Another one to consider, assuming you see it at the same level of analysis as the 8 above, is the spatial trajectory through which the catastrophe unfolds. E.g. a pandemic will spread from an origin(s) and I’m guessing is statistically likely to impact certain well-connected regions of the world first. Or a lethal command to a robot army will radiate outward from the storage facility for the army. Or nuclear winter will impact certain regions sooner than others. Or Ecological collapse due to an unstoppable biological novelty will devour certain kinds of environment more quickly (same possibly for grey goo), etc. There may be systematic regularities to which spaces on Earth are affected and when. Currently completely unknown. But knowledge of these patterns could help target certain kinds of resilience and mitigation measures to where they are likely to have time to succeed before themselves being impacted.
Hey Matt, good points! This all relates to what Avin et al. call the spread mechanism of global catastrophic risk. If you haven’t read it already, I’m sure you’ll like their paper!
For some of these we actually do have an inkling of knowledge though! Nuclear winter is more likely to affect the northern hemisphere given that practically every nuclear target is located in the northern hemisphere. And it’s my impression that in biosecurity geographical containment is a big issue: an extra case in the same location is much less threatening than an extra case in a new country. As a result there are border checks for a hazardous disease at borders where one might expect a disease (e.g. currently the borders with the Democratic Repbulic of the Congo).
Another one to consider, assuming you see it at the same level of analysis as the 8 above, is the spatial trajectory through which the catastrophe unfolds. E.g. a pandemic will spread from an origin(s) and I’m guessing is statistically likely to impact certain well-connected regions of the world first. Or a lethal command to a robot army will radiate outward from the storage facility for the army. Or nuclear winter will impact certain regions sooner than others. Or Ecological collapse due to an unstoppable biological novelty will devour certain kinds of environment more quickly (same possibly for grey goo), etc. There may be systematic regularities to which spaces on Earth are affected and when. Currently completely unknown. But knowledge of these patterns could help target certain kinds of resilience and mitigation measures to where they are likely to have time to succeed before themselves being impacted.
Hey Matt, good points! This all relates to what Avin et al. call the spread mechanism of global catastrophic risk. If you haven’t read it already, I’m sure you’ll like their paper!
For some of these we actually do have an inkling of knowledge though! Nuclear winter is more likely to affect the northern hemisphere given that practically every nuclear target is located in the northern hemisphere. And it’s my impression that in biosecurity geographical containment is a big issue: an extra case in the same location is much less threatening than an extra case in a new country. As a result there are border checks for a hazardous disease at borders where one might expect a disease (e.g. currently the borders with the Democratic Repbulic of the Congo).