Is Government Development of Terrorist Groups Just as Big a Problem as Terrorism Development?

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In advanced countries, there's not a secret research going on into biological weapons. The decision the nixon administration made in putting in place the biological weapons convention was that these are fundamentally weapons that are more useful to less powerful states. So i presume that if there's some technology that could be used for better or for ill, it will be developed and it will be used by somebody. I guess the tiny mitigating factor is that you can't point this biocablin of a dirty bomb very precisely, right? Like every one, you would be in danger yourself of a, a being adversely affected if you just set loose a terrible new disease on the world.

We’re pretty well-calibrated when it comes to dealing with common, everyday-level setbacks. But our brains aren’t naturally equipped for dealing with unlikely but world-catastrophic disasters. Yet such threats are real, both natural and human-induced. We need to collectively get better at anticipating and preparing for them, at the level of political action. Andrew Leigh is an academic and author who now serves in the Parliament of Australia. We discuss how to move the conversation about existential risks from the ivory tower to implementation in real policies.

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Andrew Leigh received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing Fenner. He was previously a professor of economics at Australian National University, and has served as Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. His recent book is What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics.

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