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Apr 28, 2020Liked by Matt Bartlett

Good to see this sort of writing. One thing I've been thinking about (inspired by Toby Ord's new book 'The Precipice') is the trade-off between short-term protection of rights vs the long term future. At present we are developing potentially devastatingly powerful technology (nuclear, bio, AI) and yet lack the wisdom (norms, regulations, global agencies, monitoring) to ensure safety. Given the potential for humanity to expand across the galaxy and enjoy trillions of years of advanced wellbeing, we (as Toby Ord rightly points out) must cautiously negotiate this period of perhaps a century or two, making sure we develop safety and wisdom faster than we advance powerful technology. This might involve some sacrifices in freedom, democracy, rights etc. And trillions of years of wise flourishing seems to dominate a century or two of restrictions to ensure safety. It may be that a lot more monitoring and surveillance is necessary now, to prevent biological, nuclear, AI catastrophe. Key reading in this area includes:

Nick Bostrom: 'The vulnerable world hypothesis' https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf

Toby Ord: 'The Precipice' https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/26/what-if-covid-19-isnt-our-biggest-threat

Both acknowledge that an inescapable universal totalitarian state is also a category of existential risk, and so surveillance must also avoid such a state.

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