I am confused by this comment because I think you’re suggesting the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists didn’t follow the advice above, but it sounds like they followed it to the letter.
I recognize there is some ambiguity in my comment. I also read your article again and I noticed some ambiguity I perceived on my part. That seems to be the source of confusion.
To clarify, it was not only the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) who took those personal and professional risks in question. Other scientists and individuals who were not ‘leaders’ took those risks too. Albert Einstein did so personally outside the BAS but he called on any and all scientists to be willing to blow the whistle if necessary, even if they risked going to jail.
For such leading scientists to call on others to also be (tentatively) willing to take such risks if necessary contradicts the advice of early church leaders to the laity to “not quit their day jobs.”
Nobody was advising scientists in positions to reduce x-risks or whatnot to embrace a value system so different they’d personally spurn those who didn’t share it. Yet my impression is that during the Cold War, “common sense morality” would be loyalty to the authorities in the United States or Soviet Union, including to not challenge their Cold War policies. In that case, scientists and other whistleblowers would have been defying commonly accepted public morality.
I think I’ve addressed this under the “Boldly tell the truth” bullet. Early Christians were encouraged to share their beliefs even if it would result in their deaths, which seems much more extreme than potentially losing a job.
If you’re interested in how they balanced these two seemingly contradictory topics, I could write more about that later, but I thought it would be pretty straightforward (speak boldly and honestly about your beliefs, and in all other respects be a good citizen).
Summary: The difference between early Christianity and modern movements focused on reducing prospective existential risks is to that to publicly and boldly speak one’s beliefs that go against the ruling ideology was considered against common sense morality during the Cold War. Modern x-risk movements can’t defend themselves from suppression as well because their small communities subject to severe conditions in modern police/surveillance states.
Some scientists and whistleblowers in the Soviet Union and the United States not only lost their jobs but were imprisoned for a number of years, or were otherwise legally punished or politically persecuted in ways that had severe consequences beyond the professional. As far as I’m aware, none of them were killed and I’d be very surprised if any of them were.
Please don’t concern yourself to write more on this subject on my behalf. I’m satisfied with the conclusion that the difference between early Christians and the modern whistleblowers in question is that for the whistleblowers to publicly and boldly express their honest beliefs was perceived as a betrayal of good citizenship. The two major conditions that come to mind that determined these different outcomes are:
1. The Authoritarianism on Both Sides of the Iron Curtain During the Cold War.
Stalinist Russia is of course recognized as being totalitarian but history has been mythologized to downplay how much liberal democracy in the United States was at risk of failing during the same period. I watched a couple documentaries on that subject produced to clarify the record about the facts of the matter during the McCarthyist era. The anti-communism of the time was becoming extreme in a way well-characterized in a speech Harry S. Truman addressed to Congress. I forget the exact quote but to paraphrase it, it went something like: “we didn’t finish beating fascism only for us to descend into fascism ourselves.”
2. The Absence of an Authoritative Organization on the Part of the Defectors
(Note: In this case, I don’t mean “defector” to be pejorative but only to indicate that members of the respective communities took actions defying rules established by the reigning political authority.)
As I understand it, Christianity began dramatically expanding even within a few years of Jesus’ crucifixion. Over the next few decades, it became a social/religious organization that grew enough that it became harder and harder for the Roman Empire to simply quash. There was not really an organization for Cold War whistleblowers that had enough resources to meaningfully defend its members from being suppressed or persecuted.
I am confused by this comment because I think you’re suggesting the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists didn’t follow the advice above, but it sounds like they followed it to the letter.
I recognize there is some ambiguity in my comment. I also read your article again and I noticed some ambiguity I perceived on my part. That seems to be the source of confusion.
To clarify, it was not only the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) who took those personal and professional risks in question. Other scientists and individuals who were not ‘leaders’ took those risks too. Albert Einstein did so personally outside the BAS but he called on any and all scientists to be willing to blow the whistle if necessary, even if they risked going to jail.
For such leading scientists to call on others to also be (tentatively) willing to take such risks if necessary contradicts the advice of early church leaders to the laity to “not quit their day jobs.”
Nobody was advising scientists in positions to reduce x-risks or whatnot to embrace a value system so different they’d personally spurn those who didn’t share it. Yet my impression is that during the Cold War, “common sense morality” would be loyalty to the authorities in the United States or Soviet Union, including to not challenge their Cold War policies. In that case, scientists and other whistleblowers would have been defying commonly accepted public morality.
I think I’ve addressed this under the “Boldly tell the truth” bullet. Early Christians were encouraged to share their beliefs even if it would result in their deaths, which seems much more extreme than potentially losing a job.
If you’re interested in how they balanced these two seemingly contradictory topics, I could write more about that later, but I thought it would be pretty straightforward (speak boldly and honestly about your beliefs, and in all other respects be a good citizen).
Summary: The difference between early Christianity and modern movements focused on reducing prospective existential risks is to that to publicly and boldly speak one’s beliefs that go against the ruling ideology was considered against common sense morality during the Cold War. Modern x-risk movements can’t defend themselves from suppression as well because their small communities subject to severe conditions in modern police/surveillance states.
Some scientists and whistleblowers in the Soviet Union and the United States not only lost their jobs but were imprisoned for a number of years, or were otherwise legally punished or politically persecuted in ways that had severe consequences beyond the professional. As far as I’m aware, none of them were killed and I’d be very surprised if any of them were.
Please don’t concern yourself to write more on this subject on my behalf. I’m satisfied with the conclusion that the difference between early Christians and the modern whistleblowers in question is that for the whistleblowers to publicly and boldly express their honest beliefs was perceived as a betrayal of good citizenship. The two major conditions that come to mind that determined these different outcomes are:
1. The Authoritarianism on Both Sides of the Iron Curtain During the Cold War.
Stalinist Russia is of course recognized as being totalitarian but history has been mythologized to downplay how much liberal democracy in the United States was at risk of failing during the same period. I watched a couple documentaries on that subject produced to clarify the record about the facts of the matter during the McCarthyist era. The anti-communism of the time was becoming extreme in a way well-characterized in a speech Harry S. Truman addressed to Congress. I forget the exact quote but to paraphrase it, it went something like: “we didn’t finish beating fascism only for us to descend into fascism ourselves.”
2. The Absence of an Authoritative Organization on the Part of the Defectors
(Note: In this case, I don’t mean “defector” to be pejorative but only to indicate that members of the respective communities took actions defying rules established by the reigning political authority.)
As I understand it, Christianity began dramatically expanding even within a few years of Jesus’ crucifixion. Over the next few decades, it became a social/religious organization that grew enough that it became harder and harder for the Roman Empire to simply quash. There was not really an organization for Cold War whistleblowers that had enough resources to meaningfully defend its members from being suppressed or persecuted.