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twanvl comments on Breakdown of existential risks - Less Wrong Discussion
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How are "global computer failures" an existential risk? Sure, it would suck, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.
And what are "physics threats"?
I would also like to see a column with strategies for mitigating the thread, beyond "requires global coordination". For example the solution against bioweapons would be regulation and maybe countermeasure research, while against supernovae there isn't much we can do.
Global trade depends on computers these days, and the human population depends on global trade to get food, medicine, building materials, technology parts, etc.; even if all humans would not be instantly killed by a global computer failure, it could stall or stop expansion.
Vacuum metastability event, for instance?
I can see a global computer catastrophe rising to the level of civilization-ending, and 90-99% fatality rate, if I squint hard enough. I could see the fatality rate being even higher if it happens farther in the future. I'm having trouble seeing it as an existential risk, that literally kills enough people that there is no viable population remaining anywhere. Even in the case of computer catastrophe as malicious event, I'm having trouble envisioning an existential risk that doesn't also include one of the other options.
Are there papers that make the case for computer catastrophe as X-risk?
Rather than considering it in terms of fatality rate, consider it in terms of curtailing humanity's possible expansion into the universe. The Industrial Revolution was possible because of abundant coal, and the 20th century's expansion of technology was possible because of petroleum. The easy-access coal and oil are used up; the resources being used today would not be accessible to a preindustrial or newly industrial civilization. So if our civilization falls and humanity reverts to preindustrial conditions, it stays there.