How likely are international tensions, armed conflicts of various levels/types, and great power war specifically at various future times? What are the causes of these things?
How might shifts in technology, climate, power, resource scarcity, migration, and economic growth affect the likelihood of war?
Are Pinker’s claims in The Better Angels of Our Nature essentially correct?
Are the current trends likely to hold in future? What might affect them?
How do international tensions, strategic competition, and risks of armed conflict affect the expected value of the long-term future? By what pathways?
What are the plausible ways a great power war could play out?
E.g., what countries would become involved? How much would it escalate? How long would it last? What types of technologies might be developed and/or used during it?
What are the main pathways by which international tensions, armed conflicts of various levels/types, or great power war specifically could increase (or decrease) existential risks? Possible examples include:
Spurring dangerous development and/or deployment of new technologies
Spurring dangerous deployment of existing technologies
Impeding existential risk reduction efforts (since those often require coordination and are global public goods)
Worsening (or improving) the values of various actors (e.g., reducing or increasing impartiality or inclinations towards multilateralism among the public or among political leaders)
Changing the international system’s global governance arrangements and/or polarity (which could then make coordination easier or harder, make stable authoritarianism more or less likely, etc.)
Serving as a “warning shot” that improves values, facilitates coordination, motivates risk reduction efforts, etc.
How might plausible changes in variables such as climate, resource scarcity, migration, urbanisation, population size, and economic growth affect answers to the above questions?
To what extent does this push in favour of or against work to affect those variables (e.g., climate change mitigation, open borders advocacy, improving macroeconomic policy)?
What are the best actions for intervening on international tensions, strategic competition, risks of armed conflict, or specifically the ways that these things might harm the long-term future?
What are the most cost-effective actions for achieving these goals?
In relation to international tensions, strategic competition, and risks of armed conflict in particular, we can also ask the following specific sub-questions:
How useful are things like diplomacy, treaties, arms control agreements, international organisations, and international norms? What actions are best in relation to those things?
On armed conflict and military technology
How likely are international tensions, armed conflicts of various levels/types, and great power war specifically at various future times? What are the causes of these things?
How might shifts in technology, climate, power, resource scarcity, migration, and economic growth affect the likelihood of war?
Are Pinker’s claims in The Better Angels of Our Nature essentially correct?
Are the current trends likely to hold in future? What might affect them?
How do international tensions, strategic competition, and risks of armed conflict affect the expected value of the long-term future? By what pathways?
What are the plausible ways a great power war could play out?
E.g., what countries would become involved? How much would it escalate? How long would it last? What types of technologies might be developed and/or used during it?
What are the main pathways by which international tensions, armed conflicts of various levels/types, or great power war specifically could increase (or decrease) existential risks? Possible examples include:
Spurring dangerous development and/or deployment of new technologies
Spurring dangerous deployment of existing technologies
Impeding existential risk reduction efforts (since those often require coordination and are global public goods)
Sweeping aside or ushering in global governance arrangements
Weakening (or strengthening) democracies
Worsening (or improving) the values of various actors (e.g., reducing or increasing impartiality or inclinations towards multilateralism among the public or among political leaders)
Changing the international system’s global governance arrangements and/or polarity (which could then make coordination easier or harder, make stable authoritarianism more or less likely, etc.)
Serving as a “warning shot” that improves values, facilitates coordination, motivates risk reduction efforts, etc.
How might plausible changes in variables such as climate, resource scarcity, migration, urbanisation, population size, and economic growth affect answers to the above questions?
To what extent does this push in favour of or against work to affect those variables (e.g., climate change mitigation, open borders advocacy, improving macroeconomic policy)?
What are the best actions for intervening on international tensions, strategic competition, risks of armed conflict, or specifically the ways that these things might harm the long-term future?
What are the most cost-effective actions for achieving these goals?
In relation to international tensions, strategic competition, and risks of armed conflict in particular, we can also ask the following specific sub-questions:
How useful are things like diplomacy, treaties, arms control agreements, international organisations, and international norms? What actions are best in relation to those things?