NunoSempere
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User ID: 1101
NunoSempere
1d ago
Lol, this makes sense :)
NunoSempere
2d ago
Elon Musk shared a perspective from Jeffrey Sachs, outlined in more detail here or here, about how Russia was provoked by NATO expansion into invading Ukraine, in the same way that the US was provoked by Soviet cooperation with Cuba. This matters because Musk has become an important Trump advisor.
African countries face cybersecurity vulnerabilities due to foreign control over critical technological infrastructure, with notable cases of Chinese cyber espionage in African Union headquarters and Kenyan government ministries. Chinese and U.S. companies dominate the application and operating system layers.
Theravada Budhist rebel militias control most of a state (province) in Myanmar. Seems like it could tickle some people here.
Otherwise, I'm thinking about how states just seem like a bad abstraction. Alliance blocks, ideologies, religions, dynasties seem like somewhat better building blocks. In particular, states seem like an easy abstraction, but recently they have mislead me when... a) thinking about the Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis: it seems much easier to think about them in terms of religion than in terms of their geographic boundaries; b) there are a few governments that are pretty weak, and they are so just because the west recognizes and supports them. Yemen, the former government of Afghanistan come to mind, c) borders are important, but not that important. There is free travel between Paraguay/Argentina/Brazil, between the European Union, between the US and Canada, between Russia and Belarus, etc., d) at the lower level, a few governments are just a few families in a trench coat (Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, etc.).
Longer list of items below. Some may be wrong.
Protest in Hyderabad against Punjab's construction of more canals on the Indus river.
Canada forces are training for deployment in Latvia—an a potential
Potential prophylactic against Ricin, in case somebody is wanting to recreate a Pricess Bride scene irl.
A paper in nature warns about the danger of a repeat of the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned of the potential spillover effects of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where Iran-backed groups are battling Israel. Araghchi stated that if the conflict expands, it could result in insecurity and instability spreading to other regions beyond the Middle East. I'm particularly worried about that scenario.
Biden administration "under pressure" to respond to Iran's plot to kill Trump, reports Fox News.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for imposing a weapons embargo on Israel and severing trade relations with the country
Far-right Israeli minister calls for annexation of West Bank
IDF says it destroyed most of Hezbollah's manufacturing, storage sites
Iran is building 'defensive tunnels' in Tehran metro network to save people from Israeli air strikes
Iran might have developed chemical weapons. These would have been tactical, rather than wide-area.. British tabloid claims that Liz Truss thought that there was a 50% that Putin would use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine in the eve of her administration
The Famine Early Warning System warns that if food supplies remain blocked, then Famine (IPC Phase 5) will most likely occur in North Gaza
An Iranian MP says Iran should move forward with a nuclear test
China is building nuclear reactor to power new aircraft carrier
France sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Japan
North Korea ratifies mutual defence treaty with Russia. The treaty commits both countries to providing immediate military assistance to each other using “all means” necessary if either faces “aggression”.
NATO military chief says troops would be on ground if not for Russian nukes
US flights to Haiti banned after 3 airplanes shot. government information campaign in Norway is urging citizens to prepare for emergencies, with a checklist of supplies including water, food, candles, iodine, a radio, and cash.
Doctors Without Borders ambulance in Haiti ambushed, patients executed by police officers and vigilantes.
Colombia has declared a state of disaster following days of torrential flooding impacting tens of thousands of families.
European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction
Canada records its first human bird flu case
Global talks to reach an agreement on better fighting pandemics will continue into next year
The largest-yet multilingual open pretraining dataset was released.
China arms itself for potential trade war with Donald Trump. "You think you’ve priced-in geopolitical risk and US-China trade warfare, but you haven’t, because China hasn’t seriously retaliated yet"
Ukraine could build a crude nuclear bomb within months, similar to the Fat Man bomb dropped in Nagasaki, from spent plutonium
An elephant seal colony lost 95%+ of its pups because of H5N1
An Australian site makes the point that misinformation laws prevent converging to the truth when the official version is wrong, as it was in the early days of covid when the mechanism for transmission was thought to be droplets, rather than the virus being more generally airborne.
