Nice dissection of the VWH and its possible points of weakness, found this very helpful for thinking through the argument(s) on surveillance as an intervention!
Here’s one (not very decisive) comment to add to what you say about “Maybe we could change human values so nobody (or almost nobody) wants to cause global catastrophes? “: This could link to efforts for understanding and addressing “the root causes” of terrorism (and other kinds of extreme violence). Research and thinking on this seems very unconclusive and far from providing a clear recipe for interventions at this point; but given the problems of the mass-surveillance approach that you outline, “tackling root causes/motivations” might still be worth looking into as a potential alternative approach towards reducing the risk of global catastrophe caused by “bad actors”.
Nice dissection of the VWH and its possible points of weakness, found this very helpful for thinking through the argument(s) on surveillance as an intervention!
Here’s one (not very decisive) comment to add to what you say about “Maybe we could change human values so nobody (or almost nobody) wants to cause global catastrophes? “: This could link to efforts for understanding and addressing “the root causes” of terrorism (and other kinds of extreme violence). Research and thinking on this seems very unconclusive and far from providing a clear recipe for interventions at this point; but given the problems of the mass-surveillance approach that you outline, “tackling root causes/motivations” might still be worth looking into as a potential alternative approach towards reducing the risk of global catastrophe caused by “bad actors”.