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

gilch

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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.

existential-level AMR event

What would that look like? Humanity existed for the great majority of its history without antibiotics.

What would that look like?

Concretely? I'm not sure. One way is for a pathogen to jump from animals (or a lab) to humans, and then manage to infect and kill billions of people.

Humanity existed for the great majority of its history without antibiotics.

True. But it's much easier for a disease to spread long distances and among populations than in the past.

Note: I just realized there might be some terminological confusion, so I checked Bostrom's terminology. My "billions of deaths" scenario would not be "existential," in Bostrom's se... (read more)