There’s big billionaires and little billionaires. And then there’s military elites and big billionaires. Inequality is prevalent among elites too, and insulation from ambitious and well-connected outsiders is a prerequisite to having any sort of stability in national security decisionmaking. However, personal networks abound and all sorts of things can happen due to chance.
I think that nuclear accidents are very real but they are also overemphasized on lesswrong, and far too few people here know the basics of nuclear deterrence and coercion, which are one of the biggest prerequisites to understanding nuclear standoffs and major conflicts like Ukraine. Deliberate action can be depicted as accidents, dramatically decreasing risks and costs of the deliberate action.
Gain-of-function in the current era is understandable and sane, even if it’s unfortunate. The programs aren’t gathering dust anymore, which they’ve generally appeared to do since WW2. It’s terrible news, obviously, but everyone’s thinking about it, which means everyone’s thinking about everyone thinking about it. Also, in terms of offense-defense, deterrence and MAD can be outmaneuvered if the enemy has many more options than you, e.g. they can do something that’s a little bit insane and your only option for retaliation is to retaliate with something that’s extremely insane.
There’s big billionaires and little billionaires. And then there’s military elites and big billionaires. Inequality is prevalent among elites too, and insulation from ambitious and well-connected outsiders is a prerequisite to having any sort of stability in national security decisionmaking. However, personal networks abound and all sorts of things can happen due to chance.
I think that nuclear accidents are very real but they are also overemphasized on lesswrong, and far too few people here know the basics of nuclear deterrence and coercion, which are one of the biggest prerequisites to understanding nuclear standoffs and major conflicts like Ukraine. Deliberate action can be depicted as accidents, dramatically decreasing risks and costs of the deliberate action.
Gain-of-function in the current era is understandable and sane, even if it’s unfortunate. The programs aren’t gathering dust anymore, which they’ve generally appeared to do since WW2. It’s terrible news, obviously, but everyone’s thinking about it, which means everyone’s thinking about everyone thinking about it. Also, in terms of offense-defense, deterrence and MAD can be outmaneuvered if the enemy has many more options than you, e.g. they can do something that’s a little bit insane and your only option for retaliation is to retaliate with something that’s extremely insane.