I’m not overly concerned with the news from this morning. In fact I expected them to raise the nuclear force readiness prior to or simultaneously to commencing the invasion, not now, which is expected going into a time of conflict/high tension from normal peacetime readiness. I had about a 5% chance this will escalate to a nuclear war going into it, and it’s not much different now, certainly not above 10% (For context, my odds of escalation to full countervalue exchange in a US intervention in a Taiwan reunification campaign would be about 75%). Virtually all that probability is split between unfavorable developments dragging in NATO and accidents/miscalculation risk, which is elevated during tense times like this (something like, if the Russians had misinterpreted the attack submarine which entered their territorial waters last week as being a ballistic missile submarine sneaking up close to launch a first strike, or an early warning radar fluke/misidentification being taken seriously when it would’ve been dismissed during peacetime, either of which could’ve caused them to launch on warning).
Unintentional nuclear exchange will have no preceding signs, but unfavorable developments will, for example a NATO shootdown of a Russian plane or Russian fire straying over the border killing NATO troops which begins an escalation spiral. If we start seeing such incidents being reported, I would tell all my LW friends to get the fuck out of NATO cities they’re living in immediately.
Oh and also, there’s potential for this to lead to a coup/domestic upheaval/regime change in Russia which would be an exceptionally volatile situation, kind of like having 6000 loose nukes until whoever takes power consolidates control including over the strategic forces again. So factoring that in, it should perhaps be over 5%. But again there should be advance warning for those developments inside Russia.
I don’t know much about coups, but if there was any advance warnings for everyone to see, then the regime would know what’s coming too and would presumably prevent it?
5% would be by the end of all this. Most of that probability comes from things developing in an unfortunate direction as I said, which would mean it goes against the current indications we have of neither the US nor NATO intervening militarily. This could be either them changing their minds, perhaps due to unexpectedly brutal Russian conduct during the war leading to a decision to impose a no-fly zone or something like that, or a cycle of retaliatory escalation due to unintended spillover of the war like I illustrated. Neither is too likely imo, and both will have advance warning if you’re paying any attention luckily. The risk of a sudden nuclear exchange which doesn’t even give enough warning for Americans to leave their cities is definitely lower, maybe 2% at most. But it’s definitely present as well, due to the misjudgment risks etc. as I mentioned.
I will add that we do not know what the probability of nuclear escalation was during the Cold War. Perhaps there was a 50 or 90 percent risk of war. Survivorship bias.
That doesn’t sound right. A nuclear war would not have ended humanity. The fact that we’re looking back upon a history where no nuclear war has occurred is evidence against a high risk of war being present during the Cold War. The fact that we’re looking back upon multiple “close calls” in the past is an indication that those calls weren’t that close after all.
Yes, a nuclear war would not destroy humanity completely. This is not relevant to this issue. From the fact that there was no nuclear war, we cannot deduce in any way what its probability was. The probability can be deduced only from a thorough assessment of the incidents themselves (the Caribbean crisis and 1983 and other examples) and the possibilities of other incidents. I hope the translator translated it correctly...
Good point. Unless of course one is more likely to be born into universes with high human populations than universes with low human populations, because there are more ‘brains available to be born into’. Hard to say.
I don’t think an all-out nuclear war would even substantially (i.e. by orders of magnitude) reduce world population, though this claim is a bit more controversial. That may sound morbid but it’s what is relevant for anthropics.
Good point. In my understanding it could go either way, but I’m open to the idea that the worst disasters are less than 50% likely, given a nuclear war.
I’m not overly concerned with the news from this morning. In fact I expected them to raise the nuclear force readiness prior to or simultaneously to commencing the invasion, not now, which is expected going into a time of conflict/high tension from normal peacetime readiness. I had about a 5% chance this will escalate to a nuclear war going into it, and it’s not much different now, certainly not above 10% (For context, my odds of escalation to full countervalue exchange in a US intervention in a Taiwan reunification campaign would be about 75%). Virtually all that probability is split between unfavorable developments dragging in NATO and accidents/miscalculation risk, which is elevated during tense times like this (something like, if the Russians had misinterpreted the attack submarine which entered their territorial waters last week as being a ballistic missile submarine sneaking up close to launch a first strike, or an early warning radar fluke/misidentification being taken seriously when it would’ve been dismissed during peacetime, either of which could’ve caused them to launch on warning).
Unintentional nuclear exchange will have no preceding signs, but unfavorable developments will, for example a NATO shootdown of a Russian plane or Russian fire straying over the border killing NATO troops which begins an escalation spiral. If we start seeing such incidents being reported, I would tell all my LW friends to get the fuck out of NATO cities they’re living in immediately.
Um, well, gosh. I have been estimating the odds of nuclear exchange as quite a lot below 5%. Why is your estimate so high?
Oh and also, there’s potential for this to lead to a coup/domestic upheaval/regime change in Russia which would be an exceptionally volatile situation, kind of like having 6000 loose nukes until whoever takes power consolidates control including over the strategic forces again. So factoring that in, it should perhaps be over 5%. But again there should be advance warning for those developments inside Russia.
I don’t know much about coups, but if there was any advance warnings for everyone to see, then the regime would know what’s coming too and would presumably prevent it?
5% would be by the end of all this. Most of that probability comes from things developing in an unfortunate direction as I said, which would mean it goes against the current indications we have of neither the US nor NATO intervening militarily. This could be either them changing their minds, perhaps due to unexpectedly brutal Russian conduct during the war leading to a decision to impose a no-fly zone or something like that, or a cycle of retaliatory escalation due to unintended spillover of the war like I illustrated. Neither is too likely imo, and both will have advance warning if you’re paying any attention luckily. The risk of a sudden nuclear exchange which doesn’t even give enough warning for Americans to leave their cities is definitely lower, maybe 2% at most. But it’s definitely present as well, due to the misjudgment risks etc. as I mentioned.
Also, see the comments I just wrote on EA Forum.
I will add that we do not know what the probability of nuclear escalation was during the Cold War. Perhaps there was a 50 or 90 percent risk of war. Survivorship bias.
That doesn’t sound right. A nuclear war would not have ended humanity. The fact that we’re looking back upon a history where no nuclear war has occurred is evidence against a high risk of war being present during the Cold War. The fact that we’re looking back upon multiple “close calls” in the past is an indication that those calls weren’t that close after all.
Yes, a nuclear war would not destroy humanity completely. This is not relevant to this issue. From the fact that there was no nuclear war, we cannot deduce in any way what its probability was. The probability can be deduced only from a thorough assessment of the incidents themselves (the Caribbean crisis and 1983 and other examples) and the possibilities of other incidents.
I hope the translator translated it correctly...
Good point. Unless of course one is more likely to be born into universes with high human populations than universes with low human populations, because there are more ‘brains available to be born into’. Hard to say.
I don’t think an all-out nuclear war would even substantially (i.e. by orders of magnitude) reduce world population, though this claim is a bit more controversial. That may sound morbid but it’s what is relevant for anthropics.
Good point. In my understanding it could go either way, but I’m open to the idea that the worst disasters are less than 50% likely, given a nuclear war.