I think Russell’s prediction was not that bad. I don’t know what probability we should translate to his statement that “unless something quite unforeseen occurs”. 90% maybe. And what was the real probability that we would have gotten a nuclear war or effectively a world government by 2000? I think about 50%?
I think Russell in 1951, seeing the ever-increasing pace of technological development during his life since 1872, underestimated the possibility that the world would soon enter the Great Stagnation, and the pace of technological progress would stop increasing and would in many ways slow down. In the 1951 essay we are talking about, he writes:
”The first possibility, the extinction of the human race, is not to be expected in the next world war, unless that war is postponed for a longer time than now seems probable. But if the next world war is indecisive, or if the victors are unwise, and if organized states survive it, a period of feverish technical development may be expected to follow its conclusion.”
I don’t know how much his prediction of feverish technical development depends on this happening after a war, but I think he would be surprised that in 2000 hydrogen bombs were still the most powerful weapons, and that the equilibrium of both sides having nukes and ICBMs but no one managing to develop reliable ICBM interceptors remained stable for so long.
I think AI will likely end the Great Stagnation and bring us back to ever-accelerating feverish technical progress, and Russell’s prediction will come true.
I don’t know what probability we should translate to his statement that “unless something quite unforeseen occurs”. 90% maybe
I assume you mean 10% on “something unforeseen”? Opus 5estimates “5% and possibly less”, for what it’s worth.
I think he would be surprised that in 2000 hydrogen bombs were still the most powerful weapons
To be fair, nuclear bombs in 2000 were a thousand times more powerful than in 1951.
I think you’re underselling how much of Russell’s concern was the apparent instability of the equilibrium at the time, even without further technological progress:
“If things are allowed to drift, it is obvious that the bickering between Russia and the Western democracies will continue until Russia has a considerable store of atomic bombs, and that when that time comes there will be an atomic war.”
It doesn’t seem like this is conditional on further technological progress. The passage you’re quoting is specifically about human extinction, not about world war.
Yeah, I agree he was pretty wrong. But I think that a big part of the story is that he saw at the time politicians on both sides talking about nuclear war as a winnable fight (he quotes politicians on this extensively in his 1958 speech on the topic), and this made him think that one side would eventually pull the trigger. In reality, the concept of mutually assured destruction and nuclear wars being unwinnable eventually became common wisdom among politicians, and then nuclear sabre-rattling went down. And I think that’s downstream of the fact that military tech in fact didn’t improve that much, and no one yet managed to build a reliable response to nukes + ICBMs.
So you think the Great Stagnation manifested that quickly (it’s generally taken to start in the 70s), and in military tech to boot? (to develop better ICBM interception). That feels a bit implausible to me since nuclear bombs became so much more powerful. It feels more like an offense-defense balance intrinsic to the technology + coordination of exactly the type that he didn’t expect (the ABM treaty capping defense systems). But I feel a bit out of my depth here.
I think Russell’s prediction was not that bad. I don’t know what probability we should translate to his statement that “unless something quite unforeseen occurs”. 90% maybe. And what was the real probability that we would have gotten a nuclear war or effectively a world government by 2000? I think about 50%?
I think Russell in 1951, seeing the ever-increasing pace of technological development during his life since 1872, underestimated the possibility that the world would soon enter the Great Stagnation, and the pace of technological progress would stop increasing and would in many ways slow down. In the 1951 essay we are talking about, he writes:
”The first possibility, the extinction of the human race, is not to be expected in the next world war, unless that war is postponed for a longer time than now seems probable. But if the next world war is indecisive, or if the victors are unwise, and if organized states survive it, a period of feverish technical development may be expected to follow its conclusion.”
I don’t know how much his prediction of feverish technical development depends on this happening after a war, but I think he would be surprised that in 2000 hydrogen bombs were still the most powerful weapons, and that the equilibrium of both sides having nukes and ICBMs but no one managing to develop reliable ICBM interceptors remained stable for so long.
I think AI will likely end the Great Stagnation and bring us back to ever-accelerating feverish technical progress, and Russell’s prediction will come true.
I assume you mean 10% on “something unforeseen”? Opus 5 estimates “5% and possibly less”, for what it’s worth.
To be fair, nuclear bombs in 2000 were a thousand times more powerful than in 1951.
I think you’re underselling how much of Russell’s concern was the apparent instability of the equilibrium at the time, even without further technological progress:
“If things are allowed to drift, it is obvious that the bickering between Russia and the Western democracies will continue until Russia has a considerable store of atomic bombs, and that when that time comes there will be an atomic war.”
It doesn’t seem like this is conditional on further technological progress. The passage you’re quoting is specifically about human extinction, not about world war.
Yeah, I agree he was pretty wrong. But I think that a big part of the story is that he saw at the time politicians on both sides talking about nuclear war as a winnable fight (he quotes politicians on this extensively in his 1958 speech on the topic), and this made him think that one side would eventually pull the trigger. In reality, the concept of mutually assured destruction and nuclear wars being unwinnable eventually became common wisdom among politicians, and then nuclear sabre-rattling went down. And I think that’s downstream of the fact that military tech in fact didn’t improve that much, and no one yet managed to build a reliable response to nukes + ICBMs.
So you think the Great Stagnation manifested that quickly (it’s generally taken to start in the 70s), and in military tech to boot? (to develop better ICBM interception). That feels a bit implausible to me since nuclear bombs became so much more powerful. It feels more like an offense-defense balance intrinsic to the technology + coordination of exactly the type that he didn’t expect (the ABM treaty capping defense systems). But I feel a bit out of my depth here.