Results for “asteroid” 53 found
The Destruction from an Asteroid Strike
The Day the Dinosaurs Died is an amazing tale of scientific discovery. You should read the whole thing. One sub-point, however, is a vivid description of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
The asteroid was vaporized on impact. Its substance, mingling with vaporized Earth rock, formed a fiery plume, which reached halfway to the moon before collapsing in a pillar of incandescent dust. Computer models suggest that the atmosphere within fifteen hundred miles of ground zero became red hot from the debris storm, triggering gigantic forest fires. As the Earth rotated, the airborne material converged at the opposite side of the planet, where it fell and set fire to the entire Indian subcontinent. Measurements of the layer of ash and soot that eventually coated the Earth indicate that fires consumed about seventy per cent of the world’s forests. Meanwhile, giant tsunamis resulting from the impact churned across the Gulf of Mexico, tearing up coastlines, sometimes peeling up hundreds of feet of rock, pushing debris inland and then sucking it back out into deep water, leaving jumbled deposits that oilmen sometimes encounter in the course of deep-sea drilling.
…The dust and soot from the impact and the conflagrations prevented all sunlight from reaching the planet’s surface for months. Photosynthesis all but stopped, killing most of the plant life, extinguishing the phytoplankton in the oceans, and causing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere to plummet. After the fires died down, Earth plunged into a period of cold, perhaps even a deep freeze. Earth’s two essential food chains, in the sea and on land, collapsed. About seventy-five per cent of all species went extinct. More than 99.9999 per cent of all living organisms on Earth died, and the carbon cycle came to a halt.
…One of the authors of the 1991 paper, David Kring, was so frightened by what he learned of the impact’s destructive nature that he became a leading voice in calling for a system to identify and neutralize threatening asteroids. “There’s no uncertainty to this statement: the Earth will be hit by a Chicxulub-size asteroid again, unless we deflect it,” he told me. “Even a three-hundred-metre rock would end world agriculture.”
When the asteroid hit it unleashed the energy of a billion Hiroshimas, that’s one reason I support foundations like the B612 Foundation who are working to map asteroids and develop systems to protect our world. As Tyler and I point out in textbook, protection from asteroids is a true public good which is one reason why we aren’t spending enough on this project.
Hat tip: Kevin Lewis.
More on Asteroid Defense
In a very good piece on the risk from asteroids the Washington Post quotes me going all crunchy-granola:
Tabarrok says his hope is that private efforts in space will one day soon focus on mining asteroids for valuable resources. If you have miners and private developers working with asteroids in space, that could inadvertently make it easier to defend the planet against an asteroid collision.
And of course, there is the option that people on Earth could somehow get the motivation to work together, and asteroid defense might ultimately be a reason for unifying the world, says Tabarrok.
“The idea that the whole planet is potentially under threat from an asteroid does make us think that the world is our home, and we’re all in this together – Spaceship Earth, to get a little crunchy granola. And that makes us think a little more about our fellow travelers, our fellow world residents, that we’re all in this together.”
I may have to turn in my hard-headed economist card.
Asteroid Deflection as a Public Good
I wrote this post over the weekend but given Paul Samuelson's classic contribution to public goods theory and to economic textbooks it seems to also fit today.
In Modern Principles we use asteroid deflection as our example of a public good. Aside from memorability, the example has two virtues as a teaching tool. First, asteroid deflection is a true public good for all of humanity which raises free riding issues on a worldwide scale. Second, asteroid deflection is an example of a public good that is currently provided neither by the market nor by government. Thus the example underlines the fact that public goods are defined by their characteristics–nonexcludability and nonrivalry–and not by whether they are publicly provided, a point of confusion for many students.
The example may seem fanciful but Tyler and I are quite serious about the
importance of asteroid deflection. Large asteroid hits are rare but if
a large asteroid does hit, billions will be killed. As a result, sober calculations suggest that the lifetime risk of dying from an asteroid strike is about the same as the risk of dying in a commercial airplane crash. Yet we spend far less on avoiding the former risk than the latter.
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences discusses efforts to detect near earth objects (NEOs). Progress is mixed:
The United States is currently the only country with an active, government-sponsored effort to
detect and track potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs)…
Congress has mandated that NASA detect and track 90 percent of NEOs that are 1 kilometer in diameter
or larger. These objects represent a great potential hazard to life on Earth and could cause global
destruction. NASA is close to accomplishing this goal.Congress has more recently mandated that by
2020 NASA should detect and track 90 percent of NEOs that are 140 meters in diameter or larger, a
category of objects that is generally recognized to represent a very significant threat to life on Earth if
they strike in or near urban areas….The administration has not requested and Congress has not
appropriated new funds to meet this objective….[Thus] the current near-Earth object surveys cannot meet the goals of the 2005 NASA
Authorization Act…
Moreover, detection is only the first step towards deflection.
