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OK. Is there anything that one could do with a country that you would consider an existential threat to the country, and if so, could you give an example?

Jach 9y ago
Sure, though I'm not seeing the value in this thread when the original context was existential threats to the internet... Some existential threats to countries: * An equally or more powerful country declares war on the country. (Actually even an underdog can occasionally win, so the power criteria isn't strictly needed for a threat...) Similarly for a group of countries against another group of countries. * Increased tensions within a country build up to a civil war. Survivable (USA) but still a threat. * The US State Department doesn't like the country's leader(s) * Country cannot produce as much as or more than it consumes. Side effects include mass starvation, coup attempts. * Modern "acts of war" but not necessarily carried out by a war-declaring entity like another country. E.g. terrorist attacks on infrastructure. Probably worst (but least likely) threat is an EMP detonated about as high up as the ISS, if you wanted to affect a country the size of the continental US. * Government bankruptcy. * Mass disease (thankfully less of a threat given modern medicine and distribution) I'll stop there...
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > Sure, though I'm not seeing the value in this thread when the original context was existential threats to the internet... You seem to have a very unusual concept of what makes an existential threat, and I think countries is an easier analogy to try and understand your reasoning. > * An equally or more powerful country declares war on the country. (Actually even an underdog can occasionally win, so the power criteria isn't strictly needed for a threat...) Similarly for a group of countries against another group of countries. What if the attacking country declared that its goal is to gain power over the country to exploit it economically, but let the country continue to exist (essentially colonialism)? Would you still consider that an existential threat? > * Increased tensions within a country build up to a civil war. Survivable (USA) but still a threat. What if the declared goal of all parties to the war would be to keep the country intact, just with different sets of rules? Would you still consider that an existential threat? > * The US State Department doesn't like the country's leader(s) How does that threaten the country existentially? That's just about who has power in the country, not about whether the country exists, isn't it? > * Country cannot produce as much as or more than it consumes. Side effects include mass starvation, coup attempts. But a country with a starving population is still a country, isn't it? And a country that had a coup is still a country, isn't it? So, why is this an existential threat to a country? > * Modern "acts of war" but not necessarily carried out by a war-declaring entity like another country. E.g. terrorist attacks on infrastructure. Probably worst (but least likely) threat is an EMP detonated about as high up as the ISS, if you wanted to affect a country the size of the continental US. But would that change that it's still a country? Why would you consider this an existential threat when the country still exists afterwards?! > * Government bankruptcy. How is that an existential threat for the country? It's just a bankrupt country then, isn't it? > * Mass disease (thankfully less of a threat given modern medicine and distribution) Wouldn't that just result in a country with a lot of ill and ultimately dead people? That doesn't make it not a country, does it? Why do you consider this an existential threat to the country, then?! > I'll stop there... Sure, I think I got the idea, but I really did not get your reasoning behind this. I don't really expect that you respond individually to each question above, that probably would be a huge waste of time ... my point is: Why would you consider any of that an existential threat to a country when the country in all cases almost certainly still exists afterwards?
  - Jach 9y ago
    I'll clarify what I mean by existential threat, then: an existential threat to some Thing is a state of being or a potential action or event leading to a state of being that can be identified as an important part of a probable causal chain leading from the state of Thing existing to Thing not existing. For the sorts of existential threats I care about, you can read https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risk... where the Thing at risk is the bright future of mankind. Given that, I hope you'll see that everything I gave was a threat. Threats aren't certainties. Threats aren't themselves states that are isomorphic with or inevitably lead to non-existence. A war might be lost, and the nation as it was is conquered and absorbed into the winning nation. With this not-uncommon possibility, war is obviously an existential threat. But extinction isn't certain. What if the victor ends up mostly leaving the nation alone after (e.g. Israel vs its neighbors)? Or you might define that a country becoming a client-state still counts as continuity of existence (I don't) and that is not uncommon too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_state... has a nice list of things that no longer exist, and some of these things we might both agree count as countries that no longer exist -- definitions are important -- as opposed to sovereign government changes within a stable geographical boundary, or country unions that fell apart with the individual members remaining. If you went through them and picked out the common threads between them (the list itself begins with "conflict, war, rebellion, annexation, or uprising", so consider things likely to lead to those for even more threat options) then those commonalities would probably count as common existential threats. Edit: and given all that, I don't think net-bias is an existential threat to the internet. The internet -- definitions are important -- may cease to exist, but I don't think net-bias by ISPs would be a big reason why, and the scenarios I can picture the internet actually ceasing to exist seem to be able to happen just as probably with or without ISPs not upholding (or being forced to uphold) neutrality.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
