1) There's an entire Global Health Security Agenda that has been shouting about what needs to be done for a decade, as have many other organizations - CHS, the US's Blue Ribbon Panel, Georgetown's GHSS, and I'm sure other places internationally. Ask them where to spend your money, or better yet, read their previous reports that already tell you what needs to be done.
2) For groups that are willing to think about biosecurity risks, or take advice from people who do, think about differential tech development when picking technology to fund. There are lots of technologies that have a clear upside, and almost no downside - biosurveillance, diagnostic technology, vaccine platforms, etc. Don't fund research into gain of function, and try to limit and weigh carefully when deciding what potential dual-use technology to fund.
3) For government decisionmakers - don't throw money into new bureaucracy. We have lots of existing bureaucracy, much of which should be reformed, but replacing it with a new structure and adding layers isn't going to help. And in the US, don't allow a post-9/11 move like what led to building the DHS.
[Question]
How would you advise someone decide between different biosecurity interventions?
A lot of money is going to be thrown into biosecurity. What advice would you give to someone (e.g. a policymaker or philanthropist) who is deciding between funding different projects?
Michael Nielsen has a beautiful new essay on moral imagination: the ability humans have to 'develop and transmit new notions of good action, indeed, even new kinds of good'.
As examples, he gives:
* Hammurabi's creation of a code of laws (in 1754 BCE) and his justification of his rule not in terms of divine or hereditary right, but by the delivery of justice to his citizens.
* St Gregory of Nyssa's...
Epistemic status: Speculation from two decently informed advocates armed with anecdata.
Note on process: After having some version of this conversation several times and saying, “we should probably write about this publicly,” we took the less heroic route: we recorded one of our conversations, fed the transcript into an LLM, and then substantially revised the structure, substance, and framing ourselves. We will not be sharing the transcript, as it is in...
This personal post is not part of the competition, as my intent is not to produce an original constructive response to cluelessness. However, Toby Tremlett encouraged me to share it insofar as it contributes to this week's conversation.
TL; DR: I work in animal welfare and am clueless....
1) There's an entire Global Health Security Agenda that has been shouting about what needs to be done for a decade, as have many other organizations - CHS, the US's Blue Ribbon Panel, Georgetown's GHSS, and I'm sure other places internationally. Ask them where to spend your money, or better yet, read their previous reports that already tell you what needs to be done.
2) For groups that are willing to think about biosecurity risks, or take advice from people who do, think about differential tech development when picking technology to fund. There are lots of technologies that have a clear upside, and almost no downside - biosurveillance, diagnostic technology, vaccine platforms, etc. Don't fund research into gain of function, and try to limit and weigh carefully when deciding what potential dual-use technology to fund.
3) For government decisionmakers - don't throw money into new bureaucracy. We have lots of existing bureaucracy, much of which should be reformed, but replacing it with a new structure and adding layers isn't going to help. And in the US, don't allow a post-9/11 move like what led to building the DHS.