve escalated to nuclear war from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s.
Premise 2. If we know of fewer such incidents from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s, this is evidence that there really were fewer incidents from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s.
Premise 3. If there were fewer such incidents from the 70s onwards than from the 40s-60s, the odds of nuclear war are lower than they were in the 40s-60s.
Conclusion. The odds of nuclear war are (probably) lower than they were in the 40s-60s.
I don’t really have much independent knowledge regarding the first premise, but I’ll take Baum’s word for it. And the third premise seems to make sense.
But I wonder about the second premise, which Baum’s statements seem to sort-of take for granted (which is fair enough, as this was just one quick, verbal statement from him). In particular, I wonder whether the observation “I know about fewer recent than older incidents” is actually what we’d expect to see even if the rate hadn’t changed, just because security-relevant secrets only gradually get released/filter into the public record? If so, should we avoid updating our beliefs about the rate based on that observation?
These are genuine rather than rhetorical questions. I don’t know much about how we come to know about these sorts of incidents; if someone knows more, I’d appreciate their views on what we can make of knowing about fewer recent incidents.
This also seems relevant to some points made earlier on that podcast. In particular, Robert de Neufville said:
(Note: This was just one of many things Baum said, and was a quick, verbal comment. He may in reality already have thought in depth about the questions I raised. And in any case, he definitely seems to think the risk of nuclear war is significant enough to warrant a lot of attention.)