ChinaTalk reports on the state of model testing in China
NunoSempere
6d ago
Looking into this a bit more, using a stack-based fermi estimation tool I like
600K 700K # tonnes of rice
=> 600.00K 700.00K
* 1K # kg in a tone
=> 600.00M 700.00M
* 1.2K 1.4K # calories per kg of rice
=> 753.25B 936.74B
/ 1.9K 2.5K # daily caloric intake
=> 323.46M 459.24M
/ 25M 28M # population of NK
=> 12.12 17.51
/ 365 # years of food this buys
=> 0.033 0.048
/ 1% # as a percentage
=> 3.32 4.80
exit
So Russia is giving 3-5% of North Korea's caloric intake, and NK previously was short maybe 5-10%. Somewhat wild.
NunoSempere
6d ago
Makes much more sense, still kinda blows my mind.
NunoSempere
7d ago
maybe kilotonnes
NunoSempere
8d ago
I'm presuming they're migrating to Southern Europe
Yes, but also within Africa. Within Africa migration is much easier than moving to another continent.
NunoSempere
9d ago
"Politics begins with grasping reality, and the reality is... [that I am right]"
Honestly he is taking the moral high ground, but it's kinda fake. I expect it to be convincing to the German people though.
It's a good speech. But it doesn't accept the concept of tradeoffs between climate goals, social goals, defense goals: min 15:
My strong conviction is that we must never play inner, outer and social security against each other. It threatens our cohesion, and ultimately our democracy...
Makes sense that the FPD would be against it.
NunoSempere
9d ago
Some news stories I'm tracking; thoughts welcome on any of them, particularly the first two.
South Korean intelligence reports that an agreement between North Korea and Russia includes an annual supply of 600-700 tonnes of rice to North Korea, a salary of US$2,000 for North Korean soldiers deployed in Ukraine, space technology, and provisions for Russian involvement in potential conflicts on the Korean Peninsula. With around 10,000 North Korean troops expected to be deployed to Ukraine, this could generate over US$200 million annually for Pyongyang. The 4 million tonnes of grains that North Korea says it produces per year are actually about 1 million tonnes short of what it needs to feed the country.
Six people have been killed in NY after a "subway surfing" trend, where people get on top of subway trends, has been going "viral". The number is really small, but the vector "social media leads people to do really stupid shit" seems like it could scale (anorexia and tumblr, lying flat in China, etc.) Admittedly, the subway surfing in question looks pretty lit.
There is a crunch in the transformer industry
Canada's National Cyber Threat Assessment classifies India a "state adversary"
198 killed, 111 injured in separate terrorist attacks in Pakistan during October.
Volcano erupted in Indonesia, killing ten people (and thousands will be relocated), but the region has a lot of volcanoes and a lot of people.
Myanmar <> India border conflict. Over 200 people have died, 60,000 displaced, and 30 km of fencing completed. The influx of refugees from Myanmar, over 60,000 in Mizoram and 5,000 in Manipur,
The Houthis have developed what they call a "marching submarine", something between a moveable landmine and an unmanned submarine.
Veterinarians back mass testing of milk for avian flu
Egypt hosted Fatah <> Hamas post war Gaza talks
US Deploys B-52 Bombers and Missile Destroyers in Warning to Iran Amid Escalating Regional Tensions
Another Hezbollah commander killed
Houthis pledge to continue red sea attacks despite Israeli asset sales. They allege that Israeli shipping companies are transferring assets to avoid detection.
Israel conducted airstrikes on military targets in Iran, damaging their missile program and air defenses.
