Global food reserves are currently under one year worth (according to a UN report). As a result, if some kind of plague wipes out grain yields (or some other major food source) for this year we would be looking at a massive die off or a collapse of modern society.
Infectious diseases are a pretty obvious x-risk.
Asteroids are also pretty obvious x-risks.
As is open-sourced bio-terrorism.
Genetic diversity of wild species, granted, isn’t going to cause human extinction in the short or medium term.
For space stations and other off world sustainable settlements, see the above threats of asteroids and plagues, as well as the not putting all your eggs in one basket concept. The expansion of the sun is not a near term threat, but multiple colonies is a pretty blanket x-threat protection.
Protecting food production from environmental change and environmental threats. See above regarding our current food stocks and vulnerabilities to damage to this industry.
Climate changed caused pandemics due to the migration of pathogens to areas without prepared immune systems. Sounds like mapping these movements is an important way of reducing a near term x-risk.
Nano-tech. I’m not sure how you would define short- or medium-term, but I suspect “within the next few decades” counts. Having legislation in place before nano-robotics takes of seems like an important near-term step to take.
Nuclear weapons. The ability of multiple competing nations to nuke each other back to the stone age, held in check only by public opinion and a mode of thought so insane even the acronym is MAD. Nuclear weapons count as an x-threat (IMHO).
For a protected and isolated colony, see my notes on space colonies above. A large number of threats can be prevented by having a backup population.
Ideological absolutism; aka the kind of mentality that leads to terrorism or otherwise thinking “everyone who X must die, at any collateral cost”.
Evidence based thinking is another one of those general things that make new x-risks less likely to emerge and more likely to be discovered before it is too late, but I’ll agree that the main effects would be other benefits.
Pandemics again.
I got 12-13 with clear relevance, so clearly we disagree about some of them. Which of the above would you not count as an x-threat?
I’m not positive which ones you mean, but if you mean things like famine prevention and climate change, then I think I disagree with you. I think that anything that triggers the collapse of civilization does constitute an extensional risk, because I think there is a significant chance that in a deep and total civilization collapse (on the scale of the fall of the Roman Empire, say) that humanity would never recover.
People in Europe survived the collapse of the Roman Empire because they were able to fall back on older iron-age technologies, which were good enough to keep a decent percentage of the people alive. But we are much farther away from those now, practical knowledge of how to survive without modern technology is much more rare, the environment is much more degraded, population would have to fall much faster, and in any case a collapse that large and that broad would have a significant risk of leading to a nuclear war or other catastrophe. I would say that there is at least a 10%-20% chance that a total collapse of civilization would lead to either human extinction or to humans never again reaching the current level of technology.
Most of those (8/14) bear little to no import on actual short- or medium-term x-risks.
Global food reserves are currently under one year worth (according to a UN report). As a result, if some kind of plague wipes out grain yields (or some other major food source) for this year we would be looking at a massive die off or a collapse of modern society.
Infectious diseases are a pretty obvious x-risk.
Asteroids are also pretty obvious x-risks.
As is open-sourced bio-terrorism.
Genetic diversity of wild species, granted, isn’t going to cause human extinction in the short or medium term.
For space stations and other off world sustainable settlements, see the above threats of asteroids and plagues, as well as the not putting all your eggs in one basket concept. The expansion of the sun is not a near term threat, but multiple colonies is a pretty blanket x-threat protection.
Protecting food production from environmental change and environmental threats. See above regarding our current food stocks and vulnerabilities to damage to this industry.
Climate changed caused pandemics due to the migration of pathogens to areas without prepared immune systems. Sounds like mapping these movements is an important way of reducing a near term x-risk.
Nano-tech. I’m not sure how you would define short- or medium-term, but I suspect “within the next few decades” counts. Having legislation in place before nano-robotics takes of seems like an important near-term step to take.
Nuclear weapons. The ability of multiple competing nations to nuke each other back to the stone age, held in check only by public opinion and a mode of thought so insane even the acronym is MAD. Nuclear weapons count as an x-threat (IMHO).
For a protected and isolated colony, see my notes on space colonies above. A large number of threats can be prevented by having a backup population.
Ideological absolutism; aka the kind of mentality that leads to terrorism or otherwise thinking “everyone who X must die, at any collateral cost”.
Evidence based thinking is another one of those general things that make new x-risks less likely to emerge and more likely to be discovered before it is too late, but I’ll agree that the main effects would be other benefits.
Pandemics again.
I got 12-13 with clear relevance, so clearly we disagree about some of them. Which of the above would you not count as an x-threat?
I’m not positive which ones you mean, but if you mean things like famine prevention and climate change, then I think I disagree with you. I think that anything that triggers the collapse of civilization does constitute an extensional risk, because I think there is a significant chance that in a deep and total civilization collapse (on the scale of the fall of the Roman Empire, say) that humanity would never recover.
People in Europe survived the collapse of the Roman Empire because they were able to fall back on older iron-age technologies, which were good enough to keep a decent percentage of the people alive. But we are much farther away from those now, practical knowledge of how to survive without modern technology is much more rare, the environment is much more degraded, population would have to fall much faster, and in any case a collapse that large and that broad would have a significant risk of leading to a nuclear war or other catastrophe. I would say that there is at least a 10%-20% chance that a total collapse of civilization would lead to either human extinction or to humans never again reaching the current level of technology.