Datasets:

Hellisotherpeople

/

OpenCaseList-Deduplicated

like 0

Pleasure and pain are intrinsic value and disvalue – everything else regresses – robust neuroscience.

Blum et al. 18

Blum et al. 18 Kenneth Blum, 1Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton VA Medical Center, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 4Division of Applied Clinical Research & Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA 5Department of Precision Medicine, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA 6Department of Addiction Research & Therapy, Nupathways Inc., Innsbrook, MO, USA 7Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA 8Division of Neuroscience-Based Addiction Therapy, The Shores Treatment & Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA 9Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary 10Division of Addiction Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC. North Kingston, RI, USA 11Victory Nutrition International, Lederach, PA., USA 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA, Marjorie Gondré-Lewis, 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA 13Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC US, Bruce Steinberg, 4Division of Applied Clinical Research & Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA, Igor Elman, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, David Baron, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Edward J Modestino, 14Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA, Rajendra D Badgaiyan, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, Mark S Gold 16Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, “Our evolved unique pleasure circuit makes humans different from apes: Reconsideration of data derived from animal studies”, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 28 February 2018, accessed: 19 August 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446569/, R.S.

Pleasure is not only primary reward functions it also defines reward. functions of rewards, the reason why particular stimuli, objects, events, situations, and activities are rewarding due to pleasure. Pleasure, as the primary effect of rewards provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward function. We are attracted by rewards and exert intense efforts to obtain them because they are enjoyable using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure Pleasure as a hallmark of reward is sufficient for defining a reward A reward may generate positive behavior because it contains substances that are essential for body function. evolution and its basic principles found mechanisms that steer behavior and biological development. organisms are the result of evolutionary competition. Dawkins stresses gene survival and propagation as the basic mechanism of life the fittest phenotype will make it. the ultimate, distal function of rewards is to increase evolutionary fitness Behavioral reward functions have evolved to help individuals to survive and propagate their genes people need to live well and long enough to reproduce. any small edge will ultimately result in evolutionary advantage Thus the distal reward function in gene propagation and evolutionary fitness defines the proximal reward functions that we see That is why foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding. pleasure is described as a state or feeling of happiness and satisfaction resulting from an experience that one enjoys. pathways for ordinary liking and pleasure are limited in scope there are many brain regions that significantly modulate our pleasure or even produce the opposite disgust and fear One region is organized like a computer keyboard, with particular stimulus triggers in rows the cortex has unique roles in the cognitive evaluation of our feelings of pleasure “liking” of something, or pure pleasure, is represented by regions in the limbic system part of larger neural circuits. researchers examined 247 specimens of neural tissue from six humans, five chimpanzees, and five macaque monkeys. investigators analyzed which genes were turned on or off in 16 regions of the brain. the differences among species were subtle, there was a remarkable contrast in the neocortices in an area of the brain that is much more developed in humans than in chimpanzees. ability to pursue various rewards that are perhaps months or even years away This may explain what often motivates people to work for things that have no apparent short-term benefit

Pleasure defines reward. the reason why particular stimuli are rewarding due to pleasure. Pleasure provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward organisms are the result of evolutionary competition. rewards increase fitness foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding. brain regions modulate pleasure or the opposite liking something is represented by regions in the limbic system researchers examined neural tissue neocortices in the brain much more developed in humans ability to pursue rewards that are years away

