Tl;dr—if you’re working on lobbying in a small or mid-sized country and want to reduce catastrophic risk, trying to increase spending on public goods that benefit the whole world—e.g. research relevant to pandemic preparedness—is an option one might consider.
Some sorts of lobbying or policy work related to catastrophic risk is likely best done in big and rich countries like the US. Only such countries have, or are likely to have, some of the technologies that risk causing a global catastrophe (nuclear weapons, cutting-edge AI, etc). That means that it may be substantially less valuable to try to influence the policies of small countries (though no doubt it depends on a multitude of factors). The value of influencing a country may scale superlinearly with its size.
But that’s not true for all policy interventions. E.g. Guarding Against Pandemics is working to increase US spending on pandemic preparedness. As far as I understand, part of this money would be spent on research on better therapeutics and vaccines, better tests, etc. Such research would presumably benefit the whole world, and funds for it could come from any country, including small or mid-sized countries. That means that for these kinds of interventions, the value of influencing a country likely rather scales linearly with its size (not superlinearly). And since it’s likely easier to influence the policies of smaller countries (e.g. because of lower lobbying competition) that means that the impact of lobbying them could be comparable to that of lobbying the US (though no doubt it depends on many factors). And since Sam Bankman-Fried is excited about lobbying the US government to increase such spending, lobbying other governments could likely also be impactful. (It should be noted, though, that my argument is pretty abstract and there may be additional important considerations.)
On the other hand, smaller countries have less of a stake in reducing global risks, due to their smaller size, so it might be harder to spend a lot to mitigate those risks. Instead, you might want to think about pilot programs that could later be extended to big countries.
Also, I think people in small countries should carefully examine their ability to have an impact through institutions the UN General Assembly that have a one-country-one vote system.
“On the other hand, smaller countries have less of a stake in reducing global risks, due to their smaller size, so it might be harder to spend a lot to mitigate those risks. “
Not sure about that. E.g. the largest foreign aid donors in terms of percentage of GNI are Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, meaning they’re unusually likely to want to contribute to global welfare. Likewise, the Scandinavian countries pursue more radical climate policies than, e.g. the US.
I’ve written about that in the context of climate change:
“Increasing public clean energy R&D does not necessarily require strong multilateralism or harmonized national policies. This makes it very tractable politically and uniquely positioned in the space of all climate policies as a decentralized approach.
And even small countries can contribute. Take Estonia. They have the second largest per capita CO₂ footprint in the EU and by far the most carbon-intensive economy among the OECD countries, because they burn a lot of shale oil.[8]
So are Estonia’s climate policies the worst in the world?[9] Quite the opposite is true: a country with just 1.5 million citizens whose energy footprints amount to only 0.02% of the global total won’t contribute much to climate change.
But more importantly, Estonia spends more than any other country on clean energy R&D relative to GDP. In fact, relative to GDP they spend more than twice as much as Norway. So perhaps Estonia should be regarded as a world leader on climate change despite their high emissions, because increasing public clean energy R&D is the most effective climate change policy. Because of diminishing returns, it is very hard to imagine reducing Estonian emissions to zero. This would mean replacing every last lightbulb with LEDs powered by zero carbon energy and having everyone fly in electric planes. It is much easier to conceive of an Estonian scientist or engineer who improves, say, carbon capture technology so that the diffuse benefits reduce global emissions by 0.02%.
Alas, Estonia’s GDP is small in absolute terms. This is why we need many more countries to be like Estonia.” [source]
Alternatively, small countries can take risks which might be implemented in big countries. Does the US steal ideas from any particular set of small countries?
Tl;dr—if you’re working on lobbying in a small or mid-sized country and want to reduce catastrophic risk, trying to increase spending on public goods that benefit the whole world—e.g. research relevant to pandemic preparedness—is an option one might consider.
Some sorts of lobbying or policy work related to catastrophic risk is likely best done in big and rich countries like the US. Only such countries have, or are likely to have, some of the technologies that risk causing a global catastrophe (nuclear weapons, cutting-edge AI, etc). That means that it may be substantially less valuable to try to influence the policies of small countries (though no doubt it depends on a multitude of factors). The value of influencing a country may scale superlinearly with its size.
But that’s not true for all policy interventions. E.g. Guarding Against Pandemics is working to increase US spending on pandemic preparedness. As far as I understand, part of this money would be spent on research on better therapeutics and vaccines, better tests, etc. Such research would presumably benefit the whole world, and funds for it could come from any country, including small or mid-sized countries. That means that for these kinds of interventions, the value of influencing a country likely rather scales linearly with its size (not superlinearly). And since it’s likely easier to influence the policies of smaller countries (e.g. because of lower lobbying competition) that means that the impact of lobbying them could be comparable to that of lobbying the US (though no doubt it depends on many factors). And since Sam Bankman-Fried is excited about lobbying the US government to increase such spending, lobbying other governments could likely also be impactful. (It should be noted, though, that my argument is pretty abstract and there may be additional important considerations.)
On the other hand, smaller countries have less of a stake in reducing global risks, due to their smaller size, so it might be harder to spend a lot to mitigate those risks. Instead, you might want to think about pilot programs that could later be extended to big countries.
Also, I think people in small countries should carefully examine their ability to have an impact through institutions the UN General Assembly that have a one-country-one vote system.
“On the other hand, smaller countries have less of a stake in reducing global risks, due to their smaller size, so it might be harder to spend a lot to mitigate those risks. “
Not sure about that. E.g. the largest foreign aid donors in terms of percentage of GNI are Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, meaning they’re unusually likely to want to contribute to global welfare. Likewise, the Scandinavian countries pursue more radical climate policies than, e.g. the US.
I’ve written about that in the context of climate change:
“Increasing public clean energy R&D does not necessarily require strong multilateralism or harmonized national policies. This makes it very tractable politically and uniquely positioned in the space of all climate policies as a decentralized approach.
And even small countries can contribute. Take Estonia. They have the second largest per capita CO₂ footprint in the EU and by far the most carbon-intensive economy among the OECD countries, because they burn a lot of shale oil.[8]
So are Estonia’s climate policies the worst in the world?[9] Quite the opposite is true: a country with just 1.5 million citizens whose energy footprints amount to only 0.02% of the global total won’t contribute much to climate change.
But more importantly, Estonia spends more than any other country on clean energy R&D relative to GDP. In fact, relative to GDP they spend more than twice as much as Norway. So perhaps Estonia should be regarded as a world leader on climate change despite their high emissions, because increasing public clean energy R&D is the most effective climate change policy. Because of diminishing returns, it is very hard to imagine reducing Estonian emissions to zero. This would mean replacing every last lightbulb with LEDs powered by zero carbon energy and having everyone fly in electric planes. It is much easier to conceive of an Estonian scientist or engineer who improves, say, carbon capture technology so that the diffuse benefits reduce global emissions by 0.02%.
Alas, Estonia’s GDP is small in absolute terms. This is why we need many more countries to be like Estonia.” [source]
Alternatively, small countries can take risks which might be implemented in big countries. Does the US steal ideas from any particular set of small countries?