This version of a ‘sentinel system’ is going to be neglected by traditional public health authorities and governments because they won’t be searching for engineered threats designed to elude pathogen-specific detection tools
This sounds a bit too fatalistic to me. It does seem basically guaranteed that these authorities and governments will spend less attention and resources on this than longtermists would ideally like. I imagine you’re also right that they’ll very much neglect this, like building something far short of what longtermists would like. But that latter point doesn’t seem ~guaranteed, and it seems like something we might have a real shot at changing? E.g., via getting aligned people in positions of power, via lobbying, via more public advocacy.
But this isn’t my area; I could just be wrong. Also I imagine this is probably just a superficial phrasing thing, not an important disagreement.
Thanks, this post seems super useful!
This sounds a bit too fatalistic to me. It does seem basically guaranteed that these authorities and governments will spend less attention and resources on this than longtermists would ideally like. I imagine you’re also right that they’ll very much neglect this, like building something far short of what longtermists would like. But that latter point doesn’t seem ~guaranteed, and it seems like something we might have a real shot at changing? E.g., via getting aligned people in positions of power, via lobbying, via more public advocacy.
But this isn’t my area; I could just be wrong. Also I imagine this is probably just a superficial phrasing thing, not an important disagreement.