
The world should think better about catastrophic and existential risks - prostoalex
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/06/25/the-world-should-think-better-about-catastrophic-and-existential-risks
======
landryraccoon
Why do people say Covid was a black swan event? It was not, it was utterly
predictable, if not the specific virus, then at least the course of its
spread. The black swan is our collective ineptitude in handling the crisis,
not the virus itself.

We’ve had pandemics repeatedly throughout recorded history and before. It’s
not as though the world went “a virus what is this we’ve never seen anything
like it”.

The black plague, the flu of 1918, and numerous other examples of epidemic
diseases have struck down multitudes over thousands of years. Even Sars was
just a score of years ago.

We were simply inept when it came to Covid-19. We dropped the ball. The thing
about Covid isn’t how unexpected it was, it’s how utterly predictable it has
been at every single turn.

~~~
grey-area
You can convincingly say this in retrospect about any event that happened,
after all, it happened; it can't be so improbable and someone somewhere
inevitably warned about the risk.

The spread of coronavirus outside China was in no way inevitable. Several
potential pandemics were handled internally, this one escaped due to denial
and incompetence, at which point it was harder to control. If it is utterly
predictable we should be able to predict its course and fatalities - we can't.

If we had a large asteroid strike, famine, a robot rebellion, a collapse in
world supply chains or super-volcano eruption it'd be 'inevitable' according
to somebody somewhere, but most of the world didn't expect it and didn't
prepare for it.

~~~
FuckButtons
I don’t agree that this spread due to denial and incompetence, they didn’t
help, but fundamentally this spread because most people don’t get that sick.
Since people mostly feel ok, they’re not getting medical treatment and aren’t
on the radar of any kind of intervention. Also, it’s not true to say that if
you can say with certainty that something will happen, you know exactly how
it’s going to go down. I know with 100% certainty that there will be another
stock market bubble in the next 20 years, it’s completely predictable, but I
can’t tell you when or how, because that is a different kind of knowledge,
it’s situational rather than systemic.

~~~
ithkuil
> I don’t agree that this spread due to denial and incompetence

Indeed.There are countries that reacted better than others, but that didn't
make the problem go away: it was still a major disruption to the economy and a
major health problem causing some people to die. The magnitude of those
problems is affected by competence (and luck), but it's not one of those
things where if you play by the book you're just going to be fine.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
Yeah you are gonna be fine, not toally unaffected by largely just fine.

Look at Czech Republic, Vietnam, Korea, Japan. There, hardly anyone died at
all.

~~~
chimprich
I'm in no way disagreeing that countries like Vietnam have done a good job in
keeping on top of the problem, but talking about any country's response in the
past tense seems premature.

Pretty much any assessment needs to have a "so far" appended.

------
gonational
Let people be.

There’s way too much “we need to start...” bullshit these days, and mostly
spearheaded by the same group of ~500 businesses and media corps[1]; as if any
of these fucking mega corporations give a shit about any of us.

When everything you believe in starts aligning perfectly with the corporations
that have been screwing you for decades (tax havens, monopolizing the
industries your parents worked in, sending all our jobs over seas to underaged
slaves, dumping toxins into our rivers, etc.), it’s time to rethink your
thinking.

1\. took me all of three seconds to find an example for the publisher in
question, in what looks like The Economist running pseudo-critic defense for
Nike’s sweatshops, etc.:
[https://www.economist.com/business/1999/02/25/sweatshop-
wars](https://www.economist.com/business/1999/02/25/sweatshop-wars)

~~~
bobbydroptables
>There’s way too much “we need to start...”

Not really. A world as complex as ours needs to be starting new initiatives
all the time. Basically every convenience you take for granted (electricity,
indoor plumbing, grocery stores) was because society said "we need to start".
In places where they were slow to do that, it's generally less available and
lower quality or they have to rely on technology from the places and people
that took initiative.

We need to be starting much much more, not less.

~~~
CaptArmchair
"we need..." is a persuasion technique. It tries to sell an idea by (a) trying
to incorporate you into it the argument before you even agreed (the "we" part)
and (b) pushing on through a sense of false urgency (the "need" part).

