So trying to increase the number of people who think about and work on x-risk and see it as a high priority would be one. Efforts to raise general rationality would be another. MIRI does sort-of represent a general strategy against existential risk, since if they are successful the problem will likely be taken care of.
In discussions about AI risks, the possibility of a dangerous arms race between the US and China sometimes comes up. It seems like this kind of arms race could happen with other dangerous techs like nano and bio. Pushing for more democratic governments in states like Russia and China might also decrease the chances of nuclear war, etc.
This article from the Christian Science Monitor suggests that if the Chinese government decided to stop helping North Korea, that might cause the country to “implode”, which feels like a good thing from an x-risk reduction standpoint.
How could we push for regime change? Since the cost of living in China is lower than the US, funding dissidents who are already working towards democracy seems like a solid option. Cyberattacks seem like another… how hard would it be to neuter the Great Firewall of China?
So pushing for more democratic governments in states like Russia and China
Do you expect democratic governments to engage less in arms races? Or to be less capable of engaging in them (because they might have less domestic/economic/military power)? Or to be less willing to actually deploy the produced arms? Or to be less willing to compete with the US specifically? Or to cause some other change that is desirable? And why?
I ask because “democracy” is an applause light that is often coopted when people mean something else entirely that is mentally associated with it. Such as low corruption, or personal freedom, or an alliance with Western nations.
Or to be less willing to compete with the US specifically?
This is what I had in mind. I’d guess that the fact that the US is democratic and China is not ends up indirectly causing a lot of US/China friction. Same is probably true for Russia.
I agree that if Russia and China became more democratic the world would be a safer place. Liberal democracies are generally better at cooperation, and almost never go to war with one another [see the extensive literature on Democratic Peace Theory].
However like Larks, I think this is a baaaaaad idea. Foreign inteference would either have no effect, or provoke harsh countermeasures.
Pushing for more democratic governments in states like Russia and China might also decrease the chances of nuclear war, etc.
Most Chinese people I talked to really disliked Japan, and seemed in favour of China invading Taiwan to “get it back”. And that’s from a sample that was more educated and western-friendly than the general population. I’m really not sure giving everybody the vote would really decrease the chances of nuclear war. It’s not as if democratic elections in Iran, and Egypt (and maybe Libya?) were making the countries more stable.
if the Chinese government decided to stop helping North Korea, that might cause the country to “implode”, which feels like a good thing from an x-risk reduction standpoint.
Sure, a civil war in a highly militarized country that has The Bomb, what could go wrong?
Sure, a civil war in a highly militarized country that has The Bomb, what could go wrong?
Keep in mind that a potential consequence of letting NK run amok (remember that they have already bombed South Korean land and military, killing hundreds of South Koreans, over the last few years) is South Korea and Japan going nuclear. (Implausible? No: SK already had an active nuke program in the 1980s due to fear of NK.)
I agree that North Korea keeping up with it´s current behavior is dangerous, it´s just far from clear whether a regime collapse would make things better or worse. The safest solution might be something like a soft collapse where the Kims and their friends are offered a safe retirement in China en exchange for stepping down and letting South Korea and/or Soutj Korea take over (which is unlikely unless China is threatening military action otherwise—and since China does’t want Japan to go Nuclear, it has an incentive of finding some way to calm down the Kims).
This article from the Christian Science Monitor suggests that if the Chinese government decided to stop helping North Korea, that might cause the country to “implode”, which feels like a good thing from an x-risk reduction standpoint.
I think the civil war that would result combined with extreme proximity between Chinese and US troops (the latter supporting South Korea and trying to contain nuclear weapons) is probably an abysmal thing from an x-risk reduction standpoint.
China has privately told the US that they would support the US in extending South Korean control over the entire Korean peninsula per the diplomatic cables leak. The Chinese would probably be happy if the US rolled in and flattened the entire country as long as they didn’t have to let too many refugees into China, and really, at this point, the way that North Korea is acting China is probably willing to take the risk given that the North Koreans seem eager to cause trouble, and there’s no guarantee it won’t happen in a worse way later on.
Honestly I think that crushing the North Korean government and military completely would probably pretty much end it. North Korea has a ton of propaganda about their country’s superiority over the rest of the world; without the tight control over the country that the present government has, I don’t think that vision of superiority would last very long.
Not to say that they’d be terribly awesomely happy with us, but the US rolled into Japan after WWII and it worked out quite well. Given the present day poverty of the country, really all you’d have to do to win is wait for a bad famine to hit the country and roll in then; showing the people that you care about them with food is a dirty but probably effective way to make them distrust you less, especially if you have the South Koreans move in and the US move out as much as possible. Though of course other options exist.
It would be a mess, but I think it would probably be significantly less messy than Afganistan, given that rather than having twenty different angry groups, you really have the government and that’s about it.
A question Katja Grace posed at a CFAR minicamp (wording mine):
Are there things we can do that aren’t targeted to specific x-risks but mitigate a great many x-risks at once?
So trying to increase the number of people who think about and work on x-risk and see it as a high priority would be one. Efforts to raise general rationality would be another. MIRI does sort-of represent a general strategy against existential risk, since if they are successful the problem will likely be taken care of.
I hope that SPARC will end up being one of these things.
