Open thread, Apr. 17 - Apr. 23, 2017

gilch

This is the (late) weekly open thread. See the tag. You'd think we could automate this. The traditional boilerplate follows.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting.

This is the (late) weekly open thread. See the tag. You'd think we could automate this. The traditional boilerplate follows.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting.

Yes, I have. Nuclear war lost its top spot to antimicrobial resistance.

Given recent events on the Korean peninsula it may seem strange to downgrade the risk of nuclear war. Explanation:

While the probability of conflict is at a local high, the potential severity of the conflict is lower than I'd thought. This is because I've downgraded my estimate of how many nukes DPRK is likely to successfully deploy. (Any shooting war would still be a terrible event, especially for Seoul, which is only about 60 km from the border--firmly within conventional artillery range.)
An actual conflict with DPRK may deter other aspiring nuclear states, while a perpetual lack of conflict may have the opposite effect. As the number of nuclear states rises, both the probability and severity of a nuclear war rise, so the expected damage rises as the square. The chance of accident or terrorist use of nukes rises too.
Rising tensions with DPRK, even without a war, can result in a larger global push for stronger anti-proliferation measures.
Perhaps paradoxically, because (a) DPRK's capabilities are improving over time and (b) a conflict now ends the potential for a future conflict, a higher chance of a sooner (and smaller) conflict means a lower chance of a later (and larger) conflict.

You say:

I ended up to believe that now nuclear war > runaway biotech > UFAI

What was your ranking before, and on what information did you update?

What was your ranking before, and on what information did you update?

Well, before it was: runaway bioweapon > UFAI > nuclear extinction, but the recent news about the international situation made me update. As I said elsewhere, I'm adopting the outside view on all these subjects, so I will gladly stand corrected.

2gilch9y

Why does antimicrobial resistance rank so high in your estimation? It seems like a catastrophic risk at worst, not an existential one. New antibiotics are developed rather infrequently because they're currently not that profitable. Incentives would change if the resistance problem got worse. I don't think we've anywhere near exhausted antibiotic candidates found in nature, and even if we had, there are alternatives like phage therapy and monoclonal antibodies that we could potentially use instead.