"We need" is never ever an argument on itself. And it can be easily countered
with: Who is this "we" you're talking about because I surely haven't agreed
yet if I go along in your story. And the "need" isn't a shared need unless I'm
willing to agree that it is a shared need between you and me.

"We need" forces the other to think past the problem and move directly towards
"solutions". As if the problem exists outside of our own experience and should
be considered as a problem. "We need" never explains why a set of facts is
considered a problem in the first place. It just puts the focus on solutions,
maybe even solutions that detract from what truly ought to be done.

The same is true when posing "society" as this homogeneous group that declares
in unisono "we need to start". This couldn't be farther from the truth.
"Society" is just a complex network of individuals, tribes, factions,
parties,... with ever evolving shared and conflicting interests. Anything a
society seemingly "agreed" upon is more emergent behaviour then deliberate
action.

"society" sure didn't consciously decide "we need to start using technology or
believing experience x, y or z." On the contrary. There are plenty of examples
of beliefs being disparaged, vilified, questioned,... to the point where their
proponents were burned on the stake. Or technologies and their inventors being
ridiculed or banned because nobody was interested, or it was unclear which
problem they truly solved.

Humanity survived just fine without electricity, indoor plumbing, grocery
stores, digital technology and so on for hundreds of thousands of years. Ask
any elderly person if they felt unhappy 60 or 70 years ago because they
weren't able to consult Wikipedia via digital devices. They will simply answer
"Well, we just went to the library. And that worked out perfectly for us.
There simply wasn't an alternative and we didn't lament the lack of an
alternative."

Stating that society agreed to "we need to start" would putting the horse
before the cart.

~~~
bobbydroptables
I typed out a much longer response but this will do:

I think you are not following my argument or the OP. Neither supposes that "we
need" is a standalone argument. OP provides specific examples for why "we
need" to do these things.

"We" doesn't mean literally every human. Do you think people are actually
being misled by this? It just means something like "society at large".

"We" need plumbing. This doesn't mean you can't individually live alone in the
woods without plumbing.

"Need" doesn't mean you "must" have something. You don't "need" water if
you're suicidal.

"Need" is just shorthand for "sustains our current way of life". If you want
to see the downfall of civilization, you don't "need" agriculture. If you
don't care about people on dialysis or the millions/billions of others that
would die without power, then you don't "need" electricity or internal
combustion engines.

You're allowed to have these opposing views.

The "we need" arguments assume that most people want to maintain or improve
standards of living.

If you want to decrease standards of living, that's a fine opinion to have
(although weird). More importantly, if you don't care about society, why
bother arguing this at all? Why post on HN? No one is stopping you from living
a pre-plumbing, pre-agricultural life if that's what you want.

"Society" of course tries to sustain itself. If society wants to keep existing
in its current form, it does need to do many things (indoor plumbing, running
water, electricity, or as the OP talks about, preparing for certain dangerous
situations).

~~~
CaptArmchair
"We need" is both a social construct and a rhetorical device. No more, no
less. I'm all fine when "we need" is used as a conclusion to a careful and
thoughtful debate in which we both, equally, established a common need and a
common wish to address that need knowing we're both deeply invested. I'm wary
of hearing "we need to..." at the opening of every argument over and over
again without showing how invested the person making the argument is in
solving the issue.

If everything is turned into a priority, then nothing becomes a priority. Both
time and the willingness to pay attention are in short demand.

We need to invest in an equitable society, economies of scale, reduce
greenhouse gasses, invest in green technology, prepare for the next pandemic,
vote for sensible politics (whatever those may be), invest in education, in
the military, in getting to the Moon and establishing viable economies there,
getting someone on Mars, invest in global network of satellites across the
world, invest in developing nations, overhaul global supply lines and create
less dependencies, find a better cure for cancer, invest in cybersecurity,
invest in solutions to safeguard rights such as free speech and privacy,
reduce fossil fuel dependency, invest in new industries and markets, and so on
and so on and so on.

Here's how the vast majority of people reason, then. There are only 24 hours
in a day. And life is rather short with just a few precious decades. How can I
spend those valuable hours and my own talents in a healthy balance between
taking care of myself and my loved ones, and deriving a due sense of personal
satisfaction, meaningfulness and purpose?