As a classroom discussion starter I like the video embedded below. The jovial attitude of the announcers contrasts amusingly with the topic while subtly illustrating some of our biases in perception yet the video does cover the main points about the worldwide risk, the fact that asteroid deflection is a public good and it hints at the free rider problem. I do doubt the bit about the riches available from asteroid mining. Enjoy.
How to stop an asteroid
A mission to smash into a space rock to deflect it and study its structure has been given priority over five other potential asteroid projects by the European Space Agency…Scientists don’t know enough about asteroid insides to predict how one would respond to attempts to nudge it off an Earth-impact course or turn it into harmless dust. While no asteroids are currently known to be on track to hit the planet, experts say a regional catastrophe is inevitable in the very long run– over millennia. And run-ins with small asteroids that could incinerate a large city occur ever few thousand years.
It’s nice to see the Europeans supplying a global public good of this kind.
…the mission could launch in five to six years.
Don Quijote [the project’s name, probably not a political winner] is similar to NASA’s Deep Impact mission, which is slated to fling a small probe at a comet on July 4, 2005.
Here is the full story. Here is Alex’s earlier post on asteroid deflection as a public good. And the ever-insightful Randall Parker offers further commentary.
Asteroids
Ironically, we spend very little on one of the few public goods that I support, asteroid detection and deflection. Even among the strange group that I interact with, this predilection of mine about avoiding asteroids is considered a little odd. But consider that the probability of being killed by an asteroid collision is about the same as being killed in a commercial airplane disaster – small, but all of humanity is aboard that plane.
Assuming there are enough of us around after a hit, I can just see the commission now.
Q. Why was our government woefully unprepared to prevent the deaths of millions of citizens and world-wide devastation?
A. We had only vague, historical information.
Q. What about 2002 EM7?
A. That was a previous administration.
Q. What about 2004 FH
A. NASA did not provide us with a specific threat.
Q. Didn’t you know about Tunguska?
A. That was a foreign threat.
Much more information, with plenty of references, comes from Randall Parker, the far-seeing Future Pundit, who actually works on things like asteroid detection.
World’s First Dominant Assurance Contract Platform
In September I alerted you to a crowdfunding campaign to produce a dominant assurance contract/refund bonus platform. Many of you stepped up and it’s now and up and running! The platform is called EnsureDone. It’s starting up small, with just a few projects, but already the projects are quite interesting. MakeSunsets, for example, had a campaign to raise $1000 to fund a test of seeding the atmosphere with sulfur to increase reflection. That campaign failed which meant the people who had agreed to contribute earned a refund bonus! The UX could also use some work. Still, it’s nice to see this idea being tested in the wild and I have inside info that another such platform will launch soon.
Towards a Platform for Dominant Assurance Contracts
Moyamo at LessWrong is committed to getting dominant assurance contracts, aka refund bonuses up and running.
Imagine a world with no ads or paywalls. A world where open-source software gets the same level of funding as proprietary software. A world where people can freely reuse ideas and music without paying royalties. A world where people get paid for writing book reviews. A world where Game-of-Thrones-quality shows are freely available on YouTube. A world where AI safety research gets the same-level of funding as AI capabilities research. Is this a fantasy world? No, this is the world where people use Dominant Assurance Contracts.
If you think this is a bad idea that no one will support, click on the donation link and make some money. If you think it’s a great idea with lots of potential, click on the donation link and be the one to make this public good a reality. Read the first link to find out more.
Where the AI extinction warning goes wrong
There is so much to say about this one, in my view it has been counterproductive for all those worried about AI safety. Here is one excerpt from my latest Bloomberg column:
Sometimes publicity stunts backfire. A case in point may be the one-sentence warning issued this week by the Center for AI Safety: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
…The first problem is the word “extinction.” Whether or not you think the current trajectory of AI systems poses an extinction risk — and I do not — the more you use that term, the more likely the matter will fall under the purview of the national security establishment. And its priority is to defeat foreign adversaries. The bureaucrats who staff the more mundane regulatory agencies will be shoved aside.
US national security experts are properly skeptical about the idea of an international agreement to limit AI systems, as they doubt anyone would be monitoring and sanctioning China, Russia or other states (even the UAE has a potentially powerful system on the way). So the more people say that AI systems can be super-powerful, the more national-security advisers will insist that US technology must always be superior. I happen to agree about the need for US dominance — but realize that this is an argument for accelerating AI research, not slowing it down.
