Why I’m less optimistic than Toby Ord about New Zealand in nuclear winter, and maybe about collapse more generally
This is a lightly edited version of some quick thoughts I wrote in May 2020. These thoughts are just my reaction to some specific claims in The Precipice, intended in a spirit of updating incrementally. This is not a substantive post containing my full views on nuclear war or collapse & recovery.
In The Precipice, Ord writes:
[If a nuclear winter occurs,] Existential catastrophe via a global unrecoverable collapse of civilisation also seems unlikely, especially if we consider somewhere like New Zealand (or the south-east of Australia) which is unlikely to be directly targeted and will avoid the worst effects of nuclear winter by being coastal. It is hard to see why they wouldn’t make it through with most of their technology (and institutions) intact.
I share the view that it’s unlikely that New Zealand would be directly targeted by nuclear war, or that nuclear winter would cause New Zealand to suffer extreme agricultural losses or lose its technology. (That said, I haven’t looked into that closely myself.) However, it seems to me relatively easy to see why New Zealand might suffer a collapse—whether immediately following the nuclear war or after months, years, or decades. For example, I think collapse in New Zealand could plausibly be caused by:
Some massive emotional, social, and political reactions within New Zealand to a global nuclear war and nuclear winter
Nuclear winter might kill billions and cause many countries to collapse, and it seems hard to predict how people elsewhere would react to that
Huge numbers of people (perhaps over a billion?) trying to get into New Zealand if agriculture and/or civilization in most other places collapses
Further military actions by panicking governments or starving populaces
Sudden collapse of global trade[1]
But what particularly stood out to me the above passage was Ord’s suggestion that it’s “hard to see” why New Zealand’s institutions wouldn’t remain intact. For the above reasons, I would see it as likely that there’d be majorshifts in New Zealand’s institutions in a scenario where nuclear winter caused collapse in most of the rest of the world. And I’d see it as plausible that these shifts would be for the worse, and would cause NZ’s institutions to no longer be “intact”. (I’m not sure whether this is really a strong disagreement with Ord, as I’m not sure precisely what he meant by “hard to see”.)
The more generalised version of the ideas I’m expressing is that I’m quite concerned about what “recovery” from collapse might look like—I think in a lot of scenarios, recovery along technological and economic dimensions seems fairly likely, but it seems far harder to say what our morals, norms, social institutions, political systems, etc. would be like. It’s quite unclear to me how inevitable the apparent global trends towards something like capitalism (rather than something like feudalism), democracy, moral circle expansion, liberty for slaves, etc. were, and whether any inevitability there was would remain in place following the “scarring” and upheaval of a collapse.
This view is related to the following statements from Beckstead (2015):
If a global catastrophe occurs, I believe there is some (highly uncertain) probability that civilization would not fully recover (though I would also guess that recovery is significantly more likely than not). This seems possible to me for the general and non-specific reason that the mechanisms of civilizational progress are not understood and there is essentially no historical precedent for events severe enough to kill a substantial fraction of the world’s population. I also think that there are more specific reasons to believe that an extreme catastrophe could degrade the culture and institutions necessary for scientific and social progress, and/or upset a relatively favorable geopolitical situation. This could result in increased and extended exposure to other global catastrophic risks, an advanced civilization with a flawed realization of human values, failure to realize other “global upside possibilities,” and/or other issues.
[...]
In this way, our situation seems analogous to the situation of someone who is caring for a sapling, has very limited experience with saplings, has no mechanistic understanding of how saplings work, and wants to ensure that nothing stops the sapling from becoming a great redwood. It would be hard for them to be confident that the sapling’s eventual long-term growth would be unaffected by unprecedented shocks—such as cutting off 40% of its branches or letting it go without water for 20% longer than it ever had before—even taken as given that such shocks wouldn’t directly/immediately result in its death. For similar reasons, it seems hard to be confident that humanity’s eventual long-term progress would be unaffected by a catastrophe that resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths.
[1] I’m not sure precisely what any of those things would look like, how they could lead to collapse, how likely they are, or how likely recovery from such a collapse might be in any case. Perhaps Ord has looked into such possibilities in depth, and concluded they don’t pose a major concern. But to me it at least seems plausible that they could cause a major collapse even in places such as New Zealand. And if collapse does occur, I see recovery as not guaranteed (although probably >50% likely, at least for economic and technological recovery).
You can see a list of all the things I’ve written that summarise, comment on, or take inspiration from parts of The Precipice here.
Why I’m less optimistic than Toby Ord about New Zealand in nuclear winter, and maybe about collapse more generally
This is a lightly edited version of some quick thoughts I wrote in May 2020. These thoughts are just my reaction to some specific claims in The Precipice, intended in a spirit of updating incrementally. This is not a substantive post containing my full views on nuclear war or collapse & recovery.
In The Precipice, Ord writes:
(See also the relevant section of Ord’s 80,000 Hours interview.)
I share the view that it’s unlikely that New Zealand would be directly targeted by nuclear war, or that nuclear winter would cause New Zealand to suffer extreme agricultural losses or lose its technology. (That said, I haven’t looked into that closely myself.) However, it seems to me relatively easy to see why New Zealand might suffer a collapse—whether immediately following the nuclear war or after months, years, or decades. For example, I think collapse in New Zealand could plausibly be caused by:
Some massive emotional, social, and political reactions within New Zealand to a global nuclear war and nuclear winter
Nuclear winter might kill billions and cause many countries to collapse, and it seems hard to predict how people elsewhere would react to that
Huge numbers of people (perhaps over a billion?) trying to get into New Zealand if agriculture and/or civilization in most other places collapses
Further military actions by panicking governments or starving populaces
Sudden collapse of global trade[1]
But what particularly stood out to me the above passage was Ord’s suggestion that it’s “hard to see” why New Zealand’s institutions wouldn’t remain intact. For the above reasons, I would see it as likely that there’d be major shifts in New Zealand’s institutions in a scenario where nuclear winter caused collapse in most of the rest of the world. And I’d see it as plausible that these shifts would be for the worse, and would cause NZ’s institutions to no longer be “intact”. (I’m not sure whether this is really a strong disagreement with Ord, as I’m not sure precisely what he meant by “hard to see”.)
The more generalised version of the ideas I’m expressing is that I’m quite concerned about what “recovery” from collapse might look like—I think in a lot of scenarios, recovery along technological and economic dimensions seems fairly likely, but it seems far harder to say what our morals, norms, social institutions, political systems, etc. would be like. It’s quite unclear to me how inevitable the apparent global trends towards something like capitalism (rather than something like feudalism), democracy, moral circle expansion, liberty for slaves, etc. were, and whether any inevitability there was would remain in place following the “scarring” and upheaval of a collapse.
This view is related to the following statements from Beckstead (2015):
[1] I’m not sure precisely what any of those things would look like, how they could lead to collapse, how likely they are, or how likely recovery from such a collapse might be in any case. Perhaps Ord has looked into such possibilities in depth, and concluded they don’t pose a major concern. But to me it at least seems plausible that they could cause a major collapse even in places such as New Zealand. And if collapse does occur, I see recovery as not guaranteed (although probably >50% likely, at least for economic and technological recovery).
You can see a list of all the things I’ve written that summarise, comment on, or take inspiration from parts of The Precipice here.