[ExI] How vulnerable is the world?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 8:16 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> How does Bostrom know that these "black balls" exist? Sure, there are
> technologies capable of destroying civilizations. But technologies that
> unavoidably destroy all civilizations? Maybe they exist, but how could he
> know? How could he know that all the technologies we've deployed so far are
> not black balls?
>

Indeed, what if the fear of such a black ball is itself the only true black
ball?  That is, the only way civilization can actually end is if it talks
itself into ending over worries of what might happen.

There is some evidence to suggest that this is the case.  Look what happens
when the precautionary principle takes hold in regulators: existing
problems don't get tended to, the base of people coming up with new ideas
also turns out to be the base of people sustaining current technological
bases so trying to shrink the former population shrinks the latter, and
generally the area is worse off until years after the phobia passes.

Bostrom speaks of "easy nukes".  We are now in "easy bioweapons".  And yet,
we are not seeing entire cities devastated.  Bostrom might want to consider
why that is.  (The answer, in part, is that even with "easy" WMDs, you
still need some degree of technological sophistication - which is generally
at odds with being truly homicidal.  Those who are learned enough to
actually make WMDs are also learned enough to know that destroying major
parts of the world won't reduce suffering for, or otherwise truly help,
their own people.)

The "freedom tag" would not accomplish the intended safety.  It would,
inevitably, miss people actually making weapons; in practice, it would be
all about the abuse, and deliver little if any actual safety.  Bostrom
contemplates that resistance would diminish after a few cities are
destroyed; he fails to realize that cities would continue to be destroyed
even with the freedom tag, and proponents would just say it had not been
sufficiently implemented yet - while jaliing and silencing anyone who
produces evidence that it is not working.  If those implementing this tag
also thought we might have reached a point where innovation could be about
to produce a civilization-ending technology, the resulting oppression would
guarantee mass starvation and death, and a lack of solutions to climate
change (most notably among other potential civilization ending problems),
resulting in the extinction of humanity.

By publishing this article, Bostrom has made it ever so slightly more
likely that civilization will worry itself to death.
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