I think it’s not at all a reasonable place to worry about infohazard, for 2 reasons related to incentives.
First, the decisionmakers in a nuclear conflict are very likely going to die regardless—they are located in large cities or other target areas. Whether or not there is a nuclear winter is irrelevant.
Second, the difference between hundreds of millions dead and billions dead is morally critical, but strategically doesn’t matter—if the US is involved in a large scale nuclear exchange with Russia or China, it’s going to be a disaster for the US, and it doesn’t matter to them whether it also devastates agriculture in Australia and Africa.
On top of this, I think that this is a bad situation to argue for infohazard risk, since hiding the damage or lack thereof of an extant risk is imposing ignorance on an affected group. This wouldn’t be critical if the infohazard creates the risk, but here it does not.
Thanks David that all makes sense. Perhaps my comment was poorly phrased but I didn’t mean to argue for caring about infohazards per se, but was curious for opinions on it as a consideration (mainly poking to build my/others’understanding of the space ). I agree that imposing ignorance on affected groups is bad by default.
Do you think the point I made below in this thread regarding pressure from third party states is important? Your point “it doesn’t matter to them whether it also devastates agriculture in Africa or Australia” doesn’t seem obviously true at least considering indirect effects. Presumably, it would matter a lot to Australia/African countries/most third party states, and they might apply relevant political pressure. It doesn’t seem obvious that this would be strategically irrelevant in most nuclear scenarios.
Even if there is some increased risk, I feel it is a confusing question about how this trades off with being honest/having academic integrity. Perhaps the outside view (in almost all other contexts I can think of, researchers being honest with governments seems good -perhaps the more relevant class is military related research which feels less obvious) dominates here enough to follow the general principles.
I don’t think pressure from third-party states is geostrategically relevant for most near-term decisions, especially because there is tremendous pressure already around the norm against nuclear weapons usage.
I strongly agree that the default should be openness, unless there is a specific reason for concern. And I even more strongly agree that honesty is critical for government and academia—whihc is why I’m much happier with banning research because of publicly acknowledged hazards, and preventing the discovery of information that might pose hazards, rather than lying about risks if they are discovered.
if the US is involved in a large scale nuclear exchange with Russia or China, it’s going to be a disaster for the US, and it doesn’t matter to them whether it also devastates agriculture in Australia and Africa.
Unless the relevant decision makers are scope-sensitive to the point of caring about the indirect deaths in the US, which may be significant if there is a severe nuclear winter? I guess it would not matter, because the direct deaths and destruction would already be super bad!
Nitpick, Australia may have more food depending on the amount of soot ejected into the stratosphere. Table S2 of Xia 2022:
I think it’s not at all a reasonable place to worry about infohazard, for 2 reasons related to incentives.
First, the decisionmakers in a nuclear conflict are very likely going to die regardless—they are located in large cities or other target areas. Whether or not there is a nuclear winter is irrelevant.
Second, the difference between hundreds of millions dead and billions dead is morally critical, but strategically doesn’t matter—if the US is involved in a large scale nuclear exchange with Russia or China, it’s going to be a disaster for the US, and it doesn’t matter to them whether it also devastates agriculture in Australia and Africa.
On top of this, I think that this is a bad situation to argue for infohazard risk, since hiding the damage or lack thereof of an extant risk is imposing ignorance on an affected group. This wouldn’t be critical if the infohazard creates the risk, but here it does not.
Thanks David that all makes sense. Perhaps my comment was poorly phrased but I didn’t mean to argue for caring about infohazards per se, but was curious for opinions on it as a consideration (mainly poking to build my/others’understanding of the space ). I agree that imposing ignorance on affected groups is bad by default.
Do you think the point I made below in this thread regarding pressure from third party states is important? Your point “it doesn’t matter to them whether it also devastates agriculture in Africa or Australia” doesn’t seem obviously true at least considering indirect effects. Presumably, it would matter a lot to Australia/African countries/most third party states, and they might apply relevant political pressure. It doesn’t seem obvious that this would be strategically irrelevant in most nuclear scenarios.
Even if there is some increased risk, I feel it is a confusing question about how this trades off with being honest/having academic integrity. Perhaps the outside view (in almost all other contexts I can think of, researchers being honest with governments seems good -perhaps the more relevant class is military related research which feels less obvious) dominates here enough to follow the general principles.
I don’t think pressure from third-party states is geostrategically relevant for most near-term decisions, especially because there is tremendous pressure already around the norm against nuclear weapons usage.
I strongly agree that the default should be openness, unless there is a specific reason for concern. And I even more strongly agree that honesty is critical for government and academia—whihc is why I’m much happier with banning research because of publicly acknowledged hazards, and preventing the discovery of information that might pose hazards, rather than lying about risks if they are discovered.
Hi David,
Unless the relevant decision makers are scope-sensitive to the point of caring about the indirect deaths in the US, which may be significant if there is a severe nuclear winter? I guess it would not matter, because the direct deaths and destruction would already be super bad!
Nitpick, Australia may have more food depending on the amount of soot ejected into the stratosphere. Table S2 of Xia 2022: