The Nonlinear Library EA - Destabilization of the United States: The top X-factor EA neglects? by Yelnats T.J.
Jul 15, 2024
01:24:03
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Destabilization of the United States: The top X-factor EA neglects?, published by Yelnats T.J. on July 15, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Highlights
1. Destabilization could be the biggest setback for great power conflict, AI, bio-risk, and climate disruption.
2. Polarization plays a role in nearly every causal pathway leading to destabilization of the United States, and there is no indication polarization will decrease.
3. The United States fits the pattern of past democracies that have descended into authoritarian regimes in many key aspects.
4. The most recent empirical research on civil conflicts suggests the United States is in a category that has a 4% annual risk of falling into a civil conflict.
5. In 2022 (when this was originally written), Mike Berkowitz, ED of Democracy Funders Network and 80,000 Hours guest, believes there is 50% chance American democracy fails in the next 6 years.
6. For every dollar spent on depolarization efforts, there are probably at least a hundred dollars spent aggravating the culture war.
7. Destabilization of the United States could wipe out billions of dollars of pledged EA funds.
Note following the assassination attempt of former President Trump
This is the extended version[1] of my 2022 draft submission[2] to the Open Philanthropy (OP) Cause Area Competition. I am releasing it today because the section on accelerationist events and protecting politicians from assassination seems very salient given the last 24 hours. (Thanks to Woody Campbell for relevant and possibly prescient thoughts on the latter).
The overall topic of this piece is also salient for this 2024 election year. I have been pleasantly surprised how many EAs have mobilized this year around the issue of protecting American democracy… I wish this had been the situation back in 2020 or after January 6th or after I pushed this on the Forum and EAGs in 2022. Democracy is jeopardized not because of a single candidate but because of the forces that made the viability of such a candidate possible.
Thus this issue cannot be addressed only in election years.
The worry I've had this year is that EAs will prioritize this area only until election day and then forget about it after January 20th, 2025. The degradation of American democracy and stability is not stopped only at the ballot box, and the forces/dynamics that are driving that degradation have continued unabated despite every red line[3] that has been crossed to date. And I'm not optimistic that the red line crossed yesterday will be any different.
Preface
Epistemic status:
I have thought a lot about this over the years and was warning about risks to American democracy before the topic entered mainstream and often sensationalized discourse.. I could be more well read on academic literature, however I think it likely wouldn't change my views much on diagnosis and prognosis of the situation[4] but could greatly influence my views of the prescription. This is a topic that lends itself to getting lost in the rabbit hole and alarmism.
My greatest hesitation about the gravity of the situation is the fact that many very intelligent people come to very different conclusions than me; however, I have yet to see an argument I found compelling. I think the probability of a destabilizing event rests a lot on people's subjective judgements. Below is an overview of my confidence on a few items in this piece:
Very confident that destabilization is more likely than EAs appreciate.
Confident the consequences of destabilization make it an X-factor.
Moderately confident it's neglected financially relative to severity as an X-factor and relative to money injected annually into polarization efforts (read: culture war).
Very confident the problem is quite difficult to solve.
Very low confidence in most proposed interventions; modest c...
Highlights
1. Destabilization could be the biggest setback for great power conflict, AI, bio-risk, and climate disruption.
2. Polarization plays a role in nearly every causal pathway leading to destabilization of the United States, and there is no indication polarization will decrease.
3. The United States fits the pattern of past democracies that have descended into authoritarian regimes in many key aspects.
4. The most recent empirical research on civil conflicts suggests the United States is in a category that has a 4% annual risk of falling into a civil conflict.
5. In 2022 (when this was originally written), Mike Berkowitz, ED of Democracy Funders Network and 80,000 Hours guest, believes there is 50% chance American democracy fails in the next 6 years.
6. For every dollar spent on depolarization efforts, there are probably at least a hundred dollars spent aggravating the culture war.
7. Destabilization of the United States could wipe out billions of dollars of pledged EA funds.
Note following the assassination attempt of former President Trump
This is the extended version[1] of my 2022 draft submission[2] to the Open Philanthropy (OP) Cause Area Competition. I am releasing it today because the section on accelerationist events and protecting politicians from assassination seems very salient given the last 24 hours. (Thanks to Woody Campbell for relevant and possibly prescient thoughts on the latter).
The overall topic of this piece is also salient for this 2024 election year. I have been pleasantly surprised how many EAs have mobilized this year around the issue of protecting American democracy… I wish this had been the situation back in 2020 or after January 6th or after I pushed this on the Forum and EAGs in 2022. Democracy is jeopardized not because of a single candidate but because of the forces that made the viability of such a candidate possible.
Thus this issue cannot be addressed only in election years.
The worry I've had this year is that EAs will prioritize this area only until election day and then forget about it after January 20th, 2025. The degradation of American democracy and stability is not stopped only at the ballot box, and the forces/dynamics that are driving that degradation have continued unabated despite every red line[3] that has been crossed to date. And I'm not optimistic that the red line crossed yesterday will be any different.
Preface
Epistemic status:
I have thought a lot about this over the years and was warning about risks to American democracy before the topic entered mainstream and often sensationalized discourse.. I could be more well read on academic literature, however I think it likely wouldn't change my views much on diagnosis and prognosis of the situation[4] but could greatly influence my views of the prescription. This is a topic that lends itself to getting lost in the rabbit hole and alarmism.
My greatest hesitation about the gravity of the situation is the fact that many very intelligent people come to very different conclusions than me; however, I have yet to see an argument I found compelling. I think the probability of a destabilizing event rests a lot on people's subjective judgements. Below is an overview of my confidence on a few items in this piece:
Very confident that destabilization is more likely than EAs appreciate.
Confident the consequences of destabilization make it an X-factor.
Moderately confident it's neglected financially relative to severity as an X-factor and relative to money injected annually into polarization efforts (read: culture war).
Very confident the problem is quite difficult to solve.
Very low confidence in most proposed interventions; modest c...