A second problem with the statement is that many of the signers are important players in AI developments. So a common-sense objection might go like this: If you’re so concerned, why don’t you just stop working on AI? There is a perfectly legitimate response — you want to stay involved because you fear that if you leave, someone less responsible will be put in charge — but I am under no illusions that this argument would carry the day. As they say in politics, if you are explaining, you are losing.
The geographic distribution of the signatories will also create problems. Many of the best-known signers are on the West Coast, especially California and Seattle. There is a cluster from Toronto and a few from the UK, but the US Midwest and South are hardly represented. If I were a chief of staff to a member of Congress or political lobbyist, I would be wondering: Where are the community bankers? Where are the owners of auto dealerships? Why are so few states and House districts represented on the list?
I do not myself see the AI safety movement as a left-wing political project. But if all you knew about it was this document, you might conclude that it is. In short, the petition may be doing more to signal the weakness and narrowness of the movement than its strength.
Then there is the brevity of the statement itself. Perhaps this is a bold move, and it will help stimulate debate and generate ideas. But an alternative view is that the group could not agree on anything more. There is no accompanying white paper or set of policy recommendations. I praise the signers’ humility, but not their political instincts.
Again, consider the public as well as the political perception. If some well-known and very smart players in a given area think the world might end but make no recommendations about what to do about it, might you decide just to ignore them altogether? (“Get back to me when you’ve figured it out!”) What if a group of scientists announced that a large asteroid was headed toward Earth. I suspect they would have some very specific recommendations, on such issues as how to deflect the asteroid and prepare defenses.
Do read the whole thing. You will note that my arguments do not require any particular view of AGI risk, one way or the other. I view this statement as a mistake from all points of view, except perhaps for the accelerationists.
Tuesday assorted links
Where is the best place to live if a cataclysm comes?
My counterintuitive answer is northern Virginia, or at least the general DC area, putting LDS options aside. I’m talking about asteroids, super-volcanos, and nuclear exchanges, not AGI risk. Here is a Bloomberg column on that topic:
I have a counterintuitive answer: If you live in a dense urban area, stay put — especially if, like me, you live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
The biggest advantage of the Washington region is that, in the case of a real catastrophe, it would receive a lot of direct aid. It’s not just that Congress and the White House are nearby — so are the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA and hundreds if not thousands of government agencies. Insofar as there might be an emergency response to a cataclysmic event, the Washington area will be prioritized.
The region also has plenty of hospitals and doctors, and a wide variety of law-enforcement units — including the various federal agencies as well as police from Maryland, Virginia and D.C. If you care about order being restored, Washington will be better than most places.
Of course, a counterargument is that Washington is more likely than most places to be hit by a cataclysmic event, especially if it involves a nuclear exchange or some other weapon of mass destruction. But there’s “good news,” scare-quotes intended: If a foreign enemy is truly intent on targeting America’s capital, the conflict may be so extreme that it won’t matter where you go. (If I were a foreign power attacking the US, Washington would not be my first choice as a target, as it would virtually guarantee the complete destruction of my own country.)
I consider — and reject — New Zealand and the American West as alternate options. New Zealand might not even let you in.
The Era of Planetary Defense Has Begun
In Modern Principles of Economics, Tyler and I use asteroid defense as an example of a public good (see video below). As of the 5th edition, this public good wasn’t being provided by either markets or governments. But thanks to NASA, the era of planetary defense has begun. In September of 2022 NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid. A new set of five papers in Nature has now demonstrated that not only did NASA hit its target, the mission was a success in diverting the asteroid:
DART, which was the size of a golf cart, collided with a Great Pyramid-sized asteroid called Dimorphos. The impact caused the asteroid’s orbit around another space rock to shrink — Dimorphos now completes an orbit 33 minutes faster than before the impact, researchers report1 today in Nature.
…As DART hurtled towards Dimorphos at more than 6 kilometres per second, the first part that hit was one of its solar panels, which smashed into a 6.5-metre-wide boulder. Microseconds later, the main body of the spacecraft collided with the rocky surface next to the boulder — and the US$330-million DART shattered to bits….the spacecraft hit a spot around 25 metres from the asteroid’s centre, maximizing the force of its impact….large amounts of the asteroid’s rubble flew outwards from the impact. The recoil from this force pushed the asteroid further off its previous trajectory. Researchers estimate that this spray of rubble meant Dimorphos’ added momentum was almost four times that imparted by DART.
…Although NASA has demonstrated this technique on only one asteroid, the results could be broadly applicable to future hazards…if a dangerous asteroid were ever detected heading for Earth, a mission to smash into it would probably be able to divert it away from the planet.