There are 7.8 billion different answers to that question reflecting different
and often very conflicting beliefs, wants, needs, dreams, desires and hopes.

"We need" at the start of every argument dismisses the reality that humanity
or society is made up of individual humans, each of which is a unique universe
of thoughts and feelings in their own right.

"We need" is a wonky substitute for a far more honest "I - personally - feel
strongly about this issue, this is how invested I am in the issue, and I'm
curious as to how you're feeling about this."

Worst case, "we need" is simply you projecting a personal fleeting desire to
the entirety of humanity. "We need to go to Mars". I'm sure some people feel
strongly about that. Maybe you do in this very instance, but will you still
actively be thinking about how humanity could get there in an hour or two? Or
have you moved on by then, forgetting that you even posted a fleeting thought
on social media in the first place? Moreover, you just placed this massive
issue - the urgency to get boots on Mars, or the preparation for the next
pandemic - at my doorstep, how am I as an individual supposed to even
contribute towards solving that problem while including the entirety of
humanity or society?

"we need preparing for a pandemic" or "we need to invest in dialysis for
people who need it for their survival". Sure, but that's your personal
sentiment. But it's not an argument. How are you, as an individual acting on
that sentiment? Who are you voting on? Are you making donations? Are you a
researcher? Are you running for office yourself? Or are you endorsing
politicians who will be making decisions? Or have you invested millions in
factories that might one day supply vaccines, hopefully? What are you doing to
show the way forward beyond a moot online demonstration of a due sense of self
awareness?

"We should have had a (non-false) sense of urgency about this last year?" Who
is this we? Why are you involving me into this? I read the news and social
media like the next person and I'm an individual with limited time and
resources. I'm not an elected decision maker. I'm certainly not privy to
intelligence reports. And when I voted for decision makers that ran for
office, a pandemic sure wasn't on everyone's mind.

It's an argument that could easily be met with could have, would have, should
have, but "we" \- whoever that is - didn't. Hindsight 20/20.

Instead, a better argument is "I feel it's important to vote for politicians
that are aware of the importance of public health and who are willing to
endorse increased public spending on public health and social security. I feel
it's important to hold politicians who don't do this publicly accountable.
That's why I openly voice my concern because I care about the impact of their
policies on my own community and other communities. I also call
representatives, I vote, I support news organizations through donations, I
attend rallies to show support and so on."

