num_pages: 0
description: Abstract -- Scientific and technological progress might change peoples capabilities or incentives in waysthat would destabilize civilization. For example advances in DIY biohacking tools might make iteasy for anybody with basic training in biology to kill millions; novel military technologies couldtrigger arms races in which whoever strikes first has a decisive advantage; or some economicallyadvantageous process may be invented that produces disastrous negative global externalitiesthat are hard to regulate. This paper introduces the concept of a vulnerable world: roughly onein which there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainlygets devastated by default i.e. unless it has exited the semi-anarchic default condition. Severalcounterfactual historical and speculative future vulnerabilities are analyzed and arranged into atypology. A general ability to stabilize a vulnerable world would require greatly amplifiedcapacities for preventive policing and global governance. The vulnerable world hypothesis thusoffers a new perspective from which to evaluate the risk-benefit balance of developmentstowards ubiquitous surveillance or a unipolar world order.
language: English
title: The Vulnerable World Hypothesis
publisher: University of Oxford