Am I reading the 0.1% probability for nuclear war right as the probability that nuclear war breaks out at all, or the probability that it breaks out and leads to human extinction? If it’s the former, this seems much too low. Consider that twice in history nuclear warfare was likely averted by the actions of a single person (e.g. Stanislav Petrov), and we have had several other close calls ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls ).
I believe it is the probability that a nuclear war occurs AND leads to human extinction, as described in The Precipice. I think I would agree that if it was the just the probability of nuclear war, this would be too low, and a large reason the number is small is because of the difficulty for a nuclear war to cause human extinction.
Am I reading the 0.1% probability for nuclear war right as the probability that nuclear war breaks out at all, or the probability that it breaks out and leads to human extinction? If it’s the former, this seems much too low. Consider that twice in history nuclear warfare was likely averted by the actions of a single person (e.g. Stanislav Petrov), and we have had several other close calls ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls ).
I believe it is the probability that a nuclear war occurs AND leads to human extinction, as described in The Precipice. I think I would agree that if it was the just the probability of nuclear war, this would be too low, and a large reason the number is small is because of the difficulty for a nuclear war to cause human extinction.