“not you regular math camp” I gather
In discussions about AI risks, the possibility of a dangerous arms race between the US and China sometimes comes up. It seems like this kind of arms race could happen with other dangerous techs like nano and bio. Pushing for more democratic governments in states like Russia and China might also decrease the chances of nuclear war, etc.
This article from the Christian Science Monitor suggests that if the Chinese government decided to stop helping North Korea, that might cause the country to “implode”, which feels like a good thing from an x-risk reduction standpoint.
How could we push for regime change? Since the cost of living in China is lower than the US, funding dissidents who are already working towards democracy seems like a solid option. Cyberattacks seem like another… how hard would it be to neuter the Great Firewall of China?
Do you expect democratic governments to engage less in arms races? Or to be less capable of engaging in them (because they might have less domestic/economic/military power)? Or to be less willing to actually deploy the produced arms? Or to be less willing to compete with the US specifically? Or to cause some other change that is desirable? And why?
I ask because “democracy” is an applause light that is often coopted when people mean something else entirely that is mentally associated with it. Such as low corruption, or personal freedom, or an alliance with Western nations.
This is what I had in mind. I’d guess that the fact that the US is democratic and China is not ends up indirectly causing a lot of US/China friction. Same is probably true for Russia.
That sounds like the sort of aggression which would lead to an arms race. How would America react if China tried to achieve regime change here?
...thereby encouraging them to invest in intelligent tech defence
I agree that if Russia and China became more democratic the world would be a safer place. Liberal democracies are generally better at cooperation, and almost never go to war with one another [see the extensive literature on Democratic Peace Theory].
However like Larks, I think this is a baaaaaad idea. Foreign inteference would either have no effect, or provoke harsh countermeasures.
Seems plausible. Might be a good idea for LWers who were Russia/China natives though.
Most Chinese people I talked to really disliked Japan, and seemed in favour of China invading Taiwan to “get it back”. And that’s from a sample that was more educated and western-friendly than the general population. I’m really not sure giving everybody the vote would really decrease the chances of nuclear war. It’s not as if democratic elections in Iran, and Egypt (and maybe Libya?) were making the countries more stable.
Sure, a civil war in a highly militarized country that has The Bomb, what could go wrong?
Keep in mind that a potential consequence of letting NK run amok (remember that they have already bombed South Korean land and military, killing hundreds of South Koreans, over the last few years) is South Korea and Japan going nuclear. (Implausible? No: SK already had an active nuke program in the 1980s due to fear of NK.)
I agree that North Korea keeping up with it´s current behavior is dangerous, it´s just far from clear whether a regime collapse would make things better or worse. The safest solution might be something like a soft collapse where the Kims and their friends are offered a safe retirement in China en exchange for stepping down and letting South Korea and/or Soutj Korea take over (which is unlikely unless China is threatening military action otherwise—and since China does’t want Japan to go Nuclear, it has an incentive of finding some way to calm down the Kims).
I think the civil war that would result combined with extreme proximity between Chinese and US troops (the latter supporting South Korea and trying to contain nuclear weapons) is probably an abysmal thing from an x-risk reduction standpoint.
China has privately told the US that they would support the US in extending South Korean control over the entire Korean peninsula per the diplomatic cables leak. The Chinese would probably be happy if the US rolled in and flattened the entire country as long as they didn’t have to let too many refugees into China, and really, at this point, the way that North Korea is acting China is probably willing to take the risk given that the North Koreans seem eager to cause trouble, and there’s no guarantee it won’t happen in a worse way later on.
Honestly I think that crushing the North Korean government and military completely would probably pretty much end it. North Korea has a ton of propaganda about their country’s superiority over the rest of the world; without the tight control over the country that the present government has, I don’t think that vision of superiority would last very long.
Not to say that they’d be terribly awesomely happy with us, but the US rolled into Japan after WWII and it worked out quite well. Given the present day poverty of the country, really all you’d have to do to win is wait for a bad famine to hit the country and roll in then; showing the people that you care about them with food is a dirty but probably effective way to make them distrust you less, especially if you have the South Koreans move in and the US move out as much as possible. Though of course other options exist.
It would be a mess, but I think it would probably be significantly less messy than Afganistan, given that rather than having twenty different angry groups, you really have the government and that’s about it.
How sure are you?
Acts of military aggression by the PRC since 1949: About 5.
Acts of military aggression by the USSR/Russia in the same period: About 5
Acts of military aggression by the USA in the same period: About 7
(I’ve tried to be upwardly biased on numbers for all three, since it’s obviously hard to decide who the aggressors in a conflict are)
Wars that the PRC have participated in that were not part of domestic territorial disputes since 1949: 2
Likewise for Russia: 5
Likewise for the USA: 17
(for the USA and USSR figures I’m counting all of the Cold War as one conflict, and likewise all of the War on Terror)
Sources found here
Edit: What happened to my formatting? I’ve had this problem before but I’ve never been able to fix it.
Good point. I think ideally your sample size would be larger, I’m not sure the US is representative of democratic countries.
Re: formatting. Try putting a blank line between bullets.
Tried, doesn’t work. Anyone got any ideas?
You also need to put a space between the asterisk and the start of your sentence. Ex.:
* These
* Will
* Be
* Bullet
* Points
These
Will
Be
Bullet
Points
Thank you!