Showing how you're caring is far more important then just telling you're
caring.

~~~
bobbydroptables
Preparing for expected catastrophes is not a fleeting desire. It's basically
the opposite. There are entire industries built up around this (FEMA,
insurance, flood control systems, the CDC, banking reserve ratios, backup
servers, many safety rules and systems). Saying we need to adjust these
efforts to reflect the real world cost-benefit trade offs is common sense. You
can disagree with the particular calculus they're doing (e.g. by thinking a
pandemic is so unlikely that we shouldn't prepare very much), but I don't see
a sound argument to say "we don't need to prepare at all for these costly
events".

>If everything is turned into a priority, then nothing becomes a priority.
Both time and the willingness to pay attention are in short demand.

I don't think people are turning everything into a priority. But if some ill-
defined group is trying to do this, it wouldn't change the fact that certain
things are a priority if we want to maintain our way of life. Disaster
management is one of them.

I'm sure a bunch of people think irrelevant things happening on Instagram are
a priority. But that doesn't change the fact that preserving infrastructure
_is_ a priority for maintaining our way of life.

As I said, if you don't care about maintaining our way of life, then of course
you won't care about what we need to do to preserve that way of life.

>Here's how the vast majority of people reason, then. There are only 24 hours
in a day. And life is rather short with just a few precious decades. How can I
spend those valuable hours and my own talents in a healthy balance between
taking care of myself and my loved ones, and deriving a due sense of personal
satisfaction, meaningfulness and purpose?

I think I see the disconnect. No one is saying that the fry cook at McDonalds
needs to align global resources better to deal with potential catastrophe. You
are reading "we" too literally. (Rather, you are just misunderstanding the
word "we". "We" doesn't mean an has never meant every human. We really just
means a group of which the speaker is part. It need not include you.)

"We need to better prepare for certain catastrophes" means that politicians
and other key actors (say businesses, insurers, bureaucrats, researchers,
engineers that have relevant assets, skills, experiences, etc.) need to think
better about these and non-key actors (say voters, consumers) need to shift
attention, money, votes, etc. to supporting those key actors in this goal. If
you are okay with disruptions like pandemics, then you can disagree with this.
I think most people would prefer to avoid these disruptions though, given the
comparatively low cost for doing so.

>at my doorstep, how am I as an individual supposed to even contribute towards
solving that problem while including the entirety of humanity or society?

Support politicians that endorse science and logic, for example. Wear a mask
as another example.

I don't think anyone is asking you to do anything that "includes the entirety
of humanity or society". We are saying make the choices you can make and
support the politicians and businesses that deal with these problems
proactively.

>But it's not an argument.

No one is saying "we need to prepare for a pandemic" as a standalone argument.
But the argument is not complicated. A pandemic could disrupt our way of life
greatly by "harm X" (lets say decrease in quality adjusted life years or GDP).
It has a chance of occur of "probability Y". Y here is close to 100% as we
know. The cost of preparing systems to mitigate the risks to "harm level Z" is
"cost Q". As long as harm X times probability Y is really big (which as we
see, it is) and cost Q is less than harm level Z, then it is rational to
invest Q resources into mitigation.

You can disagree with whatever numbers we might pick for X Y Z Q, but to say
we shouldn't perform the calculus is just to say you don't think society is
worth preserving. Again, you can have that viewpoint if you want.

The conversation that I think people are trying to have is "How should we
preserve, improve and maintain society" and you're basically saying "don't
bother". It's fine to say that, but the people having the discussion obviously
aren't going to listen to you.

If we're discussing whether Liverpool should trade Coutinho then no one will
be interested in your view that "football is stupid".

>How are you, as an individual acting on that sentiment? Who are you voting
on? Are you making donations? Are you a researcher? Are you running for office
yourself? Or are you endorsing politicians who will be making decisions? Or
have you invested millions in factories that might one day supply vaccines,
hopefully? What are you doing to show the way forward beyond a moot online
demonstration of a due sense of self awareness?

I am doing things to my ability but this is irrelevant to our argument. I can
make a powerful and logically airtight argument supporting thing X while
selling a product that kills thing X. I can even make that same argument while
personally killing thing X at that very moment.

I'm not holding this discussion to trumpet (or even to discuss) my own virtues
or actions. I'm having this argument to disagree with a poorly reasoned
argument made by the person I first responded to. I could be a computer
simulation and it wouldn't take anything at all away from the logic of the
points I make.

>"We should have had a (non-false) sense of urgency about this last year?" Who
is this we? Why are you involving me into this?

I'm not involving you. You misunderstand the definition of the word "we"

[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/we](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/we)

"People in general" does not mean every single person and certainly doesn't
have to mean you.

>I read the news and social media like the next person and I'm an individual
with limited time and resources. I'm not an elected decision maker. I'm
certainly not privy to intelligence reports. And when I voted for decision
makers that ran for office, a pandemic sure wasn't on everyone's mind.

You shouldn't elect someone that campaigns on a single pet risk, so much as
you should elect someone that takes a rational, cost-benefit approach to risks
in general.

>It's an argument that could easily be met with could have, would have, should
have, but "we" \- whoever that is - didn't. Hindsight 20/20.

Well, that's not exactly right is it? "We" certainly did meet the risk where I
am. Americans (or more specifically, some Americans in some places) are having
issues understanding science. There's not much hindsight involved. Were there
epidemiologists that said we didn't need to worry about or prepare for the
risk of a pandemic? Pandemics have happened in the past and will continue to
happen in the future.

More importantly, everyone saw what happened in China. America saw this and
part of it decided not to take steps to mitigate the risks. I can tell you
steps to take to mitigate your risk _starting tomorrow_ and many Americans
will still ignore it. This is not hindsight bias.

You could argue China's failures shouldn't be criticized by hindsight bias.
But why are many Americans continuing not to fix the problem happening today
and tomorrow? Hindsight is not the issue. I can give you steps _right now_ to
fix this. But many Americans don't want to listen. As a result they are going
to fail. When I point this failure out in the future, it won't be hindsight
bias.

>Instead, a better argument is "I feel it's important to vote for politicians
that are aware of the importance of public health and who are willing to
endorse increased public spending on public health and social security. I feel
it's important to hold politicians who don't do this publicly accountable.
That's why I openly voice my concern because I care about the impact of their
policies on my own community and other communities. I also call
representatives, I vote, I support news organizations through donations, I
attend rallies to show support and so on."

Ok, that's what this article is doing. I'm not sure who you're arguing against
here.

>Showing how you're caring is far more important then just telling you're
caring.

I don't care about showing or telling about _my_ caring. I'm just trying to
correct the person I originally responded to. What I do or don't do is
irrelevant to correcting OP's point.

------
dekhn
i have a mini-theory in which any group that allocates resources to
existential risks will operate at a disadvantage (in the short term) to groups
that do not, thus it's likely that anybody who does this will lose to
competitors (businesses, countries) that do not.

FOr example, cloud providers who do not plan for meteor-based regional outages
(which occur rarely) believe they can home all their data in a single region.
This is much cheaper and will allow the provider a better profit margin, and
realistically, not a lot of customers care about their data surviving a meteor
taking out US-EAST1.

