I was initially pretty excited about the idea of getting another passport, but on second thought I’m not sure it’s worth the substantial costs involved. Today people aren’t losing their passports or having their movements restricted for (them or their family members) having expressed “wrong” ideas, but just(!) losing their jobs, being publicly humiliated, etc. This is more the kind of risk I want to hedge against (with regard to AI), especially for my family. If the political situation deteriorates even further to where the US government puts official sanctions on people like me, humanity is probably just totally screwed as a whole and having another passport isn’t going to help me that much.
I spent some time reading about the situation in Venezuela, and from what I remember, a big reason people are stuck there is simply that the bureaucracy for processing passports is extremely slow/dysfunctional (and lack of a passport presents a barrier for achieving a legal immigration status in any other country). So it might be worthwhile to renew your passport more regularly than is strictly necessary, so you always have at least a 5 year buffer on it say, in case we see the same kind of institutional dysfunction. (Much less effort than acquiring a second passport.)
Side note: I once talked to someone who became stuck in a country that he was not a citizen of because he allowed his passport to expire and couldn’t travel back home to get it renewed. (He was from a small country. My guess is that the US offers passport services without needing to travel back home. But I could be wrong.)
I was initially pretty excited about the idea of getting another passport, but on second thought I’m not sure it’s worth the substantial costs involved. Today people aren’t losing their passports or having their movements restricted for (them or their family members) having expressed “wrong” ideas, but just(!) losing their jobs, being publicly humiliated, etc. This is more the kind of risk I want to hedge against (with regard to AI), especially for my family. If the political situation deteriorates even further to where the US government puts official sanctions on people like me, humanity is probably just totally screwed as a whole and having another passport isn’t going to help me that much.
I spent some time reading about the situation in Venezuela, and from what I remember, a big reason people are stuck there is simply that the bureaucracy for processing passports is extremely slow/dysfunctional (and lack of a passport presents a barrier for achieving a legal immigration status in any other country). So it might be worthwhile to renew your passport more regularly than is strictly necessary, so you always have at least a 5 year buffer on it say, in case we see the same kind of institutional dysfunction. (Much less effort than acquiring a second passport.)
Side note: I once talked to someone who became stuck in a country that he was not a citizen of because he allowed his passport to expire and couldn’t travel back home to get it renewed. (He was from a small country. My guess is that the US offers passport services without needing to travel back home. But I could be wrong.)