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.
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.