~~~
simonh
This is a significant issue, any company that set aside resources to protect
against a pandemic after the Spanish Flu would have been operating with
increased costs for a full 100 years. Yet when the virus hit and companies
struggled, I saw plenty of comments saying these companies deserved to fail.
I’m all for capitalism and the benefits of market forces, but that’s
ludicrous. I’m not saying they should all be bailed out either, companies come
and go to be honest, but what we do need to do is ensure our vital interests
and the infrastructure we depend on is secure and that’s going to take a
pragmatic approach.

The global cost of the virus is astronomical, but protecting ourselves
effectively against a new virus doesn’t have to be crippling. The same is true
of many other credible risks the article covers. Such preparations could even
offer additional useful benefits. It’s just going to take vision and
pragmatism I’m not sure our political leaders have in them these days.

~~~
Forge36
Setting aside money as "pandemic" is a problem. Setting aside money for
"emergency" helps reduce impact.

1970 gas shortages 2000 dotcom bubble burst 2008 housing crisis

~~~
sammalloy
> 1970 gas shortages 2000 dotcom bubble burst 2008 housing crisis

All missed opportunities to change broken institutional structures and to do
things differently.

------
spodek
The world should _act_ better about catastrophic and existential risks.

We think fine. We think when things get serious we'll act. Then things get
serious -- like billions of people locked down, plastic in our bloodstreams,
would-be leaders exacerbating problems, etc -- and we don't act how we thought
we would.

The problem is our behavior. Thinking is relevant, but behavior is the issue.

~~~
repsilat
Funny, I think it's exactly the other way around -- people wring their hands
about things that don't matter ("plastic in our bloodstreams") but tend to act
appropriately. Don't panic. Carry on.

Treating a threat as existential is often enormously costly, and we reliably
overestimate threats. Ignoring them is a good first response, if not always a
good second one. Being a week or a month late to the current pandemic is less
costly than locking down for SARS, mad cow, bird flu, swine flu, ...

Not to mention the times when we _did_ overreact. The latest TSA budget is
$8.24 billion dollars, or 824 lives per year (at a cost of $10 million per
life), or 2.17 One World Trade Centers per year, or (verging into polemic) one
9/11 every four years.

Isn't the lesson that we tend to overreact? Sure, _maybe_ it'll be a pandemic,
and let's not completely discount the idea, but why not just lock the plane's
cabin doors and see if it gets worse?

~~~
legulere
Enforcing lockdown a week earlier could have halved death toll in the UK

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/uk-
coronavirus...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/uk-coronavirus-
lockdown-20000-lives-boris-johnson-neil-ferguson)

~~~
gizmo
That's entirely presumptive. You can't conclude that a model works because the
predictions the model makes don't come true.

