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Biological risks are more severe than has been widely appreciated. Recent discussions of mirror bacteria highlight an extreme scenario: a single organism that could infect and kill humans, plants, and animals, exhibits environmental persistence in soil or dust, and might be capable of spreading worldwide within several months. In the worst-case scenario, this could pose an existential risk to humanity, especially if the responses/countermeasures were inadequate.

Less severe pandemic pathogens could still cause hundreds of millions (or billions) of casualties if they were engineered to cause harm. Preventing such catastrophes should be a top priority for humanity. However, if prevention fails, it would also be prudent to have a backup plan.

One way of doing this would be to enumerate the types of pathogens that might be threatening (e.g. viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc), enumerate the subtypes (e.g. adenoviruses, coronaviruses, paramyxoviruses, etc), analyze the [...]

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Outline:

(04:20) PPE

(09:56) Biohardening

(14:36) Detection

(17:00) Expression of interest and acknowledgements

The original text contained 34 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
October 2nd, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/33t5jPzxEcFXLCPjq/the-four-pillars-a-hypothesis-for-countering-catastrophic

Linkpost URL:
https://defensesindepth.bio/the-four-pillars-a-hypothesis-for-countering-catastrophic-biological-risk/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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