christian.r

Nu­clear Risk and Philan­thropic Strat­egy [Founders Pledge]

• christian.rMay 26, 2023, 4:07 PM

  4 points

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  on: It is good for EA fun­ders to have seats on boards of orgs they fund [de­bate]

  Just a note that the Likert scale in the poll is not symmetrical (“Agree” vs. “Strongly Disagree”)

• christian.rMay 2, 2023, 2:27 PM

  9 points

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  in reply to: jackva’s comment on: More global warm­ing might be good to miti­gate the food shocks caused by abrupt sun­light re­duc­tion scenarios

  Agree with Johannes here on the bias in much of the nuclear winter work (and I say that as someone who thinks catastrophic risk from nuclear war is under-appreciated). The political motivations are fairly well-known and easy to spot in the papers

• christian.rFeb 21, 2023, 9:18 PM

  3 points

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  in reply to: quinn’s comment on: Call me, maybe? Hotlines and Global Catas­trophic Risk [Founders Pledge]

  Hi Quinn! Thanks for this comment. Yes, I expect any theory of change for private actors here will run through policy advocacy. This both provides massive leverage (by using government funds) and is just necessary given the subject matter.

  I wouldn’t say it stops at a white paper—one could organize track II dialogues to discuss the systems, lobby government, give policy briefings at a think tank, hold side events at international security conferences and treaty review conferences, etc.

  This could also take the form of advisory roles (I’m thinking of case studies like Ash Carter and Cooperative Threat Reduction) to government.

  Still, I agree that the “get buy-in from governments” is the crucial stage (but I think this is true for many and possibly all GCR-related interventions).

• christian.rFeb 15, 2023, 3:19 PM

  2 points

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  in reply to: JamesÖz 🔸’s comment on: Philan­thropy to the Right of Boom [Founders Pledge]

  Thank you, James :)

• christian.rFeb 15, 2023, 3:18 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Denkenberger🔸’s comment on: Philan­thropy to the Right of Boom [Founders Pledge]

  Thanks, David! I really appreciate this comment. One reason I find this left/​right framework more intuitive than “prevention, response, and resilience” is that there are right-of-boom interventions that I would classify as “prevention.” For example, I think of escalation management after limited first use as “preventing” the largest nuclear wars (especially if we think such a war poses qualitatively different problems).

  Your cost-effectiveness models are very helpful, and I plan to cite them in the bigger project :)

• christian.rFeb 15, 2023, 3:12 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Stephen Clare’s comment on: Philan­thropy to the Right of Boom [Founders Pledge]

  Thanks for the kind comment, Stephen! You’re right I phrased that wrong—it is about tractability, not probability. I agree with you that the tractability of escalation control is probably the biggest issue here, but I also think we should expect low-hanging fruit given the relative neglectedness. There are a couple of concrete projects that I am/​would be be excited about:

  • Escalation management with North Korea -- How can we keep nuclear war limited with North Korea? As I understand it, the problem of deterrence after DPRK first use has gotten relatively little attention, despite its relevance to U.S.-China conflict. A project to study this and help the U.S. and China find guardrails, CBMs, etc. to work on this seems especially valuable. The broader class of interventions here is something like “keeping ‘smaller’ nuclear wars geographically and politically limited”;

  • Intrawar crisis communications projects—especially understanding China’s attitude to crisis communications. How can states better communicate the desire to terminate a war and the terms of peace once nuclear war has broken out?

  • Three-body escalation control—Like you, I’m concerned about a future where China has a much larger arsenal (see China Military Power Report), and the fact that U.S. planners have barely begun to think about the “nuclear three body problem” with China and Russia. A large-scale project that seeks to better understand these dynamics and what, if any, of the game theory from the Cold War applies to three-way escalation control, how different theories of limited war might interact, etc. would be valuable.

• christian.rFeb 14, 2023, 9:07 PM

  2 points

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  in reply to: Conor Barnes 🔶’s comment on: Philan­thropy to the Right of Boom [Founders Pledge]

  Thanks, Conor!

Philan­thropy to the Right of Boom [Founders Pledge]

• christian.rJan 24, 2023, 10:38 PM

  7 points

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  in reply to: ParetoPrinciple’s comment on: Call me, maybe? Hotlines and Global Catas­trophic Risk [Founders Pledge]

  Hi ParetoPrinciple! I appreciate your engaging with the document :)

  I quote Schelling throughout (and think he actually makes some of the points you hint at more clearly in The Strategy of Conflict — eg the quote in footnote 61 here). You’re definitely right that no hotlines discussion would be complete without this!

• christian.rJan 24, 2023, 6:22 PM

  7 points

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  in reply to: Will Aldred’s comment on: Call me, maybe? Hotlines and Global Catas­trophic Risk [Founders Pledge]

  Thanks, will! Really appreciate this comment :)

  Credit for the title actually goes to my colleagues on the FP research team (I believe it was Tom or Johannes who first came up with it).

Call me, maybe? Hotlines and Global Catas­trophic Risk [Founders Pledge]

How Founders Pledge’s Pa­tient Philan­thropy Fund and Global Catas­trophic Risks Fund Work Together

An­nounc­ing the Founders Pledge Global Catas­trophic Risks Fund

Sixty years af­ter the Cuban Mis­sile Cri­sis, a new era of global catas­trophic risks

• christian.rSep 16, 2022, 4:08 PM

  18 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: The Pug­wash Con­fer­ences and the Anti-Bal­lis­tic Mis­sile Treaty as a case study of Track II diplomacy

  Hi Rani, it’s great to see the report out. It’s good to have this clear deep dive on the canonical case. I especially like that it points to some attributes of track II dialogues that we should pay special attention to when evaluating them as potential interventions. Great work!

• christian.rAug 15, 2022, 6:22 PM

  10 points

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  on: The Parable of the Boy Who Cried 5% Chance of Wolf

  Thanks for writing this! I think it’s great. Reminds me of another wild animal metaphor about high-stakes decision-making under uncertainty—Reagan’s 1984 “Bear in the Woods” campaign ad:

  There is a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it’s vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear—if there is a bear?

  I think that kind of reasoning is helpful when communicating about GCRs and X-risks.

• christian.rAug 8, 2022, 11:21 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Matt Boyd’s comment on: Is­lands, nu­clear win­ter, and trade dis­rup­tion as a hu­man ex­is­ten­tial risk factor

  Thanks, Matt! That makes sense

• christian.rAug 7, 2022, 12:43 PM

  5 points

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  on: Is­lands, nu­clear win­ter, and trade dis­rup­tion as a hu­man ex­is­ten­tial risk factor

  Really enjoyed reading this and learned a lot. Thank you for writing it! I’m especially intrigued by the proposal for regional alliances in table 6 — including the added bit about expansionist regional powers in the co-benefits column of the linked supplemental version of the table.

  I was curious about one part of the paper on volcanic eruptions. You wrote that eg “Indonesia harbours many of the world’s large volcanoes from which an ASRS could originate (eg, Toba and Tambora eruptions).” Just eyeballing maps of the biggest known volcanoes, the overlap with some island refuges seems concerning. Do we know what ash deposit models say about how much these places would get covered in ash for various kinds of volcanic eruptions in the region and what this would mean for infrastructure and agriculture?

  Thanks!

Why poli­cy­mak­ers should be­ware claims of new “arms races” (Bul­letin of the Atomic Scien­tists)