I'm currently in the EA introductory course and I asked this question in my cohort and I felt like I learned a lot from it! We were discussing existential risks. Here is the question:
I think an interesting question is: if anyone predicted the atomic bomb maybe a hundred or so years before it was invented, did they predict an event like the Cuban Missile Crisis happening? I feel like that would be our only precedent for an "existential risk"-like event.
From there we discussed what it would be like to be that person trying to convince others, knowing that person at the time, or possibly what that person could have accomplished in setting up nuclear safety today. I don't have any answers but I figured the EA forums would be a good more permanent place for this question.
What are your thoughts? Do you know if there was such a person?
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Not an expert, but my understanding is that the entire Cold War, which started 10+ years earlier, was very much centered on nuclear risk between the two superpowers. I feel like not only did one person foresee risks very much like the Cuban Missile Crisis… the whole world did.
Going one hundred years back from 1962 to 1862, the US was in the Civil War, an event of mass casualties and devastation. I suppose somebody was looking for the weapon capable of delivering the decisive blow. If so, it might be possible they pondered an act of mutually assured destruction.