Long-time lurker here but new to the community, so figured I'd walk through my thinking on this one in more detail.
Let's start with a few base assumptions. I have to acknowledge that predicting nuclear use is difficult, as there is no (non-U.S. in 1945) precedent for such an event occurring. Even in the midst of a conflict like this one where use is being threatened, it's tough to know how realistic nuclear use actually is - due to the gravity and horror obvious in any use of nuclear weapons, the risk at any given time may feel far higher than it ac...
@(andreferretti) combo of quite a few things, I feel like. Ready for the downvotes here!
First, lots of disagreement of what AGI is or how we would measure it - different groups/individuals may disagree with (or just not read) the resolution criteria here and predict differently as a result.
Second, and I think more importantly, the community here tends to overlap with EA/LW types, who kind of have short AI timelines built into their worldview (and very many of whom don't actually have any AI expertise whatsoever, myself included). A lot of forecas...
@(kokotajlod) I wasn't going to respond to any of this, but just would like to note that I don't dislike you in any capacity and am sorry I pissed you off (you didn't piss me off, I'm just bullshitting on the internet!) I listed some points about you not to attack you personally but to emphasize that *I know things about your viewpoints and life, while I'm allowed to stay anonymous*, which doesn't really help lead to a fair or meaningful discussion - I'm biased against many of your views by default, and I find that makes me less likely to be convinced b...
Dropping to 4% following Putin's speech. His clear statement that Russia has no intent to use nukes in Ukraine is probably a lie and will be contradicted at some point in the future, but I don't think that's going to be in 2022. He's trying to cool off a bit while he examines his other options.
His appeals to conservatives in the United States and Europe were much less Fascism-y and more Trump-y than usual, which reinforces my previous thinking that his primary strategy for the next few months will be to divide the west and limit aid to Ukraine, so ...
@(camelCase) No offense, but I don't think you can knock people for being emotionally invested in a topic like this. If Ukraine gets nuked there's a substantial chance we *literally all die*. This topic has no historical precedent to provide a base rate for predicting and its resolution is dictated by impulsive and disconnected world leaders; we're all just guessing here, and it's a little disingenuous to act like people are lesser forecasters for being "emotional".
Also, all the people in the comments decrying "ah, this is going to be the red line th...
As someone that predicts higher than the community on most nuclear-use questions, I would love to hear from the people that have ten percentish on this (assuming they're not misunderstanding the admittedly weird wording).
@(tryingToPredictFuture) Even throwing out any rationality or military logic, such a scenario doesn't make sense. There's still [tens of thousands](https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134465380/kherson-ukraine-russia-battle-looms#:~:text=Before%20the%20war%2C%20Kherson%20was,to%20fall%20to%20the%20Russians.&text=Franco%20Ordo%C3%B1ez%2FNPR-,Roman%20Holovnya%2C%20the%20exiled%20deputy%20mayor%20of%20Kherson%2C%20in%20Kyiv,residents%20left%20in%20Kherson%20city.) of residents in Kherson, along with many Russian troops near or in the city. Let's say Putin do...
@(Gartanon) @JoeyJoeJoe I hate to break it to you guys, but us U.S. city dwellers get the honor of going first!
In relation to the article, Medvedev is one of the most aggressive of the nuke threateners and a large majority of his comments on anything come off as deranged. From literally two weeks ago, he said in reference to Russia's fun new missiles/nuclear ships:
>1000 km range with hypersonic Mach 9 and the ability to use any payload with a guarantee overcome any missile defense...let [our ships] stand somewhere 100 miles from the coast, closer to...
@(kokotajlod) yeah, I've read both. I don't do this for a living and don't have the time or energy to critique either model beyond stating my opinion that both models (i) take pretty extreme assumptions for granted, which fully breaks their usefulness in practice; (ii) have way, way too many variables (40ish for the takeoffspeeds one, if I recall correctly?) for which assumptions must be made, making the models so black-boxey that they're unusable to laymen; (iii) the Monte Carlo analyses used to boot out summary statistics and graphs over many many tri...
Great [analysis](https://slantchev.wordpress.com/2022/10/28/russia-is-never-as-strong-as-we-fear-or-as-weak-as-we-hope/) from Dr. Slantchev, as always. Far more detailed analysis than I could provide, echoing the idea that Putin really thinks he can win this war and is going to see the conflict through on the ground - the nuke threats are likely hollow, for now and likely for the next few months. He’s not backed into a corner yet. And, importantly, it would be a mistake for the West to bow to these threats - they will just increase the risk of nuclear...
