Thanks for addressing what is, imho, the most important existential risk.
If you’re willing, there are simpler ways to look at nuclear weapons.
First, there isn’t really any credible evidence that either activists or technical experts are capable of removing this threat, at least at the present time. You know, the nuclear weapons threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952. In fact, it’s gotten worse, as more countries, and less stable countries, now have access to these weapons.
Imho, if everyone had your level of technical expertise on this subject it wouldn’t really matter because such knowledge is all a big pile of abstractions, and few of us are capable of converting intellectual abstractions in to the emotional experience which is typically needed to fuel sustained effective action. Evidence: the overwhelming majority of people, even the uneducated, already know the necessary simple facts, and it’s not made any meaningful difference.
Imho, there is a “secret weapon” which has the potential to change this super sleepy status quo for the better. The next detonation.
At this point almost nobody alive today was alive at the time of Hiroshima. If they were alive at that time they were probably a toddler, incapable of experiencing the event. A great many people are probably not entirely sure which came first, Hiroshima, or WWI.
When the next detonation in anger comes, and I’m convinced it will sooner or later, the event will receive wall to wall coverage for months by the media. The media coverage will be like 9/11, except far more intense. For at least months, horrific video will be pumped in to every home with a television, over and over and over again. How many times did we see the twin towers come down? Hundreds?
Again, there is no credible evidence that technical experts or activists can solve this problem. The people who MIGHT be able to turn the tide are terrorists. Our best hope is probably an event that is large enough to shake public consciousness to the core, and small enough to do the least possible damage.
What we might learn from nuclear weapons is that human beings typically don’t learn things this huge through reason. It’s usually pain that is our teacher.
A constructive question that activists and technical experts might be working on is this. What will be our role once the next detonation comes, and conscious raising is no longer necessary? When the social environment changes from us never being interested in nuclear weapons, to be interested in nothing else, what contribution can effective altruists make at that moment?
Sorry to say, nothing meaningful is going to happen on nuclear weapons until after the next detonation. At that point, anything can happen, for the much better, and the much worse.
Thanks for addressing what is, imho, the most important existential risk.
If you’re willing, there are simpler ways to look at nuclear weapons.
First, there isn’t really any credible evidence that either activists or technical experts are capable of removing this threat, at least at the present time. You know, the nuclear weapons threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952. In fact, it’s gotten worse, as more countries, and less stable countries, now have access to these weapons.
Imho, if everyone had your level of technical expertise on this subject it wouldn’t really matter because such knowledge is all a big pile of abstractions, and few of us are capable of converting intellectual abstractions in to the emotional experience which is typically needed to fuel sustained effective action. Evidence: the overwhelming majority of people, even the uneducated, already know the necessary simple facts, and it’s not made any meaningful difference.
Imho, there is a “secret weapon” which has the potential to change this super sleepy status quo for the better. The next detonation.
At this point almost nobody alive today was alive at the time of Hiroshima. If they were alive at that time they were probably a toddler, incapable of experiencing the event. A great many people are probably not entirely sure which came first, Hiroshima, or WWI.
When the next detonation in anger comes, and I’m convinced it will sooner or later, the event will receive wall to wall coverage for months by the media. The media coverage will be like 9/11, except far more intense. For at least months, horrific video will be pumped in to every home with a television, over and over and over again. How many times did we see the twin towers come down? Hundreds?
Again, there is no credible evidence that technical experts or activists can solve this problem. The people who MIGHT be able to turn the tide are terrorists. Our best hope is probably an event that is large enough to shake public consciousness to the core, and small enough to do the least possible damage.
What we might learn from nuclear weapons is that human beings typically don’t learn things this huge through reason. It’s usually pain that is our teacher.
A constructive question that activists and technical experts might be working on is this. What will be our role once the next detonation comes, and conscious raising is no longer necessary? When the social environment changes from us never being interested in nuclear weapons, to be interested in nothing else, what contribution can effective altruists make at that moment?
Sorry to say, nothing meaningful is going to happen on nuclear weapons until after the next detonation. At that point, anything can happen, for the much better, and the much worse.