I think I gave the impression that Iām making a more expansive claim than I actually mean to make, and will edit the post to clarify this.
Have you made these edits yet, or is this still on the to-do list? Having just read the post, I strongly agree with Maxās assessment, and still think readers could very easily round this postās claims off to āNuclear war is very unlikely to be a big deal for longtermistsā. The key changes that Iād see as valuable would be:
changing the title (maybe to something like āNuclear war is unlikely to directly cause human extinctionā)
explicitly saying something in the introductory part about how the possibilities of nuclear war causing indirect extinction or other existential catastrophes/ātrajectory changes are beyond the scope of this post
(There may of course also be other changes that would accomplish similar results)
I also do think that this post contains quite valuable info. And Iād agree that there aresome people, including in the EA community, who seem much too confident that nuclear war would directly cause extinction (though, like Max, Iām not aware of anyone who meets that description and has looked into the topic much).
So if this post had had roughly those tweaks /ā when you make roughly those tweaks, Iād think itād be quite valuable. (Unfortunately, in its present form, I worry that the post might create more confusion than it resolves.)
Iād also be excited to see the sort of future work you describe on compounding risks and recovery from collapse! I think those topics are plausibly important and sorely under-explored.
āBy a full-scale war, I mean a nuclear exchange between major world powers, such as the US, Russia, and China, using the complete arsenals of each country. The total number of warheads today (14,000) is significantly smaller than during the height of the cold war (70,000). While extinction from nuclear war is unlikely today, it may become more likely if significantly more warheads are deployed or if designs of weapons change significantly.ā
I also think indirect extinction from nuclear war is unlikely, but I would like to address this more in a future post. I disagree that additional clarifications are needed. I think people made these points clearly in the comments, and that anyone motivated to investigate this area seriously can read those. If you want to try to doublecrux on why we disagree here Iād be up for that, though on a call might be preferable for saving time.
Have you made these edits yet, or is this still on the to-do list? Having just read the post, I strongly agree with Maxās assessment, and still think readers could very easily round this postās claims off to āNuclear war is very unlikely to be a big deal for longtermistsā. The key changes that Iād see as valuable would be:
changing the title (maybe to something like āNuclear war is unlikely to directly cause human extinctionā)
explicitly saying something in the introductory part about how the possibilities of nuclear war causing indirect extinction or other existential catastrophes/ātrajectory changes are beyond the scope of this post
(There may of course also be other changes that would accomplish similar results)
I also do think that this post contains quite valuable info. And Iād agree that there are some people, including in the EA community, who seem much too confident that nuclear war would directly cause extinction (though, like Max, Iām not aware of anyone who meets that description and has looked into the topic much).
So if this post had had roughly those tweaks /ā when you make roughly those tweaks, Iād think itād be quite valuable. (Unfortunately, in its present form, I worry that the post might create more confusion than it resolves.)
Iād also be excited to see the sort of future work you describe on compounding risks and recovery from collapse! I think those topics are plausibly important and sorely under-explored.
The part I added was:
āBy a full-scale war, I mean a nuclear exchange between major world powers, such as the US, Russia, and China, using the complete arsenals of each country. The total number of warheads today (14,000) is significantly smaller than during the height of the cold war (70,000). While extinction from nuclear war is unlikely today, it may become more likely if significantly more warheads are deployed or if designs of weapons change significantly.ā
I also think indirect extinction from nuclear war is unlikely, but I would like to address this more in a future post. I disagree that additional clarifications are needed. I think people made these points clearly in the comments, and that anyone motivated to investigate this area seriously can read those. If you want to try to doublecrux on why we disagree here Iād be up for that, though on a call might be preferable for saving time.