Rebuilding after apocalypse: What 13 experts say about bouncing back
80,000 Hours Podcast
Invisible Threats: Preparing for Stealth Pandemics
This chapter explores the challenges of a hypothetical stealth pandemic caused by a rapidly spreading respiratory virus. It emphasizes the importance of scientific consensus, public awareness, and the preparedness of essential workers in responding to such invisible threats.
What happens when civilisation faces its greatest tests?
This compilation brings together insights from researchers, defence experts, philosophers, and policymakers on humanity’s ability to survive and recover from catastrophic events. From nuclear winter and electromagnetic pulses to pandemics and climate disasters, we explore both the threats that could bring down modern civilisation and the practical solutions that could help us bounce back.
Learn more and see the full transcript: https://80k.info/cr25
Chapters:
- Cold open (00:00:00)
- Luisa’s intro (00:01:16)
- Zach Weinersmith on how settling space won’t help with threats to civilisation anytime soon (unless AI gets crazy good) (00:03:12)
- Luisa Rodriguez on what the world might look like after a global catastrophe (00:11:42)
- Dave Denkenberger on the catastrophes that could cause global starvation (00:22:29)
- Lewis Dartnell on how we could rediscover essential information if the worst happened (00:34:36)
- Andy Weber on how people in US defence circles think about nuclear winter (00:39:24)
- Toby Ord on risks to our atmosphere and whether climate change could really threaten civilisation (00:42:34)
- Mark Lynas on how likely it is that climate change leads to civilisational collapse (00:54:27)
- Lewis Dartnell on how we could recover without much coal or oil (01:02:17)
- Kevin Esvelt on people who want to bring down civilisation — and how AI could help them succeed (01:08:41)
- Toby Ord on whether rogue AI really could wipe us all out (01:19:50)
- Joan Rohlfing on why we need to worry about more than just nuclear winter (01:25:06)
- Annie Jacobsen on the effects of firestorms, rings of annihilation, and electromagnetic pulses from nuclear blasts (01:31:25)
- Dave Denkenberger on disruptions to electricity and communications (01:44:43)
- Luisa Rodriguez on how we might lose critical knowledge (01:53:01)
- Kevin Esvelt on the pandemic scenarios that could bring down civilisation (01:57:32)
- Andy Weber on tech to help with pandemics (02:15:45)
- Christian Ruhl on why we need the equivalents of seatbelts and airbags to prevent nuclear war from threatening civilisation (02:24:54)
- Mark Lynas on whether wide-scale famine would lead to civilisational collapse (02:37:58)
- Dave Denkenberger on low-cost, low-tech solutions to make sure everyone is fed no matter what (02:49:02)
- Athena Aktipis on whether society would go all Mad Max in the apocalypse (02:59:57)
- Luisa Rodriguez on why she’s optimistic survivors wouldn’t turn on one another (03:08:02)
- David Denkenberger on how resilient foods research overlaps with space technologies (03:16:08)
- Zach Weinersmith on what we’d practically need to do to save a pocket of humanity in space (03:18:57)
- Lewis Dartnell on changes we could make today to make us more resilient to potential catastrophes (03:40:45)
- Christian Ruhl on thoughtful philanthropy to reduce the impact of catastrophes (03:46:40)
- Toby Ord on whether civilisation could rebuild from a small surviving population (03:55:21)
- Luisa Rodriguez on how fast populations might rebound (04:00:07)
- David Denkenberger on the odds civilisation recovers even without much preparation (04:02:13)
- Athena Aktipis on the best ways to prepare for a catastrophe, and keeping it fun (04:04:15)
- Will MacAskill on the virtues of the potato (04:19:43)
- Luisa’s outro (04:25:37)
Tell us what you thought! https://forms.gle/T2PHNQjwGj2dyCqV9
Content editing: Katy Moore and Milo McGuire
Audio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic Armstrong
Music: Ben Cordell
Transcriptions and web: Katy Moore
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