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Anticipating Rare Events of Major Significance Proceedings of a Workshop (2022) / Chapter Skim
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8 Active Prevention and Deterrence
Pages 30-37

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From page 30...
... Justin Kasper, deputy chief technology officer for BWX Technologies and a member of the planning committee, moderated the final discussion after the three presentations. ASTEROID IMPACTS -- THINKING ABOUT AN UNCERTAIN THREAT Large asteroid impacts are rare, but they are a legitimate concern, announced Terik Daly, who illustrated his point with a map of fireballs reported by U.S.
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From page 31...
... 3  National Science and Technology Council, 2021, Report on Near-Earth Object Impact Threat Emergency Protocols, The ­Interagency Working Group on Near-Earth Object Impact Threat Emergency Protocols, January, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/­uploads/2021/01/ NEO-Impact-Threat-Protocols-Jan2021.pdf. 4  National Research Council, 2010, Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC.
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From page 32...
... There might be good developments such as advanced transformative technology breakthroughs and colonization of space, and there might be extreme catastrophes, such as the collapse of agriculture or industry, that could harm human civilization or lead to human extinction.5 Discussions about global catastrophic risk, remarked Baum, focus on those catastrophes that cause harm on that scale. "There is a strong case for attention to this class of risk based on the important role that it can play in the big picture future of human civilization," he observed.
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From page 33...
... This might happen if the victimized country misinterprets the attack as one from a rival country or one sponsored by a rival country and launches its own nuclear weapons in what it believes is retaliation, but is in fact, the start of a nuclear war.6 This scenario, Baum explained, is perhaps the only way that an extreme global catastrophe would result from nuclear terrorism. As a result, the policy conclusion should be that if there is going to be a nuclear terrorist attack in the future, there should be guardrails in place to ensure it is not an attack from another country so as to not accidentally initiate a nuclear war for the wrong reasons.
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From page 34...
... To illustrate how rare economic and financial events manifest themselves in important ways, Axtell discussed several specific events. As a first obvious case, the stock market crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression and a decade-long loss of economic output.
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From page 35...
... All these innovations suggest that extreme economic and financial events are almost certainly as likely to manifest themselves in the future as they have in the past, albeit possibly for different reasons. Beyond financial examples, Axtell observed that societies create institutions to manage rare economic events.
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From page 36...
... In that regard, Axtell emphasized that it is important to consider social welfare functions existing on individual, organizational, and societal levels. Regarding deterrence, Axtell observed that deterrence and its relationship to mutually assured destruction was center stage during the Cold War, but in asymmetric situations deterrence is a more nuanced concept that takes on a different character.
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From page 37...
... Kasper noted that this could be an example where the behavior of plasmas could be the analogous situation to inform finance and economic models since their statistics are similar. When asked if there is a role for dystopian science fiction in developing scenarios of rare, high-impact events, Baum emphasized that the answer is definitely yes.
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Key Terms

  • rare events
  • catastrophic risk
  • nuclear terrorism
  • global catastrophic
  • global catastrophe

  • greenhouse gas
  • nuclear explosives
  • rare economic
  • financial events
  • impact threat

  • human civilization
  • risk analysis
  • gas emissions
  • cause regional
  • risk institute

  • threat emergency
  • emergency protocols
  • regional devastation
  • nuclear terrorist
  • nuclear weapon

  • double asteroid
  • asteroid deflection
  • larger asteroid
  • asteroid risk
  • extreme global

  • asteroid collision
  • seth baum
  • robert axtell
  • axtell explained
  • financial markets


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