Nuclear war risk - comparison with other existential risks
In the following some
existential risks for mankind are compared
with each other. In addition to the risks
mentioned here, there may be
other risks (e.g. super intelligence or medical aspects).
Climate Change
Climate change is directly
perceptible. People can already experience effects today. It is foreseeable
that living conditions will deteriorate significantly. It is possible that the available habitat
will become considerably smaller in the future, even if
humanity as a whole is not initially
in danger. However, climate change also increases the danger
of armed conflicts and thus also the nuclear war risk.
Autonomous Weapons
With examples of killer
robots and killing drones, the effects
can be made
very visible, which facilitates possible protest actions. Proponents of autonomous weapons
argue that it is better
to let machines
fight than humans. If at some
point only robots fight against
each other and humans are spared,
this might be true. However,
the effects of the development
of autonomous weapons are still completely unclear. Humanity as a whole
does not seem to be threatened.
If a UN ban is currently not yet possible, this can still be achieved
after initial negative experiences, comparable to the
ban on chemical weapons.
Nuclear War Risk
The risk of a nuclear
war, and in particular the risk of a nuclear
war by accident, cannot simply be
presented and made people aware. For
74 years mankind has been living
with this threat without any further use
of nuclear weapons. As with other accidents in technical systems, an accidental nuclear war will break
out suddenly and unpredictably
as a result of an unfortunate coincidence of events within a few minutes, threatening
humanity as a whole. A retrospective insight that this
was not actually intended
and should have been prevented would possibly come too late.
In the case of weapons such as chemical weapons
or autonomous weapons, a subsequent reversal
after use would still be possible, but in the case of a nuclear
exchange of blows it might
no longer be possible. A reduction of the nuclear
war risk is therefore currently the most important
and urgent problem for mankind.
Mikhail
Gorbachev: "Of all the
problems of international security, the nuclear
danger is the most urgent today". (Book: Was jetzt auf dem Spiel steht. Mein
Aufruf für Frieden und Freiheit.. Settler-Verlag,
2019, page 40)
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator