3 Natural Risks

How big is the threat to humanity posed by asteroids and comets, supervolcanoes, stellar explosions, and other natural risks?

Scale
  • What natural existential risks are there?

    • How could they cause existential catastrophes & of what type?

    • How could natural x-risks make us more vulnerable to future x-risks?

      • Do you have examples of current or past natural catastrophes supporting other existential risks?

  • What is Toby Ord's opinion about natural x-risks being likely or unlikely in comparison to anthropogenic x-risks?

Solvability
  • What do you suggest could be cost-effective interventions to reduce the likelihood of a natural existential catastrophe?

  • What can we learn from natural x-risks to better deal with human-made x-risks?

  • How has 'X' improved or worsened our capacity to deal well with natural x-risks?

    • X e.g., globalization, technology, government forms, etc.

    • What does this imply for strategies to deal with x-risks?

Neglect
  • Should we further our investments into reducing natural x-risks or are these resources better invested else-where?

  • Should we remain open to not-yet-discovered natural x-risks or should we remain confident in having discovered the one's posing x-risk?

  • Is neglect justified in the cases of

    • risks that could become x-risk earliest in a thousand years such as natural evolution of humanity, sun brightening up, ice-age

    • risks that occur slowly radder than suddenly

    • risk that do not pose existential risk such as hurricanes, tsunamis

    • risk that are 'very unlikely' such as star disrupting planetary orbits, vacuum collapsing

Taking Ideas Seriously
  • What do these ideas imply if taken seriously?

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