      > I'll clarify what I mean by existential threat, then: an existential threat to some Thing is a state of being or a potential action or event leading to a state of being that can be identified as an important part of a probable causal chain leading from the state of Thing existing to Thing not existing. Well, yeah, but what does it mean for abstract things to exist in the first place? > where the Thing at risk is the bright future of mankind. But that is a very different thing from a country, isn't it? Couldn't countries continue to exist as totally dystopic entities? > Given that, I hope you'll see that everything I gave was a threat. Oh, sure those are threats, to something. But so is net bias, isn't it? But that doesn't automatically make it a threat to the country, does it? > Threats aren't certainties. Threats aren't themselves states that are isomorphic with or inevitably lead to non-existence. But a threat also isn't just anything that could possibly contribute to the demise of something in some minor manner under extremely unusual circumstances, in particular an existential one, right? > A war might be lost, and the nation as it was is conquered and absorbed into the winning nation. With this not-uncommon possibility, war is obviously an existential threat. Which is why I specifically asked about the case of a colonial war. > Or you might define that a country becoming a client-state still counts as continuity of existence (I don't) and that is not uncommon too. Why don't you? As I understood you, you wouldn't consider (the possibility of) a complete change of how the country is governed to be an existential threat, to the point that you apparently wouldn't consider the change to a dictatorship or monarchy an existential threat. What is it then that makes this an existential threat, when it seems that as far as the power structure is concerned, there wouldn't really be much of a difference whether you have a corrupt dictator or a governor from another country running your country?! > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_state... has a nice list of things that no longer exist, and some of these things we might both agree count as countries that no longer exist -- definitions are important -- as opposed to sovereign government changes within a stable geographical boundary, or country unions that fell apart with the individual members remaining. But do countries have to be sovereign? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country, sovereignty is not a defining characteristic of a country. > The internet -- definitions are important -- may cease to exist, but I don't think net-bias by ISPs would be a big reason why, and the scenarios I can picture the internet actually ceasing to exist seem to be able to happen just as probably with or without ISPs not upholding (or being forced to uphold) neutrality. Well, yes, exactly, definitions are important, that is kindof my point, and as far as net bias being an existential threat to the internet is concerned, I think you are probably simply missing the point by using a definition of "the internet" that's not useful in the context. Just as it is not useful to assume that someone speaking of "existential threats to a country" means exclusively roads and buildings, it's not useful to assume that someone speaking of "existential threats to the internet" means exclusively cables and routers. When people speak of "existential threats to a country", they usually mean some sort of power structure and societal structures and culture in addition to the geographic boundaries and what infrastructure can be found within it. The fact that you are now steering towards sovereignty as a relevant distinguisher between whether a country continues to exists or not suggests that you do as well, even though that is not part of the general definition of a country. Similarly, for the internet, when people talk about net bias being an existential threat to the internet, noone means by that that the internet protocol will be dead without net neutrality. What everyone means is that it is going to change massively how the internet is going to be used, that many of the good effects that result from the power structure of a neutral internet will stop, to the point that it culturally wouldn't be recognizable to someone who only knew the neutral internet, notwithstanding the fact that IP packets will still be IP packets.

Jach 9y ago

Sure, though I'm not seeing the value in this thread when the original context was existential threats to the internet... Some existential threats to countries: * An equally or more powerful country declares war on the country. (Actually even an underdog can occasionally win, so the power criteria isn't strictly needed for a threat...) Similarly for a group of countries against another group of countries. * Increased tensions within a country build up to a civil war. Survivable (USA) but still a threat. * The US State Department doesn't like the country's leader(s) * Country cannot produce as much as or more than it consumes. Side effects include mass starvation, coup attempts. * Modern "acts of war" but not necessarily carried out by a war-declaring entity like another country. E.g. terrorist attacks on infrastructure. Probably worst (but least likely) threat is an EMP detonated about as high up as the ISS, if you wanted to affect a country the size of the continental US. * Government bankruptcy. * Mass disease (thankfully less of a threat given modern medicine and distribution) I'll stop there...

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
> Sure, though I'm not seeing the value in this thread when the original context was existential threats to the internet... You seem to have a very unusual concept of what makes an existential threat, and I think countries is an easier analogy to try and understand your reasoning. > * An equally or more powerful country declares war on the country. (Actually even an underdog can occasionally win, so the power criteria isn't strictly needed for a threat...) Similarly for a group of countries against another group of countries. What if the attacking country declared that its goal is to gain power over the country to exploit it economically, but let the country continue to exist (essentially colonialism)? Would you still consider that an existential threat? > * Increased tensions within a country build up to a civil war. Survivable (USA) but still a threat. What if the declared goal of all parties to the war would be to keep the country intact, just with different sets of rules? Would you still consider that an existential threat? > * The US State Department doesn't like the country's leader(s) How does that threaten the country existentially? That's just about who has power in the country, not about whether the country exists, isn't it? > * Country cannot produce as much as or more than it consumes. Side effects include mass starvation, coup attempts. But a country with a starving population is still a country, isn't it? And a country that had a coup is still a country, isn't it? So, why is this an existential threat to a country? > * Modern "acts of war" but not necessarily carried out by a war-declaring entity like another country. E.g. terrorist attacks on infrastructure. Probably worst (but least likely) threat is an EMP detonated about as high up as the ISS, if you wanted to affect a country the size of the continental US. But would that change that it's still a country? Why would you consider this an existential threat when the country still exists afterwards?! > * Government bankruptcy. How is that an existential threat for the country? It's just a bankrupt country then, isn't it? > * Mass disease (thankfully less of a threat given modern medicine and distribution) Wouldn't that just result in a country with a lot of ill and ultimately dead people? That doesn't make it not a country, does it? Why do you consider this an existential threat to the country, then?! > I'll stop there... Sure, I think I got the idea, but I really did not get your reasoning behind this. I don't really expect that you respond individually to each question above, that probably would be a huge waste of time ... my point is: Why would you consider any of that an existential threat to a country when the country in all cases almost certainly still exists afterwards?
