I’ve been reading Phil Torres’s book on existential risks and I agree with him to the extent that people have been too dismissive about the amount of omnicidal agents or their capability to destroy the world. I think his reaction to Pinker would be that the level of competence needed to create disruption is decreasing because of technological development. Therefore, historical precedent is not a great guide. See: Who would destroy the world? Omnicidal agents and related phenomena
Abstract:
The capacity for small groups and even single individuals to wreak unprecedented havoc on civilization is growing as a result of dual-use emerging technologies. This means that scholars should be increasingly concerned about individuals who express omnicidal, mass genocidal, anti-civilizational, or apocalyptic beliefs/desires. The present article offers a comprehensive and systematic survey of actual individuals who have harbored a death wish for humanity or destruction wish for civilization. This paper thus provides a strong foundation for future research on “agential risks” and related issues. It could also serve as a helpful resource for counterterrorism experts and global risk scholars who wish to better understand our evolving threat environment.
I don’t know that I agree with Pinker; even if he’s right about the low base rate, ideas that reassure us about the limited impact of people with guns and poison may not extend to omnicidal attacks. I’m still much more worried about skilled groups of people working within corporations and governments, but I assume that our threat profile will shift more toward individuals over time.
This also seems reminiscent of Bostrom’s Vulnerable World Hypothesis (published a year after this thread, so fair enough that it didn’t make an appearance here :D). The abstract:
Scientific and technological progress might change people’s capabilities or incentives in ways that would destabilize civilization. For example, advances in DIY biohacking tools might make it easy for anybody with basic training in biology to kill millions; novel military technologies could trigger arms races in which whoever strikes first has a decisive advantage; or some economically advantageous process may be invented that produces disastrous negative global externalities that are hard to regulate. This paper introduces the concept of a vulnerable world: roughly, one in which there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default, i.e. unless it has exited the ‘semi-anarchic default condition’. Several counterfactual historical and speculative future vulnerabilities are analyzed and arranged into a typology. A general ability to stabilize a vulnerable world would require greatly amplified capacities for preventive policing and global governance. The vulnerable world hypothesis thus offers a new perspective from which to evaluate the risk-benefit balance of developments towards ubiquitous surveillance or a unipolar world order.
The most relevant part is Bostrom’s “easy nukes” thought experiment.
I’ve been reading Phil Torres’s book on existential risks and I agree with him to the extent that people have been too dismissive about the amount of omnicidal agents or their capability to destroy the world. I think his reaction to Pinker would be that the level of competence needed to create disruption is decreasing because of technological development. Therefore, historical precedent is not a great guide. See: Who would destroy the world? Omnicidal agents and related phenomena
Abstract:
I don’t know that I agree with Pinker; even if he’s right about the low base rate, ideas that reassure us about the limited impact of people with guns and poison may not extend to omnicidal attacks. I’m still much more worried about skilled groups of people working within corporations and governments, but I assume that our threat profile will shift more toward individuals over time.
This also seems reminiscent of Bostrom’s Vulnerable World Hypothesis (published a year after this thread, so fair enough that it didn’t make an appearance here :D). The abstract:
The most relevant part is Bostrom’s “easy nukes” thought experiment.