Five Existential Threats (plus one)

I worry about the world and want to make it a better place. I believe that everyone wants the future to be better than the present, but there are factors that may make the future worse, possibly far worse, than they are today. This is my list of my existential threats that could kill millions and alter the existence of billions of people worldwide.

1. Nuclear or Biological warfare -- I am a child of the 80s, so this is still my number one. It is more likely than not that some rogue state or even a non-state faction will detonate a nuclear bomb or release a biological/chemical weapon at some point in time over the next 100 years. If it is a one-time event, then I wouldn't consider that an existential threat. However, if it involves retaliation multiple states in conflict, then we have major problems.

2. Artificial Intelligence and the Singularity -- Mankind has benefitted greatly from technology and will continue to benefit, but I don't know what will happen as machines get faster and smarter. Unlike the others, this existential threat also has existential hope of a much better world. I'd even be OK if the future involved cyborgs, but the Terminator future of technological takeover and the destruction of humanity is an existential threat.

3. Natural disaster -- This one is fairly broad, but would include anything from a major meteor strike to the Yellowstone Super Volcano. It happened to the dinosaurs, it can happen to us. Disasters will occur, but the probability of a humanity-altering event over the next 100 years is slim but real. Note that climate change (see below) might make some natural disasters more likely to occur, but this category focuses an natural disasters unrelated to human activity.

4. Pandemic -- I originally made this list in February before Covid-19 wrought havoc around the world. I considered bumping it up a spot but decided against it. One reason for this is humanity's ability to respond. Vaccines and treatments will save millions. Even if we do a poor job of self-protection, life in 2022 will be similar to life in 2019.  Like natural disasters, there will be more pandemics. A virus with a long incubation period and a lethal outcome would be humanity-altering. I'm also concerned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

5. Command economies -- Both communist/socialist and fascist economies fall under the umbrella of command economies. The Holocaust wasn't the result of economic failure, but it was caused by government control. The Holodomor doesn't receive nearly as much attention, but it also killed 3-12 million people, mostly in the Ukraine. It was the direct result of command economics. As the government took control of farmland, output fell resulting in famine Instead of taking action to increase output, Stalin used the opportunity to blame Ukraine resulting in millions of Ukrainian deaths. Likewise, the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 was the result of the communist rule and the Great Leap Forward. Mismanagement of farmland coincided with changing weather patterns resulting in a drop in output. Placing more and more of the economy under government control increases the likelihood that mismanagement will have disastrous consequences.

+1. Climate Change -- I believe in climate change. The Earth is getting warmer largely due to the man-made burning of fossil fuels. Climate will continue to change, but so will technology. The Industrial Revolution (or revolutions) was a humanity-altering event in a positive sense. Life has improved by almost any metric. The Industrial Revolution also brought climate change, but I do not fear climate change because the Industrial Revolution gives us the ability to adapt. Technological advances have allowed us to produce so much more with so much less. There are literally billions more people alive today than there otherwise would be. I don't fear rising sea levels -- humanity can adapt. I don't fear disasters caused by climate change -- humanity will recover. My greater fear is restrictions in the name of preventing climate change that also prevents progress (although I do support a carbon tax to reflect the negative externalities associated with pollution).

An apples to apples comparison of life-years lost from shutting down the economy

There is a current debate as to how soon and how quickly the government should reopen the economy in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. People opposed to reopening tend to accuse people in favor of reopening of caring more about the economy than about lives. In this entry I am attempting to estimate the amount of life-years lost caused by the shutdown to compare to life-years lost caused by opening up the economy.

The continued shutdown of the economy has direct loss of life due to increases in suicide, domestic abuse, and other factors. On the flip side, a continued shutdown saves lives unrelated to COVID-19 in the reduced number of homicides, traffic fatalities, and other factors. However, I am not going to get into those matters.

I want to estimate the lost life-years that result from reduced incomes. It is well established that higher lifetime incomes are related to higher life expectancies. This JAMA article estimates that the difference in life expectancy between the richest 1% and the poorest 1% is 14.6 years. Similarly, a 2015 National Academy of Sciences (referred to here) study finds a 12.7 year difference in life expectancy at age 50 between the top and bottom quintile for men born in 1960. I’m going to make a simplifying estimate that an extra $10,000 in annual income increases life expectancy by one year. Speaking simply, a low-income individual with average lifetime income of $20,000 per year might have a life expectancy of 75 while the life expectancy of someone making $100,000 per year on average might be 83.

The overall economic impact of COVID-19 is going to be huge with estimates ranging from 2-5% of GDP which would reduce median income somewhere between $1,000 and $3,000. Even when growth returns, we will be growing from a lower starting point so this really represents a loss of $1,000-3,000 per year unless there is some reason to believe that the growth rate would be different than it otherwise would be. It could very well be either higher or lower.

This means that the life-years lost due to the economic impact is far greater than the direct loss of life. Given the age and comorbidities of the victims, their average remaining life expectancy might be 10 years so that 70,000 deaths equals 700,000 life-years lost. If COVID-19 could reduces average annual income by $2,000, then this would reduce life expectancy by 73 days for all 330 million people in the US which translates into 66 million life-years lost.

While most of the decline in GDP is the result of the disease, some may be the result of shutting down the economy to slow the spread of the disease. If the shutdown reduces average annual income by just $100, then this reduces life expectancy by 3.65 days or 3.3 million life-years. In this case, continuing the shutdown would have to save 330,000 people to be justified on a life-year basis. It is for this reason that the economy must be opened up sooner rather than later. COVID-19 is not the only killer out there.