Terrorism Is Not An Existential Risk
Western culture has suffered from a chronic case of availability bias for the past six years, because of one, single event: September 11th. Terrorism is now a popular topic; reporters talk about it all the time, because they know the public will pay attention. Terrorism is the primary justification for the Department of Homeland Security, which currently has a $45 billion annual budget. Terrorism was the primary cause of the Iraq War, which is now *the* major issue in American politics, and soaks up cash to the tune of more than $100 billion a year. Even in transhumanist circles, “bioterrorism” or “nuclear terrorism” is commonly cited as a serious risk to human civilization. To an outsider, it would seem like terrorism is a constant, ongoing problem, like in the Israeli border towns, which are shelled by random rocket fire year-round.
Looking at the historical record, we have September 11th, and, and… that’s pretty much it. September 11th is the only large-scale terrorist attack on US soil so far this decade. Nothing else has happened during the past six years to justify the continued spending of hundreds of billions of dollars on counterterrorism efforts. Nothing else has happened during the past six years to justify the prominence of terrorism as a political issue. Almost *all* of the focus on terrorism has resulted from that one, single incident- if it weren’t for 9/11, terrorism would be somewhere down on the list between OSHA and meat inspectors, just like it was before 9/11.
I commonly see “terrorism” being brought up as a serious risk to life-as-we-know-it. For any given terrorist group, if ultratechnologies like molecular manufacturing become widely available, they do become much more dangerous. But the common, present-day scenarios- “terrorists plant a dirty bomb in Chicago” or “terrorists spread smallpox into the New York City water supply”- are totally imaginary. To be blunt, we simply made them up. Nobody has ever set off a dirty bomb with the intent of killing civilians. Nobody has built a dirty bomb with the intent of killing civilians. Nobody has been caught buying radioactive material for the purpose of killing civilians. Nobody has launched a large-scale biowarfare attack. Nobody has procured the necessary equipment to launch such an attack. Nobody has been found with serious, industrially viable blueprints to build a nuclear weapon. The list just goes on and on and on….
To be clear, many of these scenarios are plausible, and if warning signs of an attack start to appear, we should certainly respond. We should also have contingency plans in place, to deal with any plagues or radioactive releases that do happen. But by focusing on overly specific action-movie scenarios, we may be neglecting threats which are much more general, and therefore much more likely. A smallpox epidemic, or a rogue MNT device, or a nuclear weapons factory, could come from anywhere. How would it happen? I don’t know. I would never have thought of terrorism as a possible cause seven years ago, so it’s very likely that there is some cause I can’t think of today.
michael vassar said,
September 28, 2007 @ 8:56 am
Terrorism is *definitely* not an existential risk but things like terrorist produced plagues were on many people’s minds 10 years ago, including mine (not any more though, much bigger problems arose obviously, and my thinking about health and disease became more sophisticated). Bill Joy’s famous article was pre-9/11.
I think that most sensible people see terrorism as dangerous primarily through the indirect route of spawning demagogues and reductions in civil liberties in the US, which might ultimately increase many forms of existential risk through worse-than-normal government, though of course, this might also slow tech advance, reducing existential risk.
Jeff said,
September 28, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Terrorism may not be a direct existential risk, but it is certainly a very significant indirect existential risk. To the extent that terrorist activity misdirects resources and attention away from other tasks and reduces the slope of the technology change gradient, it increases our risk of not hitting “escape velocity” before we exhaust the planet. (The flipside of the previous commenter’s point: slowing tech advance may *either* (or even both) increase or reduce existential risk.) $0.02…
steven said,
September 28, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
Planet-killing weapons haven’t been invented, and so present-day terrorism fails to be an existential risk *regardless of* whether we are overspending on stopping terrorism, or whether many terrorist attacks have happened, or any of those things. Planet-killing weapons may be invented in the future; if so, terrorists are one possible kind of group that might use them, meaning terrorism will be a (possibly overrated) existential risk then.
It sounds plausible that we’re overspending on stopping terrorism, but beware of “X hasn’t happened” type arguments; for this type of thing the expected cost is dominated by extreme “black swan” events that you can’t necessarily read off from past frequencies.
Tom McCabe said,
September 28, 2007 @ 5:28 pm
“for this type of thing the expected cost is dominated by extreme “black swan” events that you can’t necessarily read off from past frequencies.”
Every black swan event must be preceded by a number of other events, which all have to fit together in the right order. To have a massive terrorist attack, you need:
- terrorists
- lots of money, resources, etc.
- a workable plan to kill lots of people
In the United States, all three elements are missing. We have not found any real terrorist organizations operating within the US. We have not found anyone with large amounts of money, power, influence, etc. within the US who is willing to aid terrorist organizations. And we have not found any materials, shops, etc. which could produce weapons of mass murder.
Alan Cabal said,
September 30, 2007 @ 6:45 am
Given that 911 was a Gladio-style false flag psyop, like the Oklahoma City bombing before it, I’d say the very idea of “terrorism” is suspect.
Accelerating Future » Classifying Extinction Risks said,
October 1, 2007 @ 8:49 am
[...] include any forms of terrorism as examples, I’d like to point out here that terrorism is not an existential risk. This was well-articulated by Tom McCabe a few days [...]
Brian Wang said,
October 5, 2007 @ 12:36 pm
I agree that terrorism is a vastly inflated risk. Basically a form of organized crime.
something that should be addressed.
Four points.
1) I would say that terrorism was one of the justifications for the Iraq oil, but that the primary motivator for the Iraq war was control of oil resources and a personal vendetta against Saddam.
2) Dirty bombs do not kill that many more people. It just makes clean up more expensive and increases the panic. I believe there were attempts at dirty bombs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb
The Chechen’s tried a couple of times. Built bombs, planted them but they did not go off. So people have built dirty bombs with the intent of killing civilians.
José Padilla was accused of it but charges were dropped without evidence.
Dhiren Barot recently pleaded guilty to trying to make a dirty bomb
3) The terrorism risk would go up substantially if certain developments happen in Iran and Pakistan. Those developments being war with Iran and an overthrow in Pakistan. But I see that series of events leading to an all out war in that region. India and Israel would not feel safe and would pre-empt. The increased global terrorism that results would be a sideshow.
4) There are a lot of risks. A better course of action is prudent and effective financial management so that we are efficiently using resources to better address all risks. By making a more robust civilization with better technology and processes then we will be more resistant to attacks.
The Soviets/Russians spent 20-30% of their resources on military buildup during the cold war. This did not buy them more security or a stronger society or a better ability to resist terrorism. It is by building a stronger economy and developing better technology that the enemies of civilization can be defeated.
If the west has mass production of nuclear power plants and goes to France’s level of nuclear power (80% of electricity) and beyond, then there would not be the oil dependence. Especially if combined with thermoelectronics, superconductors for the power grid, electric bikes and cars, biofuels and other energy technology. Nuclear fusion (Bussard, Trialpha energy, Zpinch, etc…) would also be game changers.
If oil becomes less important then the geopolitics change.
A rich confident society, with a strong technological lead and lack of material dependence is a safer society.