Is it Possible to Prepare for a Pandemic?
In a new paper, Robert Tucker Omberg and I ask whether being “prepared for a pandemic” ameliorated or shortened the pandemic. The short answer is No.
How effective were investments in pandemic preparation? We use a comprehensive and detailed measure of pandemic preparedness, the Global Health Security (GHS) Index produced by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHU), to measure which investments in pandemic preparedness reduced infections, deaths, excess deaths, or otherwise ameliorated or shortened the pandemic. We also look at whether values or attitudinal factors such as individualism, willingness to sacrifice, or trust in government—which might be considered a form of cultural pandemic preparedness—influenced the course of the pandemic. Our primary finding is that almost no form of pandemic preparedness helped to ameliorate or shorten the pandemic. Compared to other countries, the United States did not perform poorly because of cultural values such as individualism, collectivism, selfishness, or lack of trust. General state capacity, as opposed to specific pandemic investments, is one of the few factors which appears to improve pandemic performance. Understanding the most effective forms of pandemic preparedness can help guide future investments. Our results may also suggest that either we aren’t measuring what is important or that pandemic preparedness is a global public good.
Our results can be simply illustrated by looking at daily Covid deaths per million in the country the GHS Index ranked as the most prepared for a pandemic, the United States, versus the country the GHS Index ranked as least prepared, Equatorial Guinea.
Now, of course, this is just raw data–maybe the US had different demographics, maybe Equatorial Guinea underestimated Covid deaths, maybe the GHS index is too broad or maybe sub-indexes measured preparation better. The bulk of our paper shows that the lesson of Figure 1 continue to apply even after controlling for a variety of demographic factors, when looking at other measures of deaths such as excess deaths, when looking at the time pattern of deaths etc. Note also that we are testing whether “preparedness” mattered and finding that it wasn’t an important factor in the course of the pandemic. We are not testing and not arguing that pandemic policy didn’t matter.
The lessons are not entirely negative, however. The GHS index measures pandemic preparedness by country but what mattered most to the world was the production of vaccines which depended less on any given country and more on global preparedness. Investing in global public goods such as by creating a library of vaccine candidates in advance that we could draw upon in the event of a pandemic is likely to have very high value. Indeed, it’s possible to begin to test and advance to phase I and phase II trials vaccines for every virus that is likely to jump from animal to human populations (Krammer, 2020). I am also a big proponent of wastewater surveillance. Every major sewage plant in the world and many minor plants at places like universities ought to be doing wastewater surveillance for viruses and bacteria. The CDC has a good program along these lines. These types of investments are global public goods and so don’t show up much in pandemic preparedness indexes, but they are key to a) making vaccines available more quickly and b) identifying and stopping a pandemic quickly.
A final lesson may be that a pandemic is simply one example of a low-probability but very bad event. Other examples which may have even greater expected cost are super-volcanoes, asteroid strikes, nuclear wars, and solar storms (Ord, 2020; Leigh, 2021). Preparing for X, Y, or Z may be less valuable than building resilience for a wide variety of potential events. The Boy Scout motto is simply ‘Be prepared’.
Read the whole thing.
My podcast with Dwarkesh Patel
Dwarkesh writes me:
Dwarkesh Patel Somebody comes in, and they’re very humble.Tyler Cowen Immediately I’m suspicious. I figure most people who are going to make something of themselves are arrogant. If they’re willing to show it, there’s a certain bravery or openness in that. I don’t rule out the humble person doing great. A lot of people who do great are humble, but I just get a wee bit like, “what’s up with you? You’re not really humble, are you?”…Tyler Cowen But we’ll be permanently set back kind of forever. And in the meantime, we can’t build asteroid protection or whatever else. It’ll just be like medieval living standards: super small population, feudal governance, lots of violence, rape. There’s no reason to think like, oh, read a copy of the Constitution in and 400 years, we’re back on track. That’s crazy wrong…
Dwarkesh Patel What do you think podcasts are for? What is happening?Tyler Cowen To anaesthetize people? To feel they’re learning something? To put them to sleep. So they can exercise and not feel like idiots. Occasionally to learn something. To keep themselves entertained while doing busy work of some kind.”
Recommended.
NASA Reduces Existential Risk!
Congratulations to NASA for a direct hit on an asteroid with the goal of shifting its orbit and proving the feasibility of protecting the planet. A great step for mankind!
Tyler and I use asteroid defense as an example of a true public good in our textbook, Modern Principles. Here’s the video from our textbook. Not quite so dramatic but funnier!