~~~
legulere
Models are the best we have. And if we compare the UK with countries that
reacted faster then it seems likely that a lot of deaths could have been
prevented.

~~~
gizmo
If you compare the UK to places that didn't lock down and have had very few
deaths you can conclude the opposite. That's why you shouldn't cherry pick
your data points.

Many people created models of the spread of Covid. Some of these models worked
very well and others were terribly inaccurate. We should use the models that
work and not those that have lost all credibility.

------
colinmhayes
If you're interested in existential risks check out effective altruism. It's a
philanthropic movement whose idea is to maximize the amount of good we can do
with our resources. Much of the research is focused on x-risks. I've come to
the conclusion that non-profit is the only sector that can tackle x-risks
because it's not profitable and there's no political will, which pretty much
leaves ea researchers as the only people looking at the area.

~~~
wizzwizz4
Note that some popular effective altruists have a little bit of tunnel vision
when it comes to X-risks, which leads them to overfund X-risk-due-to-AI over
something like, say, X-risk-due-to-asteroids. (X-risk-due-to-nanotech is being
suitably supported by not funding nanotech.)

Plus, some people working on the AI X-risk problem are doing it for nothing,
which means the state of funding is a bit weird.

~~~
computerphage
> tunnel vision when it comes to X-risks, which leads them to overfund X-risk-
> due-to-AI over something like, say, X-risk-due-to-asteroids.

Risks from natural events like asteroids are actually quite well understood
and we have tight bounds that they aren't that risky per century. The natural
risks cause area probably deserves more funding on a global level, but EAs are
definitely thinking about it. It's literally the first section in 80k's intro
article about X-risks: [https://80000hours.org/articles/extinction-
risk/](https://80000hours.org/articles/extinction-risk/)

------
nutjob2
"The world should think better about catastrophic and existential risks"

"Plans and early-warning systems are always a good idea"

Yes, we know, but how do achieve anything when people are deep in denial and
reading conspiracy theories on Facebook is considered "news"?

You have to consider that the current pandemic is relatively tractable
compared to the climate crisis, and we're failing miserably even at that.

------
jaakl
It is a bit syrreal to read about low probability/high impact risks while we
have a very high probability/catastrophic impact event already started.

~~~
jefftk
What catastrophic impact event are you referring to? Covid-19? Climate change?

Neither of those are existential risks: they're incredibly unlikely to wipe us
out. The kind of high impact risks the article is about are much worse.

~~~
chickenpotpie
Uhhh, climate change will absolutely kill us all if we don't do something.

~~~
RandallBrown
How would it kill us all?

I suppose it could lead to a Venus like atmosphere if things got really crazy.
Realistically the worst case scenario would _just_ lead to coastal areas being
uninhabitable and widespread famine and unrest while the worlds farming and
population gets redistributed to more habitable latitudes. I don't think it
would ever wipe out EVERYONE even if it's a sizable percentage.

~~~
infogulch
There is no "redistribution to more habitable latitudes" (a breathtakingly
vast understatement of human suffering) without all out war. There is no all
out war without nuclear destruction at our own hand.

------
supernova87a
It's not a new idea, right? People are bad at valuing far-off very-bad risks
compared to inconsequential but tangible near-term risks. And bad at valuing
broadly distributed hardships versus concentrated individual pain.

It's exactly why we can't solve climate change, right?

~~~
DavidSJ
It’s one reason we’ve had trouble solving climate change (I wouldn’t go so far
as to say we can’t).

Two more reasons:

1\. It’s a classic tragedy of the commons, where many actors, at the
individual, corporate, and national level, have incentives to worsen the
problem even if nearly everyone would benefit if they all behaved differently.