Israel Ends Agreement With UN Agency Providing Aid in Gaza
Israel has ended the agreement enabling the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees to operate, citing alleged infiltration by Hamas, a claim the agency denies.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and appointed Israel Katz as his successor. The move comes following open disagreements between Netanyahu and Gallant over the management of Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Thousands protested the move in Tel Aviv
Palestinians say Israel struck Gaza clinic during polio campaign; army denies it
Lebanon filed a formal complaint against Israel at the United Nations following deadly explosions caused by rigged communication devices. Shows how impotent Lebanon is imho
The Philippine military has opened two weeks of combat drills in the South China Sea, with more than 3,000 personnel participating in maneuvers that include seizing an island. The drills have raised tensions with China, which claims most of the South China Sea.
Newly revealed documents show that Russia's proposed agreement to end the special operation in 2022 included giving up Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, reducing Ukraine's military size, prohibiting missile development, joining NATO
Mariana Katzarova, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, reported on the widespread and systematic use of torture by Russian authorities to oppress and control society. The torture has worsened during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with thousands of Ukrainian civilians detained, deported, and tortured in Russian prisons. Despite the shocking human rights violations, Katzarova hopes for a constructive dialogue with Russian officials to address the issues. Note that the source is Voice of America; a US state-controlled outlet.
Russian operatives shipped two incendiary devices in attempts to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft heading to the U.S. and Canada. DHL was used to ship electric massagers containing a magnesium-based flammable substance as part of a covert Russian sabotage campaign. Seems like an escalation of US<>Russia tensions.
There are ongoing jihadist insurgencies in Chad, Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. These are generally attacking Christians, causing large population movements,
Chaucer has launched a new nuclear insurance policy called CyNuC to provide insurance cover for cyberattacks on nuclear power plants. It doesn't include war and hostile state-sponsored action though. I thought this was cool.
Sudan conflict spirals into civil war, if it hadn't already
The US State Department is giving some assistance to Somalia's police to build counterterrorism capacity. state-funded radio show in Poland replaced all its presenters with experimental AI hosts. This initially increased listenership but then sparked backlash.
Another case of the new, more infectious mpox strain (clade 1b) has been detected in the UK, bringing the total confirmed number of cases to four. The cases are all from the same household
Norway invests ~22M USD in global pandemic preparedness
Global pandemic accord negotiations continue
Scientists track emergence of novel H5N1 flu reassortant in Cambodia The novel reassortant virus combines genes from two H5N1 clades and has worrisome mutations, including one linked to adaptation to mammals and airborne transmission. This is kind of the next worrying step between on the way between now and H5N1 being a global pandemic.
UK government to create surveillance system for future pandemics
UK raises avian influenza risk level to high
The US carried a test of its Minuteman III missile, to showcase its nuclear readiness
NunoSempere
11d ago
I've bet a small amount on the outcome on the elections. The Kelly criterion suggests being more aggressive than what I've been though.
NunoSempere
13d ago
Thanks, I had been wondering about this and this neatly explains it.
NunoSempere
13d ago
Thanks!
NunoSempere
14d ago
NunoSempere
14d ago
I see, I'm more worried about incidents with many casualties, but it seems interesting that it's more lethal given infectoin.
NunoSempere
14d ago
Thanks! I appreciate The Motte reading my shit and running with it
NunoSempere
16d ago
I think I'm mostly focused on terrible outliers, and the mortality for H5N1 just doesn't seem that high. Say 0.05x to 3x covid, something in that range. You then have to add long-term effects, which are hard to estimate &c, but it just doesn't seem very existentially threatening.
NunoSempere
16d ago
Why doesn't monkeypox excite you? It could fill in the niche that smallpox previously had.
Somebody asked last time I posted a list like this what the background was. I'm coming from an EA/forecasting background, but then realized that although there might be something to being worried about catastrophic risks, reponses to this were top-down, trying to conceptualize risks long beforehand. I grew very unsatisfied with this, particularly for AI, and ended up raising some money to run a foresight/fast response team. We produce weekly minutes here, and the below feeds into that.
Some general topics:
- Will NK detonate a nuclear weapon? When?
- To what extent is ww3 a good level of analysis for global conflicts?
