Thanks Alex! Yeah, I agree with you that adding approximate numbers or likelihood ratios would improve this, as would comparing my credences with Toby Ord’s. I might do a followup post with some of this if I get time. Originally I was going to find a co-author and go in more depth on some of these things, especially the nuclear winter literature, but I keep starting and not finishing posts and I figured it was finally time to just put up what I had.
It would be good to separate “kill everyone with acute radiation right away” and “kill everyone with radiation in all of the food/water”. I discussed risk of the first one and basically didn’t at all cover risk of the second one, but I’d like to see a better assessment of the second. I’ve never found good sources for these kinds of long term effects of radiation from food and water after a nuclear war, despite spending probably 4-8 hours searching. On Thermonuclear War discusses this in depth but it’s very out of date (1960), and I haven’t found anything like a comprehensive analysis of this anywhere else. Lots of speculation here and there but nothing that looks rigorous.
Thanks Alex! Yeah, I agree with you that adding approximate numbers or likelihood ratios would improve this, as would comparing my credences with Toby Ord’s. I might do a followup post with some of this if I get time. Originally I was going to find a co-author and go in more depth on some of these things, especially the nuclear winter literature, but I keep starting and not finishing posts and I figured it was finally time to just put up what I had.
It would be good to separate “kill everyone with acute radiation right away” and “kill everyone with radiation in all of the food/water”. I discussed risk of the first one and basically didn’t at all cover risk of the second one, but I’d like to see a better assessment of the second. I’ve never found good sources for these kinds of long term effects of radiation from food and water after a nuclear war, despite spending probably 4-8 hours searching. On Thermonuclear War discusses this in depth but it’s very out of date (1960), and I haven’t found anything like a comprehensive analysis of this anywhere else. Lots of speculation here and there but nothing that looks rigorous.
Thanks for your feedback!