2\. The climate is a complex system, so it’s hard to educate the public about
how it works, and easy for bad faith actors or pseudoscientific cranks to
obfuscate the discussion.

~~~
fennecfoxen
3\. It is also easy for bad faith actors to exploit the response for their own
benefit, undermining the nascent response directly, and undermining it
indirectly by undermining those who argue for change with integrity

------
otikik
> There is little planning anywhere for what to do in response to a volcanic
> eruption large enough to cool and dry the climate around the world, as the
> eruption of Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia, did in 1815.

Here I am, thinking about how to provoke a massive volcanic eruption in order
to save what's left of our ecosystem.

In case you have been living under a rock: At the end of 2019 we had massive
fires in Australia, due to unusually high temperatures. And now the Russian
Arctic is experiencing the same - [https://news.yahoo.com/russian-arctic-sets-
fantastical-heat-...](https://news.yahoo.com/russian-arctic-sets-fantastical-
heat-records-weather-chief-132627542.html)

~~~
makerofspoons
Much cheaper to just spray sulfur dioxide from a plane:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injectio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection)

------
jdlyga
Covid and climate change aren't one country problems. Just like a building on
fire doesn't affect just one office. The problem is we need top-down
coordination for worldwide threats. We need the UN, or a UN-like organization
(United Earth?).

~~~
longtom
The problem is that very large institutions become corrupt with very high
certainty. It poses a huge near-term risk itself, so we somehow need to solve
coordination problems while staying decentralized.

------
jacquesm
There was nothing unpredictable about this. In 2013 I got handed a copy of a
book called 'Spillover, Animal infections and the next pandemic' by David
Quammen.

It was pretty much a storyboard for how COVD-19 (and other) diseases come into
play and spread around the world. Totally predictable, in excruciating detail.

[https://books.google.nl/books/about/Spillover_Animal_Infecti...](https://books.google.nl/books/about/Spillover_Animal_Infections_and_the_Next.html?id=RMmxxYUBQhgC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
luismmolina
Same. I am still surprised when someone says this was totally unpredictable.
That book gave me a great overview of what could happen. For example I had a
discussion with some friends about facemasks, they claimed that they were not
useful, like governments were saying. In the book I remember that almost every
researcher regrets not buying more, they are useful.

At least it gave me the ability to take more informed decisions.

------
jonmc12
The recent conversation between Tom Bilyeu and Daniel Schmachtenberger is a
great primer on this topic. Tom inquires about existential risk from a
pragmatic, entrepreneurial point of view.

This Economist article only scratches the surface of the risk of accelerating
technology development. Schmachtenberger provides a framework for thought and
much deeper insights in this direction.

[https://impacttheory.libsyn.com/conversations-with-tom-
danie...](https://impacttheory.libsyn.com/conversations-with-tom-daniel-
schmachtenberger-on-what-we-must-do-now-to-stop-the-destruction-of-
civilization)

~~~
halfcat
I wish there were more interviews with Daniel Schmachtenberger. His interview
on Eric Weinstein’s podcast [0] was also great.

[0] [https://youtu.be/_b4qKv1Ctv8](https://youtu.be/_b4qKv1Ctv8)

------
alexfromapex
Governments should focus more on long-termism than short-termism in general.

~~~
acheron
Sounds like a good way to get voted out in favor of the other guy who promises
short term benefits.

------
uoflcards22
Just read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "The Black Swan" if you want more thinking
about this topic..

~~~
nemo44x
And even better his concept of building anti-fragile systems. We can model
things, predict things, etc - but in the end everything is more complex than
we can know so as to appear random. We can’t predict what will happen but we
can build systems that are anti-fragile, or robust at the minimum.

------
jkuria
Prior discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23659120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23659120)

------
kashyapc
We'll also do well by taking a leaf from the Stoics, who wrote only 2000+
years ago ... on the importance of _" prerehearsal of future ills"_.

The meaning of it is explained in a note (24.2) from Seneca's _Letters on
Ethics_ (the full collection of 124 letters; excellently translated by Graver
and Long):

 _" The advice to reflect on all possible misfortunes is not meant to license
groundless worry but rather to afford an accurate assessment of what a human
life is likely to include, thus mitigating the psychological impact of
inevitable misfortune. [...]"_

\---

And here's a _rousing_ passage by Seneca from letter 91 ("A terrible fire at
Lyon"):

 _" When one is unprepared for a disaster, it has a greater effect: shock
intensifies the blow. No mortal can fail to grieve more deeply when amazement
is added to the loss [...]_