- I used to not worry that much about climate change, but 100-1k people killed in my own backyard (Spain) makes me a bit more worried
- On the one had, a terrorist cooking ricin is a bit alarming. On the other hand, it shows that Al Qaeda doesn't have the chops to do anthrax or bottox. Thoughts?
- Is the WHO's global emergency corps bullshit? Seems like it's a "reserve of experts"
- I didn't know that France depended on Rosatom for nuclear fuel. Lol.
- We've been seeing mpox coming to developed nations for a while, but it's still striking to see the 1st london case.
South Korea’s military intelligence agency told lawmakers Wednesday that North Korea has likely completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test and is close to test-firing a long-range missile capable of reaching the United States.
An article looks at the growing alliance between China, Russia and other powers
Jamie Dimon, the head of the financial giant JP Morgan, makes the argument that we are already in a WW3.
Animal testing of H5N1 gives some data about how well it's adapting
Russia launches exercises simulating retaliatory strikes
Pakistan vows to emphasize military ties to Russia, and collaborates on anti-terrorism exercises.
At least 100 people have died so far (and about 1000 are "disappeared") in flash flooding of Spain’s Valencia. Bridges collapsing, and overall very striking videos on social media. The city got what would have been a freak tornado, but such events might become more common as climate change continues changing up weather patterns.
A teen who went into a murderous rampage was also cooking ricin.
Israel ordered a whole Lebanese city evacuated
Geneva convention rules are being weakened, and civilians aren't being shielded from the worst harms in Ukraine or Gaza.
Finland seized Russian assets over compensation linked to invasion of Crimea
A Boeing satellite exploded into 500 pieces. The worst case scenario in events like this is Kessler syndrome but so far reporting doesn't point to something like this, though early simulations don't look great
The US and China are fighting over dominance in the depths of the South China sea
The WHO activated the global emergency corps to deal with monkeypox. Implications unclear, as it seems more like a "reserve of experts that advise" and less like a "reserve of nurses and doctors"
A cyberattack from Iran hit an Israeli bank, and maybe credit card users generally, blocking users off.
Cyberattack against French Internet Service Provider
New agreement between Germany and the UK will tighten cooperation
Ballot box arson attacks in Oregon.
More cyberattacks in Australia
Fire in UK shipyard which builds nuclear submarines
The 2025 geomagnetic storm season might be pretty big
France depends on Russia for nuclear fuel
Some Russia military bases are empty. Some experts suggest this is for sabotage operations in the Baltics
First case of mpox Ib clade in London
Floods also caused havoc in Africa
Putin launches drills of Russia's nuclear forces simulating retaliatory strikes
India is expanding nuclear capabilities with fast breeder reactor
The US CDC issued an alert for "walking pneumonia"
A man with 120 guns and 250,000 rounds of ammunition in his home was arrested for shooting at a Democratic Party office
in Tempe
AI "Will Enhance" Nuclear Command and Control, Says nuclear command general
North Korea likely to ask for nuclear technology from Russia in exchange for troops, South Korea says. This would mirror an agreement between Iran and Russia.
The US army is preparing for a possible confrontation with China
Hezbollah new leader might agree on a ceasefire
More coral bleaching
Israel is using AI tools with little oversight to determine whether an individual is a Hamas operative.
North Korea conducted an ICBM test.
H5N1 detected in pig. Previously only in cows
NunoSempere
1mo ago
Very nice!
NunoSempere
1mo ago
Thanks! I'm basically doing this professionally now, and the infra behind that list is kind of insane.
I haven't given much thought about whether this one will turn into a civil war or remain as a political dispute; at this point I'm just flagging it to keep an eye on it.
NunoSempere
1mo ago
Stuff I've been tracking this week so far:
The US approved $110M worth of radar & other equipment to Romania
...as Romania's top court bans a pro-Russian candidate from running in the presidential election next month
Russian arms dealer is attempting to broker a deal with the Houthis
The Japanese Prime Minister suggested a Japanese base in Guam, to the dismay of the Guam population.
