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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   1138 thread views

Transnational Thursday for October 31, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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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

A few of your notes are missing links - was this an error?

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?

Ricin is more dangerous than anthrax, because anthrax responds well to treatment and ricin doesn't. There's this interview with Fauci, which I'm having trouble tracking down (I found another one where he talks about it, but it's not the one I'm thinking of), where he says that when he got an envelope that sprayed him with white powder, he immediately figured three possibilities, and his words were something like "1) it's baby powder, and I'll be fine, 2) it's anthrax, and I'm gonna get sick, but I'll take antibiotics and I'll recover, 3) it's ricin, and I'm dead".

Anthrax contamination can be expensive to clean up if there's a lot of it (infamously, the British tested it on an island, and cattle that ate grass there still died from anthrax 70 years later; the way they ended up fixing the site was to strip the topsoil off the entire island and incinerate it), but deaths are rare and epidemic's impossible (because modern Western countries don't leave dead bodies lying around and anthrax doesn't spread living to living).

I see, I'm more worried about incidents with many casualties, but it seems interesting that it's more lethal given infectoin.

To be clear, while generally regulated as a biological weapon due to its origin (it's extracted from the castor plant), ricin is a toxin rather than something that replicates; one is poisoned with ricin, not infected. Anthrax, however, is weaponised as viable spores, which do infect people and replicate inside them (but as noted, anthrax doesn't spread living to living; it's corpses of people/animals that have died of anthrax that spread it to others).

Bioweapons that actually threaten epidemic are generally known to be For Crazy People Only (because, well, once you release one of those it's pot luck whether it comes back to infect your guys too). Stuff like plague (ISIL played around with this a few years back, IIRC, but thankfully they only killed themselves with it) and smallpox (extinct, but the tech exists to bring it back) fall into this category.

Thanks!

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