Doomsday economics: What if someone explodes a nuclear bomb?

Also: 5 Quick Questions for . . . journalist Derek Thompson on the ‘abundance agenda.’

“. . . almost all of humanity’s life lies in the future, almost everything of value lies in the future as well: almost all the flourishing; almost all the beauty; our greatest achievements; our most just societies; our most profound discoveries. We can continue our progress on prosperity, health, justice, freedom and moral thought. We can create a world of wellbeing and flourishing that challenges our capacity to imagine. And if we protect that world from catastrophe, it could last millions of centuries.” – Toby Ord, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

 
Doomsday economics: What if someone explodes a nuclear bomb?

When I typically write about a “coming boom,” I’m referring to the prospects for a rapid acceleration in economic growth and technological progress. But the unsettling way that 2022 has started means a different kind of “boom” has been top of mind:

• In The Washington Post on Monday, Jon Wolfsthal, arms control and nonproliferation specialist on President Obama’s National Security Council, warnsthe “risk of a nuclear conflict erupting between the United States and Russia, and increasingly between the United States and China, is dangerously high.”
• Over at the Defense One, another Obama administration security official, Evelyn Farkas,earlier this month raised the “horrible possibility” that an invasion of Ukraine would mean “Americans, with our European allies, must use our military to roll back Russians — even at risk of direct combat.”
• Then in the background there’s the accelerating hypersonic arms racebetween China, Russia, and the US. (A Financial Times “Year in word” selection for 2021 was “hypersonic: (adjective) describing a type of weapon or aircraft that flies at more than Mach 5 — or five times the speed of sound.”
• And on Thursday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists kept its “Doomsday Clock at a mere 100 seconds to midnight, “the most dangerous situation that humanity has ever faced.” That analysis, while taking into account nuclear issues, also factors other risks such as climate change and “disruptive” technologies such as AI, cyber attacks, and genetic editing.

 
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Πηγή: fasterplease.substack.com