Over 3000 Sunni scholars praised Khamenei over Iran’s military action on Israel. This is relevant because it shows religious unity and consensus building, which is predictive of further actions in the same direction.
Israel expands offensive against Hezbollah in south Lebanon. As seems to be the pattern in recent conflicts, initial incursions and special operations later expand, such that there is no clear line for "full-blown conflict"
Israel also kills Hassan Nasrallah's successor
Kazakhstan to build nuclear power plant
Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa
More than 130 projectiles fired into Israel on anniversary of Oct 7 attack
A dispute in Nigeria seems small scale now but in the worst case scenario could snowball into a civil war. Details are unclear but the dispute seems between the central government of Nigeria, controlled by one party, and the governorate of an oil rich region, controlled by another.
Mpox spreads in a DRC megacity, Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville, with 17M inhabitants, largest city in Africa)
An interview with John Sullivan, former US ambassador to Russia, has this snippet on Putin's possible use of nuclear weapons:
I’m not a nuclear weapons expert, but I did spend a lot of time in Russia, observing Putin and his government and how they approach this war. And I also spoke to military experts in the US while I was Ambassador. The use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine isn’t in the interests of Russia. A tactical nuclear weapon destroys things. Putin would be destroying territory that he says is part of Russia.
The only time I thought he might use an unconventional weapon was in the spring of 2020 when you'll recall, the Russian military surrounded Mariupol, an important port. And there was a large Ukrainian military contingent in a large steel factory. They were dug in. The Russians had expended a huge amount of resources [and] personnel to try to crush the Ukrainian resistance. I thought Putin might use chemical weapons the way Assad used chemical weapons in Syria to kill those who were resisting so that he wouldn't have to spend the lives of as many Russians as it would take to ultimately dig out those Ukrainian resisters. Huge Russian casualties [and] even then, he didn’t use a nuclear weapon.
The way I think of it, Putin has to be threatened personally. And there was a moment last year with [former Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny] Prigozhin. Instead of it being Wagner, Russians who were committing what they characterised as a mutiny against the Minister of Defence […] imagine that’s the Ukrainian armed forces and they’re marching north toward Moscow, the capital of the Russian world. If Ukrainians were threatening that, that’s where I would not rule out the possibility that Putin would use or threaten in a much more overt, destabilising way – through a nuclear test, for example – nuclear weapons. But it would have to be a threat to his regime in the Kremlin, not battlefield losses in Ukraine or even public support starting to diminish in Russia.
A BBC documentary claims that on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War, America considered launching a nuclear attack against Egypt
Saudi Arabia under MBS is carrying out around 200 executions a year
The mayor of a city in southwest Mexico was beheaded
Dominican Republic starts mass deportations of Haitians and expels nearly 11,000 in a week
Rwanda introduces partial travel ban to fight Marburg spread
Doctors without borders warns that Israeli mass evacuation orders are creating catastrophic conditions
Mongolian police seize around 290 dead marmots, in effort to stop spread of bubonic plague. Although hunting marmots is illegal in Mongolia, many locals regard the rodent as a delicacy and frequently disregard the law.
China seems to have hacked the mechanism that US telecoms use to assent to US court-authorized wiretaps.
NunoSempere
1mo ago
other examples elsewhere I could list if requested
Yes, would love some other examples.
Also, how much of a fad is BSW?
NunoSempere
1mo ago
Yes, definitely.
I also recently refreshed my mind by looking at Cyprus on a map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cyprus/@34.4816366,29.3321508,1004982m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x14de1767ca494d55:0x324c3c807fc4146e!8m2!3d35.126413!4d33.429859!16zL20vMDFwcHE?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkyNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
It's just placed very conveniently. Makes sense why Turkey would invade it.
NunoSempere
1mo ago
Things are gettin' spicy.
I know right
This makes a lot of sense to me, particularly on the Ukraine side. On the Russian side, I'm not so sure, and in particularly I'm not so sure that both sides will share an understanding of what is a reasonable compromise.
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