I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s a great fit for the concept, and I don’t think it’s helpful to reinforce what similarities there are.
Traditional commons problems (inefficient and destructive use of resources due to lack of mechanism to encourage efficient uses) are typically solved by assigning an owner or curator, who decides what limits to impose (often in the form of an entry price or usage rent, which means it gets used by those who think it’s more valuable than the price, and provides revenue to replenish or maintain the property). Tragedy of the commons is generally applied to non-exludable (can’t keep people out), rivalrous (meaning it’s not unlimited in usage) topics. And the solution is exclusion.
X-risk mitigation is more like the “should we build a lighthouse” problem—it’s non-excludable but also non-rivalrous, since someone using it doesn’t keep anyone else from using it. In fact, many beneficiaries don’t even know they’re taking advantage of it. Here, the difficulty is knowing what level of investment is efficient. You can’t get a price signal, so there’s no way know what level of cost for any given project would make people prefer to take the risk rather than spend the cost. There’s a lower bound on what people will voluntarily contribute (which is how many lighthouses actually got built—through sponsorships and donations by townspeople and ship owners). In modern times, this is often a topic where government officials make claims that they know the right things, and use it as a reason to justify taxes. Sometimes, they may even be right.
Xrisk mitigation isn’t the resource; risky behavior is the resource. If you engage in more risky behavior, then I can’t engage in as much risky behavior without pushing us over into a socially unacceptable level of total risky behavior.
I think existence is the resource. Risky behavior and risk-mitigating behavior both impact the probabilities of such resource in the future. The fundamental resource (enjoying existence when disaster has not happened yet) is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Funding for risk-mitigating projects is both rivalrous and excludable—that’s just normal goods. Allowing risk-increasing behaviors is … difficult to model.
I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s a great fit for the concept, and I don’t think it’s helpful to reinforce what similarities there are.
Traditional commons problems (inefficient and destructive use of resources due to lack of mechanism to encourage efficient uses) are typically solved by assigning an owner or curator, who decides what limits to impose (often in the form of an entry price or usage rent, which means it gets used by those who think it’s more valuable than the price, and provides revenue to replenish or maintain the property). Tragedy of the commons is generally applied to non-exludable (can’t keep people out), rivalrous (meaning it’s not unlimited in usage) topics. And the solution is exclusion.
X-risk mitigation is more like the “should we build a lighthouse” problem—it’s non-excludable but also non-rivalrous, since someone using it doesn’t keep anyone else from using it. In fact, many beneficiaries don’t even know they’re taking advantage of it. Here, the difficulty is knowing what level of investment is efficient. You can’t get a price signal, so there’s no way know what level of cost for any given project would make people prefer to take the risk rather than spend the cost. There’s a lower bound on what people will voluntarily contribute (which is how many lighthouses actually got built—through sponsorships and donations by townspeople and ship owners). In modern times, this is often a topic where government officials make claims that they know the right things, and use it as a reason to justify taxes. Sometimes, they may even be right.
In case others haven’t seen it, here’s a great little matrix summarising the classification of goods on “rivalry” and “excludability” axes.
I think it is rivalrous.
Xrisk mitigation isn’t the resource; risky behavior is the resource. If you engage in more risky behavior, then I can’t engage in as much risky behavior without pushing us over into a socially unacceptable level of total risky behavior.
I think existence is the resource. Risky behavior and risk-mitigating behavior both impact the probabilities of such resource in the future. The fundamental resource (enjoying existence when disaster has not happened yet) is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Funding for risk-mitigating projects is both rivalrous and excludable—that’s just normal goods. Allowing risk-increasing behaviors is … difficult to model.