https://reducing-suffering.org/near-miss/
Just gonna boost this excellent piece by Tomasik. I think partial alignment/near-misses causing s-risk is potentially an enormous concern. This is more true the shorter timelines are and thus the more likely people are to try using “hail mary” risky alignment techniques. Also more true for less principled/Agent Foundations-type alignment directions.
I’m not overly concerned with the news from this morning. In fact I expected them to raise the nuclear force readiness prior to or simultaneously to commencing the invasion, not now, which is expected going into a time of conflict/high tension from normal peacetime readiness. I had about a 5% chance this will escalate to a nuclear war going into it, and it’s not much different now, certainly not above 10% (For context, my odds of escalation to full countervalue exchange in a US intervention in a Taiwan reunification campaign would be about 75%). Virtually all that probability is split between unfavorable developments dragging in NATO and accidents/miscalculation risk, which is elevated during tense times like this (something like, if the Russians had misinterpreted the attack submarine which entered their territorial waters last week as being a ballistic missile submarine sneaking up close to launch a first strike, or an early warning radar fluke/misidentification being taken seriously when it would’ve been dismissed during peacetime, either of which could’ve caused them to launch on warning).
Unintentional nuclear exchange will have no preceding signs, but unfavorable developments will, for example a NATO shootdown of a Russian plane or Russian fire straying over the border killing NATO troops which begins an escalation spiral. If we start seeing such incidents being reported, I would tell all my LW/EA friends to get the fuck out of NATO cities they’re living in immediately.
Finally, here’s a good thread on the heightened alert news. The US side still seems quite wary of nuclear escalation and hasn’t even announced a reciprocal raising of DEFCON, which contributes to my relatively sanguine assessment of the situation at present. Keep in mind that this means I still have at least 5% on it, and that I don’t feel comfortable living in a NATO (especially US) downtown core at ANY time, not just now, due to the significant and everpresent risk of accidental/sudden nuclear attack. For example, I’d really like it if MIRI would move out of Berkeley where they’d be instantly vaporized whenever nuclear war broke out, and now might be an even better time for them to take a temporary vacation outside the city (see my other comment in this thread), but I don’t think the situation is far more alarming than usual just yet.