Hmm, I don’t read it that way. My read of this passage is: the risk of WWIII by 2070 might be as high as somewhat over 20% (but that estimate is probably picked from the higher end of serious estimates), WWIII may or may not lead to all-out nuclear war, all-out nuclear war has some unknown chance of leading to the collapse of civilization, and if that happened then there would also be some further unknown chance of never recovering. So all-in-all, I’d read this as Will thinking that X-risk from nuclear war in the next 50 years was well below 20%.
I also don’t think NYT readers have particularly clear prejudices about nuclear war (they probably have larger prejudices about things like overpopulation), so this would be a weird place to make a concession, in my mind.
Hmm, I don’t read it that way. My read of this passage is: the risk of WWIII by 2070 might be as high as somewhat over 20% (but that estimate is probably picked from the higher end of serious estimates), WWIII may or may not lead to all-out nuclear war, all-out nuclear war has some unknown chance of leading to the collapse of civilization, and if that happened then there would also be some further unknown chance of never recovering. So all-in-all, I’d read this as Will thinking that X-risk from nuclear war in the next 50 years was well below 20%.
I also don’t think NYT readers have particularly clear prejudices about nuclear war (they probably have larger prejudices about things like overpopulation), so this would be a weird place to make a concession, in my mind.