 _" Absolutely anything can be overthrown in its finest hour by the caprice of
fortune. Th brighter it shines, the more it is liable to be attacked and
shaken: for fortune, nothing is arduous, nothing difficult. Not always does it
come by a single road, not always by paths that are well worn. Sometimes it
turns our hands against each other; at other times, relying on its own
resources, it finds dangers for us that need no agent. No moment is exempt. In
the midst of pleasure, things arise that cause us pain. In a time of peace,
war breaks out, and all that one had relied on for security becomes an object
of fear: friends turn into foes, allies into enemies. The calm of a summer day
is suddenly transformed into storms greater than those of winter. Even without
an enemy at hand, we suffer war’s effects. If there are no other reasons for
calamity, excessive prosperity finds its own reasons. The most careful people
are attacked by illness; the sturdiest by physical decline; punishments affect
those who are completely guiltless; riots those who live in total seclusion.
People who have almost forgotten the power of chance find themselves picked
out to experience some novel misfortune. The achievements of a lifetime, put
together with great effort and many answered prayers, are cast to ruin in a
single day. But to speak of a day is to make our hastening calamities slower
than they really are. An hour, a mere moment is enough to overturn an empire.
It would be some relief to our frailty and our concerns if everything came to
an end as slowly as it comes into existence. The reality is that it takes time
for things to grow but little or no time for them to be lost."_

------
gorgoiler
A sobering thought is that there’s little to stop Covids 20.1 through 20.4
emerging as endemic human diseases next week.

It’s not like an earthquake where the disaster also relieves stress, albeit in
the long term.

------
bernardv
There’s an insurance product for that.

Pandemic insurance is available for businesses - it is a cost that will, by
definition, not likely pay back. But if an event occurs it will pay out as
expected.

Human behavior is such that only about 12% of Californians in at-risk areas
purchase earthquake insurance - even though many significant earthquakes have
occurred in living memory.

~~~
blendergeek
Unfortunately, pandemic insurance is unlikely to work in the real world. A
pandemic by definition affects the entire globe, meaning that if pandemic
insurance needs to pay out, it will have to pay out for all policy holders,
all at once. Given that the business model of insurance companies is to spread
risk across all policy holders, it is impossible for insurance companies to
payout all policies all at once.

~~~
chadash
Not to mention the fact that pricing pandemic insurance is going to be very
hard. Insurance companies generally don't like to take risks... they like
things that are highly predictable and can be modeled. The percentage of
people aged 40 who will die in a given year is predictable. So are the chances
of car accidents by 17 year old female drivers. When the next pandemic will
come is anyone's guess though. And lacking a decent way to model a risk like
this, the insurance company will inevitably need to charge a high premium to
make this a worthwhile product. Meanwhile, consumers will balk at the high
premium and not buy the coverage.

~~~
bernardv
Yet the models exist and are routinely used to evaluate and price that risk.

------
naasking
There are unfortunately many existential risks:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk)

* [https://www.existential-risk.org/](https://www.existential-risk.org/)

~~~
menybuvico
And yet, one of the largest risks is that our modern society simply assumes
that none of those will ever happen.

When I grew up in the 80's, society was built around the expectation that WW3
was pretty imminent, and while I'm quite happy that the cold war is over,
modern society would most likely be better of if we stopped taking everything
for granted and start preparing for things that we know will happen at some
point. Like pandemics.

Some kind of shit will happen at some point. That's about the only thing that
is certain. We should use the time we have until then for building a non-
fragile society.

------
imafish
Cant read the article but +1 for title.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
[http://archive.is/SH3EU](http://archive.is/SH3EU)

------
Tepix
Perhaps a bit naive standpoint:

If enough power companies buy insurance against a solar storm, the insurers
will have to stockpile those huge transformers that take 6-12 months to build.

If they don't buy such an isurance they are negligent and can be sued.

------
dcanelhas
Let's see how it plays out with climate change... This stub is the worst.

------
wintorez
Nah, it will be fine. /s

------
AlexTWithBeard
Are we trying to build a responsible society from irresponsible individuals?

Because if we're talking about individuals being responsible, we probably
should start from abolishing unemployment benefits (everyone must build an
emergency fund), retirement benefits (you didn't put anything into your 401k?
You'll die of hunger) and all other sorts of social stuff.

Otherwise it sounds like "we, as a society, must be responsible, while I
personally refuse to".

