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rwallace comments on Other Existential Risks - Less Wrong
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I think we're better off spending the resources more proactively, unless and until we find evidence of an imminent threat of a variety against which that is a good defense. For example, instead of spending money preemptively populating underground shelters in case of an asteroid impact, I'd rather spend it extending our surveys of the sky to have a better chance of spotting an incoming asteroid in time to deflect it.
This depends on being able to anticipate all significant threats.
But I guess it's silly to debate what percentage of all humanity's resources should be devoted to various things--just what percentage of our resources.
Agreed on both counts; of course we have no way to know exactly what threats we face, let alone exactly how to deal with them.
Except in this regard: however long or short our window of opportunity may be, any slowdown in technological progress increases the general threat that some specific threat will close that window on us while we are still vulnerable, while we still depend on nonrenewable resources, while all our eggs are still in one basket. The one form of protection we need above all else is speed, and that's how I believe we should be spending as much as possible of our resources.