Bioterrorism is definitely not where I was going with this. However, it is pretty much a given that the owners of large farms will do things that will increase their crop production, even if it decreases the productivity of farms that are spatially or temporally distant from them.
Again, think about creative uses for the knowledge you have for 5 minutes before you come to the conclusion that it's not possible to do significant harm with it. You probably don't even have to think directly of doing harm -- just look for the most profitable thing you can do with that knowledge, figure out what the negative side effects would be (particularly tragedy-of-the-commons type effects), and figure out how you can maintain profitability while increasing those negative side effects.
I'm gonna guess this has something to do with bees then (or in that general direction)?
Well, all sorts of tragedy of the commons things exist. If you think you've got one that could turn a commons into a resource to be manipulated, and can convince people, there will be a dozen investors knocking at your door!
It's been done a thousand times before and not only that but there are whole philosophical movements arguing that it's a moral imperative.
Nevertheless, you seem like you're in the running for the prize.
Edit: The purpose of this question is not to make the world worse, but to see whether we actually have concrete ideas of what would, and my guess is that most of us don't, not in a really concrete way. From the downvotes I'm wondering if everyone else is thinking way darker directions than I am. If so please share.
There is a lot of discussion here about effective altruism. Organizations like GiveWell with donations, using criterion like quality-life-years-saved-per-dollar. People distinguish warm-and-fuzzy giving from the most effective use of dollars from various utilitarian perspectives.
But I want to ask a different question: What would effective anti-altruism be?
To make it more concrete:
I am an eccentric multimillionaire, proposing a contest to all of you, who will for the purposes of this exercise play greedy and callous, yet honest and efficient, contest entrants.
Whoever can propose the most negative possible use for my money, in the sense that it causes the greatest amount of global misery, (feel free to argue for your own interpretation of the details of what this means) will receive $1 million to carry out his or her proposal and $1 million to keep for him or herself to with as desired.
A few rules:
1) Everything must be 100% legal in whatever jurisdiction you propose. Edit: People had trouble with the old phrasing, so I'll add that it should not only be legal in the letter of the law, but also in some reasonable interpretation of the spirit of the law.
1a) In fact, I encourage you to think of things that aren't merely legal but that would also be legal under whatever your favorite hypothetical laws are. Maybe that means non-coercive, non-violent, or something else in that vein.
2) This money may be used as seed funding for a non-profit or for-profit anti-altruistic venture, but I will take into account both the risk and the marginal impact of only the first million dollars.
3) Risk and plausibility are factors just as they would be in any investment for effective altruism
4) If you're going to propose that you keep and embezzle the first million dollars, you should have an extremely good justification for why such a mundane plan would match my standards for anti-altruism.
I hope this pushes you all to think of truly anti-altruistic means of spending this money. I think you may find that effective anti-altruism is a good deal harder than you'd believe.