Basically, the US government is trying to find all the pandemic-capable viruses it can, and it will then POST THEIR FULL GENOMES ONLINE.
This is potentially a catastrophically stupid blunder that we intend to make but have not made yet. The recommended actions from Rob are to tell USAID directly at https://​​www.usaid.gov/​​contact-us, tweet at them, if you live in a state with a senator on the subcommittee on state department and USAID management (https://​​www.govtrack.us/​​congress/​​committees/​​SSFR/​​14) contact your senator, contact Washington State University if you have a relevant tie, and otherwise spread this, get attention, apply whatever leverage you have.
Sam Harris and Rob Reid just put out this podcast that seems very relevant to this community:
[The After On Podcast] 58: Recipes for Future Plagues | Kevin Esvelt #theAfterOnPodcast
https://​​podcastaddict.com/​​episode/​​136135023 via @PodcastAddict
Basically, the US government is trying to find all the pandemic-capable viruses it can, and it will then POST THEIR FULL GENOMES ONLINE.
This is potentially a catastrophically stupid blunder that we intend to make but have not made yet. The recommended actions from Rob are to tell USAID directly at https://​​www.usaid.gov/​​contact-us, tweet at them, if you live in a state with a senator on the subcommittee on state department and USAID management (https://​​www.govtrack.us/​​congress/​​committees/​​SSFR/​​14) contact your senator, contact Washington State University if you have a relevant tie, and otherwise spread this, get attention, apply whatever leverage you have.
Twitter thread from Kevin Esvelt (professor at MIT, speaker at EA global on mitigating catastrophic biorisks):
https://​​twitter.com/​​kesvelt/​​status/​​1498409798903209996
Here’s some very well done podcast notes if you like text more than audio:
https://​​docs.google.com/​​document/​​d/​​1ORM6XjEQCycmzBrCt_D3nyl5O_fNPGwS3kYpAAy364c/​​edit?usp=sharing