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There wouldn't be an association with planned disloyalty nor an implication for military strategy because the person would keep his/her intention secret.

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Being the person who doesn't launch nukes: new EA cause?

by MichaelDickens

Aug 6 20221 min read 3

9

Existential riskNuclear security

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Some of the best people ever to exist are people who could have launched nukes, but didn't. This suggests a new high-priority career path:

Join the military.
Get yourself into the chain of people who are responsible for launching nukes.
If at any point you are told to launch a nuke or given the authority to launch a nuke, don't.

Probably a depressing career path because there's a ~99.99% probability that you will never do anything important. But it could be high EV.

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Mau3y46

I'd consider tweaking (3) to something like, "Make sure you don't start a nuclear war based on a false alarm." The current version has imo some serious downsides:

Association with planned disloyalty could hurt the efforts of everyone else in this community who's trying to contribute to policy through dedicated service.
A (US) community's reputation for planned non-retaliation might increase risk of nuclear war, because nuclear peace depends partly on countries' perceptions that other countries are committed to retaliating against nuclear attack.

Linch3y2

(I strongly upvoted this; I think some subset of EAs are overly naive about what channels could nuclear policy be used to reduce catastrophic risks)

Midtermist123y-14

There wouldn't be an association with planned disloyalty nor an implication for military strategy because the person would keep his/her intention secret.