Is there consensus on this? My opinion is also that anthropic effects imply that nuclear war hasn’t necessarily been well-managed (reading stories like Petrov’s it seems like dumb luck has been more important than good institutional management) but my impression is that people are far from universally accepting enough of anthropic reasoning to buy this in general.
Well-managed and best-managed aren’t necessarily the same thing. The fact remains that the nuclear problem absorbed huge amounts of intellectual effort, spurred the development of whole fields expressly for its control, and has been a consistent, global insitutional priority.
The trouble is that no other x-risk has really been managed at all, although we are clearly moving in that direction for the climate. Any management vs. zero management → best management.
Is there consensus on this? My opinion is also that anthropic effects imply that nuclear war hasn’t necessarily been well-managed (reading stories like Petrov’s it seems like dumb luck has been more important than good institutional management) but my impression is that people are far from universally accepting enough of anthropic reasoning to buy this in general.
Well-managed and best-managed aren’t necessarily the same thing. The fact remains that the nuclear problem absorbed huge amounts of intellectual effort, spurred the development of whole fields expressly for its control, and has been a consistent, global insitutional priority.
The trouble is that no other x-risk has really been managed at all, although we are clearly moving in that direction for the climate. Any management vs. zero management → best management.