The Centre for Study of Existential Risk

[Harpo]

CSER

The Centre for Study of Existential Risk (CSER) started in 2013. Let's keep an eye on their work, and see how things unfold in the next few years.

 

[monsterchic]

Interesting.

 

[Wendigo]

Just hope that this isn't a knee-jerk reaction to speculation on new technologies having scary-sounding consequences. Even the term "existential risk" sounds a bit melodramatic.

I did notice for instance when I looked at their nanotech page that they make some references to "grey goo" style apocalypses, even if they don't use the term. Now, while I'm no nanotech expert, I did once get a chance to do some work with one of the groups at my university who were working on it. Said nanotech was exciting stuff that may one day lead to some powerful new cancer treatments, but it didn't consist of invincible self-replicating nanobots or anything nearly so sophisticated, and I'd be quite surprised if such a thing was likely to happen any time soon, if ever. Now it was strongly advised not to breathe the stuff in if you valued your health, but it couldn't exactly eat you alive either.

Now sure, "potential lung disease hazard" doesn't have the same ring to it as "nanotech mass extinction", but I still get wary when governments etc prioritise headline-grabbing issues over the real ones.

 

[JonH]

Everyone should learn about micromorts at school. We need a way, however flawed, to quantify risk, if only to stop politicians saying, "if it saves one child's life...."

If this Institute helps stop the woolly thinking that led to Prof. Nutt being fired, it will have done this country a service.

 

[Mirannan]

Yup. There is a great deal of agonising about minute degrees of risk and also about trivial levels of contamination. A good example of the latter is the recent decision by Portland, Oregon to dump 38 million gallons of water out of an open reservoir after someone was caught pissing in it.

Whoever made that decision obviously knew sweet FA about simple maths, never mind chemistry.

 

[JonH]

Yup. There is a great deal of agonising about minute degrees of risk and also about trivial levels of contamination. A good example of the latter is the recent decision by Portland, Oregon to dump 38 million gallons of water out of an open reservoir after someone was caught pissing in it.

Whoever made that decision obviously knew sweet FA about simple maths, never mind chemistry.

Or marketing. I read there's a weird fad for drinking urine among those in LaLa land. Combine homeopathic levels of dilution, and I'm sure they could have bottled it and sold it all further down the coast for a fortune!

 

[HareBrain]

A good example of the latter is the recent decision by Portland, Oregon to dump 38 million gallons of water out of an open reservoir after someone was caught pissing in it.

Let's hope they never find out that fish and waterbirds defecate in reservoirs all the time.

 

[Hex]

Oh my God. Really? No more water for me, then. I'll stick to gin.

 

[Mirannan]

Let's hope they never find out that fish and waterbirds defecate in reservoirs all the time.

Quite right. That point was made in the article that I read about the incident. There is a related issue regarding environmental contaminants. Modern technology can detect really astonishingly low levels of specific substances - down to parts per trillion, in some cases. Which leads, of course, to watermelon Greens and assorted tree-huggers agonising about utterly trivial levels of various contaminants in river water, the atmosphere and so on.

It's equally true that for a given level of contamination, it matters a great deal what the contaminant is. Botulinus toxin and dioxin matter at an awful lot lower levels than aluminium does, for example.

 

[Extollager]

Yup. There is a great deal of agonising about minute degrees of risk and also about trivial levels of contamination. A good example of the latter is the recent decision by Portland, Oregon to dump 38 million gallons of water out of an open reservoir after someone was caught pissing in it.

Whoever made that decision obviously knew sweet FA about simple maths, never mind chemistry.

That was just revoltingly deferential to the perceived anxieties of blockheads. It would have made far better sense to do something silly like offer free bottled water for 6 months to residents who were upset about the pee incident.

I can't tell you how often I think that, if there is a civilization around in a hundred years, people may look back on our time as willfully stupid. Readers would probably agree with some of my reasons for thinking thus, but not others, so I will leave it at that for this posting.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

"potential lung disease hazard"

Yes, you don't want to breath Beryllium Oxide Dust, various silicate dusts, plutonium dust, certain asbestos and cement dusts either.

Combine homeopathic levels of dilution

Oh, well that's safe even for Plutonium, or indeed anything.

something silly like offer free bottled water for 6 months

Well, some of that comes from the tap. If so, it can be SAFER than some mineral waters (too high in bacteria, or certain salts or both).
Some places they really need bottled water (esp in Ireland with over 400,000 septic tanks, no inspections and contamination of group water schemes! Boil notices common some areas, not ours thankfully).

 

[BAYLOR]

nanotechnology and the whole gray goo possibility.