@(tryingToPredictFuture) I wonder how much these threats are intended to alarm the American public given the impending midterm elections. The odd and conspiratorial (yet, fully transparent) nature of the "dirty bomb" threat proposed by RU seems to be invoking responses from western media outlets similar in tone to their reactions to RU's direct threats of nuclear use, threats that I think warrant far more alarm. Perhaps Putin thinks he can sway the results of some elections (many of which are increasingly swinging Republican as we approach election day...
@(citizen) I don't think it makes sense to use historical data to determine the probability of an event occurring in the future given that the event has only occurred once - it's a bad sample that leads us to ignore the qualitative aspects of the current situation. There's no trend to observe, no data to analyze - I think that's why there's so much discussion around this question and its 2023 equivalent, as we really just are in the dark here. Even if we try to do a relative risk analysis to determine how high current tensions/risks are above baseline,...
@(Gartanon) I don't think you're being conspiratorial - this all feels off, but foreign diplomacy, especially during wartime, has always involved these sketchy private interactions and deals that us common folk won't learn about for 30 years, if ever. I think the Crimea compromise you mentioned (or something similar) could definitely be on the table and perhaps was communicated privately between powers.
Let's think from the American perspective - how does this conflict end 1) without authoritarians and/or nuclear powers being emboldened to attack their...
@(ForkLeaf) Uh...giving up your national sovereignty isn't "some basic terms". Russia is most certainly still gunning for maximalist aims in Ukraine. Ultra-nationalists sit in telegram channels all day talking about wanting to irradicate Ukrainians with nuclear weapons. NATO will not become desperate because Ukraine isn't and will not begin losing the conflict on the ground - even if they did, this isn't NATOs war to fight directly. NATO has absolutely no plans to enter the war in Ukraine, unless RU used nukes first - it's literally the headline of t...
This is a fun one. Some thoughts:
- Jimmy's getting old. NBA players typically make it to their mid 30s, assuming they don't injure out, go abroad, or start sucking. Some light research seems to support that shooting guards make it [longer](https://investingfuse.com/retirement/average-retirement-age-for-an-nba-player-by-position/), but Harden tends to play a combo point/shooting these days. Looking at some retired superstars surrounding Harden on the all-time points list, I tend to look at Dwayne Wade (retired at 37, worse injuries); Allen Iverson ...
@(Lavi) humans wouldn't go extinct even from an all-out nuclear war. It would be a massive loss of life, but the difference between 99% of people dying and 100% of people dying is incredibly significant; many parts of the Earth will remain habitable, and much of the Southern Hemisphere would trudge through (especially if a nuclear war breaks out between any of the current nuclear powers).
Independently, I believe the risk of nuclear winter was overstated throughout the Cold War by the U.S. government to discourage the USSR from ever using nukes. Def...
I’m at 5%, just to account for the volatility of war and the (incredibly) small chance a dirty bomb is detonated by Ukraine itself or is used in a legitimate terrorist attack (which would be blamed on Ukraine anyways). I still see this scenario as a half-measure - Putin doesn’t need this kind of justification to use nukes if he’s intent on using them. This wouldn’t end a conflict on the ground, while a nuke just might.
@(Gartanon) I fully agree here and also want to note that the situation has fundamentally changed over the last month or two now that RU has indicated its willingness to fully mobilize its economy for the war, draft more soldiers, come out of this isolated NK style, etc. RU could train hundreds of thousands of (granted, poorly trained and equipped) soldiers over the course of the next year; I think Putin is ready to throw bodies at the front line WWII style until he “wins” in some way, at a far higher cost than many analysts (and myself!) thought he wou...
@(tryingToPredictFuture) I don't really see a good reason for either side to actually detonate a dirty bomb. Though the chaos of the ongoing conflict may mask who would be responsible for such an attack, the risk of being found out is great given that the world is watching.
Ukraine has no reason to escalate so intensely while it is still winning on the ground and foreign aid is still coming (and, if anything, increasing in quantity and quality). False flag attacks need to establish pretext for some future action to be effective - Ukraine doesn't reall...