[ExI] libertarian (asteroid) defense

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Tue Mar 1 03:04:48 UTC 2011


On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> Damien Sullivan wrote:
> Most common natural GCRs are fairly manageable if you can warn ahead
> (tsunamis, volcanos, hurricanes, even asteroids) and build resiliency (good
> civil society infrastructure, food storage). The ones to fear are the ones
> that are global (major climate fluctuation impairing agriculture, pandemics,
> cosmic eruptions). Anthropogenic GCRs are somwhat similar, but IMHO more
> dangerous because they are often adaptive and potentially larger.

(Sorry for being dense, what is a GCR? Galactic Cosmic Ray?)

All you can currently do about tsunamis, volcanos and hurricanes is
run away. Far away if possible. So that's reasonable as long as the
timing works.

While the science points in the direction that climate fluctuation can
occur faster than we previously thought likely, it still happens over
a period of years or decades. Great climate change may lead to great
suffering, but it is not going to be an extinction event. More of an
economic reshuffling of the cards. It could be that the most wealthy
people 200 years from now are the descendants of the nomads who "own"
the Sahara Desert today. That it is not an extinction event is obvious
by the fact that you can buy insurance against climate change. That's
how Al Gore is making fists full of money in fact, by selling that
insurance.

If you can sell insurance against climate change, then I see no reason
you couldn't sell insurance against mid sized asteroid strikes.
Insuring against a global extinction event is silly since there would
be nobody left to pay or collect, and nothing to do with the money
after that point anyway. I suppose it could mean something if some
part of humanity lives off world...

-Kelly



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