I concur. My own list would look (in part) something like this:
I essentially never worry about being substantially defrauded in my dealings with my employer, my bank, companies I buy from, etc., because there is a legal system in place that effectively disincentivizes fraud and gives me a fair prospect of recovering my losses if I am defrauded.
I have essentially no fear of robbery, assault, and other major crimes directed against me, because the police and the legal system make them very rare (at least around where I live; I acknowledge that there are places where they’re less effective).
Because the country I live in has a single, stable government, I do not need to worry that war will break out around me.
The money in my bank account holds its value reasonably well; inflation is nonzero but decently controlled and outright bank collapses are very rare and somewhat guaranteed-against by the government.
If I become seriously ill, government-funded healthcare will do about as good a job of fixing me as can be done, and I will not be bankrupted by medical bills in the process.
I received a good education, paid for by the government; my daughter is doing so too, and (this is important) so are the other people around me. I can generally assume that people I interact with are at least semi-literate and have some idea of how the world works.
I can drive from one place to another in reasonable confidence that the roads will be adequately maintained.
If I and my family suffer enough disasters to put us into poverty, make me unable to work, etc., then there is a safety net in place that will at least make us unlikely to starve to death or have to sleep on the streets.
There is a similar safety net for other people, so that even when economic times are bad there isn’t so much misery as to provoke mob violence.
When I buy food, it is almost certainly the sort of food it is advertised to be, is probably about as fresh as it is alleged to be, and probably contains no harmful substances to speak of besides the ones it has to to be that kind of food.
When I buy a toy for my daughter, its design and manufacture are almost certainly checked well enough that it is unlikely to do her unexpected harm.
I could go on at length. However, while this sort of thing may be a useful antidote to the idea (as Stuart puts it) that “governments are intrinsically incompetent”, and offers some evidence against certain strong libertarian positions, I’m not sure it actually answers the question posed—which was not about the effectiveness of government at solving routine (though perhaps difficult) problems but about how well governments can be expected to respond to surprising new problems (mass pandemics, superhuman AI, large asteroid strikes, etc.). Running a reasonably effective police force is a very different problem from responding to an alien invasion.
I have essentially no fear of robbery, assault, and other major crimes directed against me, because the police and the legal system make them very rare
Is this the true reason? I’m not saying it’s not, I cannot account for your personal motivation, but it can be criticized on two levels. The first: is truly the police and the legal system that make threats very rare? Or they simply move towards more resource rich environment like large cities? The second: are you cognitively equipped to fear modern day threats in accordance to their effective level of presence? That is, is your fear positively correlated with modern hazards?
It’s hard to be sure, of course. But: (1) even in large cities in the country where I live the rate of serous crime is low, and the regions of those cities where the rate is higher are not the more “resource-rich” regions; (2) most likely I fear violent crime more than I should on the basis of its frequency; certainly everything I’ve seen suggests that most of us do. If #2 still bothers you, though, please pretend that I wrote “need have essentially no fear”.
I concur. My own list would look (in part) something like this:
I essentially never worry about being substantially defrauded in my dealings with my employer, my bank, companies I buy from, etc., because there is a legal system in place that effectively disincentivizes fraud and gives me a fair prospect of recovering my losses if I am defrauded.
I have essentially no fear of robbery, assault, and other major crimes directed against me, because the police and the legal system make them very rare (at least around where I live; I acknowledge that there are places where they’re less effective).
Because the country I live in has a single, stable government, I do not need to worry that war will break out around me.
The money in my bank account holds its value reasonably well; inflation is nonzero but decently controlled and outright bank collapses are very rare and somewhat guaranteed-against by the government.
If I become seriously ill, government-funded healthcare will do about as good a job of fixing me as can be done, and I will not be bankrupted by medical bills in the process.
I received a good education, paid for by the government; my daughter is doing so too, and (this is important) so are the other people around me. I can generally assume that people I interact with are at least semi-literate and have some idea of how the world works.
I can drive from one place to another in reasonable confidence that the roads will be adequately maintained.
If I and my family suffer enough disasters to put us into poverty, make me unable to work, etc., then there is a safety net in place that will at least make us unlikely to starve to death or have to sleep on the streets.
There is a similar safety net for other people, so that even when economic times are bad there isn’t so much misery as to provoke mob violence.
When I buy food, it is almost certainly the sort of food it is advertised to be, is probably about as fresh as it is alleged to be, and probably contains no harmful substances to speak of besides the ones it has to to be that kind of food.
When I buy a toy for my daughter, its design and manufacture are almost certainly checked well enough that it is unlikely to do her unexpected harm.
I could go on at length. However, while this sort of thing may be a useful antidote to the idea (as Stuart puts it) that “governments are intrinsically incompetent”, and offers some evidence against certain strong libertarian positions, I’m not sure it actually answers the question posed—which was not about the effectiveness of government at solving routine (though perhaps difficult) problems but about how well governments can be expected to respond to surprising new problems (mass pandemics, superhuman AI, large asteroid strikes, etc.). Running a reasonably effective police force is a very different problem from responding to an alien invasion.
Is this the true reason?
I’m not saying it’s not, I cannot account for your personal motivation, but it can be criticized on two levels.
The first: is truly the police and the legal system that make threats very rare? Or they simply move towards more resource rich environment like large cities?
The second: are you cognitively equipped to fear modern day threats in accordance to their effective level of presence? That is, is your fear positively correlated with modern hazards?
It’s hard to be sure, of course. But: (1) even in large cities in the country where I live the rate of serous crime is low, and the regions of those cities where the rate is higher are not the more “resource-rich” regions; (2) most likely I fear violent crime more than I should on the basis of its frequency; certainly everything I’ve seen suggests that most of us do. If #2 still bothers you, though, please pretend that I wrote “need have essentially no fear”.
[EDITED to fix a typo.]