- Jach 9y ago
  I'll clarify what I mean by existential threat, then: an existential threat to some Thing is a state of being or a potential action or event leading to a state of being that can be identified as an important part of a probable causal chain leading from the state of Thing existing to Thing not existing. For the sorts of existential threats I care about, you can read https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risk... where the Thing at risk is the bright future of mankind. Given that, I hope you'll see that everything I gave was a threat. Threats aren't certainties. Threats aren't themselves states that are isomorphic with or inevitably lead to non-existence. A war might be lost, and the nation as it was is conquered and absorbed into the winning nation. With this not-uncommon possibility, war is obviously an existential threat. But extinction isn't certain. What if the victor ends up mostly leaving the nation alone after (e.g. Israel vs its neighbors)? Or you might define that a country becoming a client-state still counts as continuity of existence (I don't) and that is not uncommon too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_state... has a nice list of things that no longer exist, and some of these things we might both agree count as countries that no longer exist -- definitions are important -- as opposed to sovereign government changes within a stable geographical boundary, or country unions that fell apart with the individual members remaining. If you went through them and picked out the common threads between them (the list itself begins with "conflict, war, rebellion, annexation, or uprising", so consider things likely to lead to those for even more threat options) then those commonalities would probably count as common existential threats. Edit: and given all that, I don't think net-bias is an existential threat to the internet. The internet -- definitions are important -- may cease to exist, but I don't think net-bias by ISPs would be a big reason why, and the scenarios I can picture the internet actually ceasing to exist seem to be able to happen just as probably with or without ISPs not upholding (or being forced to uphold) neutrality.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    > I'll clarify what I mean by existential threat, then: an existential threat to some Thing is a state of being or a potential action or event leading to a state of being that can be identified as an important part of a probable causal chain leading from the state of Thing existing to Thing not existing. Well, yeah, but what does it mean for abstract things to exist in the first place? > where the Thing at risk is the bright future of mankind. But that is a very different thing from a country, isn't it? Couldn't countries continue to exist as totally dystopic entities? > Given that, I hope you'll see that everything I gave was a threat. Oh, sure those are threats, to something. But so is net bias, isn't it? But that doesn't automatically make it a threat to the country, does it? > Threats aren't certainties. Threats aren't themselves states that are isomorphic with or inevitably lead to non-existence. But a threat also isn't just anything that could possibly contribute to the demise of something in some minor manner under extremely unusual circumstances, in particular an existential one, right? > A war might be lost, and the nation as it was is conquered and absorbed into the winning nation. With this not-uncommon possibility, war is obviously an existential threat. Which is why I specifically asked about the case of a colonial war. > Or you might define that a country becoming a client-state still counts as continuity of existence (I don't) and that is not uncommon too. Why don't you? As I understood you, you wouldn't consider (the possibility of) a complete change of how the country is governed to be an existential threat, to the point that you apparently wouldn't consider the change to a dictatorship or monarchy an existential threat. What is it then that makes this an existential threat, when it seems that as far as the power structure is concerned, there wouldn't really be much of a difference whether you have a corrupt dictator or a governor from another country running your country?! > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_state... has a nice list of things that no longer exist, and some of these things we might both agree count as countries that no longer exist -- definitions are important -- as opposed to sovereign government changes within a stable geographical boundary, or country unions that fell apart with the individual members remaining. But do countries have to be sovereign? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country, sovereignty is not a defining characteristic of a country. > The internet -- definitions are important -- may cease to exist, but I don't think net-bias by ISPs would be a big reason why, and the scenarios I can picture the internet actually ceasing to exist seem to be able to happen just as probably with or without ISPs not upholding (or being forced to uphold) neutrality. Well, yes, exactly, definitions are important, that is kindof my point, and as far as net bias being an existential threat to the internet is concerned, I think you are probably simply missing the point by using a definition of "the internet" that's not useful in the context. Just as it is not useful to assume that someone speaking of "existential threats to a country" means exclusively roads and buildings, it's not useful to assume that someone speaking of "existential threats to the internet" means exclusively cables and routers. When people speak of "existential threats to a country", they usually mean some sort of power structure and societal structures and culture in addition to the geographic boundaries and what infrastructure can be found within it. The fact that you are now steering towards sovereignty as a relevant distinguisher between whether a country continues to exists or not suggests that you do as well, even though that is not part of the general definition of a country. Similarly, for the internet, when people talk about net bias being an existential threat to the internet, noone means by that that the internet protocol will be dead without net neutrality. What everyone means is that it is going to change massively how the internet is going to be used, that many of the good effects that result from the power structure of a neutral internet will stop, to the point that it culturally wouldn't be recognizable to someone who only knew the neutral internet, notwithstanding the fact that IP packets will still be IP packets.