Pleasure is not only one of the three primary reward functions but it also defines reward. As homeostasis explains the functions of only a limited number of rewards, the principal reason why particular stimuli, objects, events, situations, and activities are rewarding may be due to pleasure. This applies first of all to sex and to the primary homeostatic rewards of food and liquid and extends to money, taste, beauty, social encounters and nonmaterial, internally set, and intrinsic rewards. Pleasure, as the primary effect of rewards, drives the prime reward functions of learning, approach behavior, and decision making and provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward function. We are attracted by most rewards and exert intense efforts to obtain them, just because they are enjoyable [10]. Pleasure is a passive reaction that derives from the experience or prediction of reward and may lead to a long-lasting state of happiness. The word happiness is difficult to define. In fact, just obtaining physical pleasure may not be enough. One key to happiness involves a network of good friends. However, it is not obvious how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to an ice cream cone, or to your team winning a sporting event. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure [14]. Pleasure as a hallmark of reward is sufficient for defining a reward, but it may not be necessary. A reward may generate positive learning and approach behavior simply because it contains substances that are essential for body function. When we are hungry, we may eat bad and unpleasant meals. A monkey who receives hundreds of small drops of water every morning in the laboratory is unlikely to feel a rush of pleasure every time it gets the 0.1 ml. Nevertheless, with these precautions in mind, we may define any stimulus, object, event, activity, or situation that has the potential to produce pleasure as a reward. In the context of reward deficiency or for disorders of addiction, homeostasis pursues pharmacological treatments: drugs to treat drug addiction, obesity, and other compulsive behaviors. The theory of allostasis suggests broader approaches - such as re-expanding the range of possible pleasures and providing opportunities to expend effort in their pursuit. [15]. It is noteworthy, the first animal studies eliciting approach behavior by electrical brain stimulation interpreted their findings as a discovery of the brain’s pleasure centers [16] which were later partly associated with midbrain dopamine neurons [17–19] despite the notorious difficulties of identifying emotions in animals. Evolutionary theories of pleasure: The love connection BO:D Charles Darwin and other biological scientists that have examined the biological evolution and its basic principles found various mechanisms that steer behavior and biological development. Besides their theory on natural selection, it was particularly the sexual selection process that gained significance in the latter context over the last century, especially when it comes to the question of what makes us “what we are,” i.e., human. However, the capacity to sexually select and evolve is not at all a human accomplishment alone or a sign of our uniqueness; yet, we humans, as it seems, are ingenious in fooling ourselves and others–when we are in love or desperately search for it. It is well established that modern biological theory conjectures that organisms are the result of evolutionary competition. In fact, Richard Dawkins stresses gene survival and propagation as the basic mechanism of life [20]. Only genes that lead to the fittest phenotype will make it. It is noteworthy that the phenotype is selected based on behavior that maximizes gene propagation. To do so, the phenotype must survive and generate offspring, and be better at it than its competitors. Thus, the ultimate, distal function of rewards is to increase evolutionary fitness by ensuring the survival of the organism and reproduction. It is agreed that learning, approach, economic decisions, and positive emotions are the proximal functions through which phenotypes obtain other necessary nutrients for survival, mating, and care for offspring. Behavioral reward functions have evolved to help individuals to survive and propagate their genes. Apparently, people need to live well and long enough to reproduce. Most would agree that homo-sapiens do so by ingesting the substances that make their bodies function properly. For this reason, foods and drinks are rewards. Additional rewards, including those used for economic exchanges, ensure sufficient palatable food and drink supply. Mating and gene propagation is supported by powerful sexual attraction. Additional properties, like body form, augment the chance to mate and nourish and defend offspring and are therefore also rewards. Care for offspring until they can reproduce themselves helps gene propagation and is rewarding; otherwise, many believe mating is useless. According to David E Comings, as any small edge will ultimately result in evolutionary advantage [21], additional reward mechanisms like novelty seeking and exploration widen the spectrum of available rewards and thus enhance the chance for survival, reproduction, and ultimate gene propagation. These functions may help us to obtain the benefits of distant rewards that are determined by our own interests and not immediately available in the environment. Thus the distal reward function in gene propagation and evolutionary fitness defines the proximal reward functions that we see in everyday behavior. That is why foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding. There have been theories linking pleasure as a required component of health benefits salutogenesis, (salugenesis). In essence, under these terms, pleasure is described as a state or feeling of happiness and satisfaction resulting from an experience that one enjoys. Regarding pleasure, it is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it promotes positive feelings (like mindfulness) and even better cognition, possibly through the release of dopamine [22]. But on the other hand, pleasure simultaneously encourages addiction and other negative behaviors, i.e., motivational toxicity. It is a complex neurobiological phenomenon, relying on reward circuitry or limbic activity. It is important to realize that through the “Brain Reward Cascade” (BRC) endorphin and endogenous morphinergic mechanisms may play a role [23]. While natural rewards are essential for survival and appetitive motivation leading to beneficial biological behaviors like eating, sex, and reproduction, crucial social interactions seem to further facilitate the positive effects exerted by pleasurable experiences. Indeed, experimentation with addictive drugs is capable of directly acting on reward pathways and causing deterioration of these systems promoting hypodopaminergia [24]. Most would agree that pleasurable activities can stimulate personal growth and may help to induce healthy behavioral changes, including stress management [25]. The work of Esch and Stefano [26] concerning the link between compassion and love implicate the brain reward system, and pleasure induction suggests that social contact in general, i.e., love, attachment, and compassion, can be highly effective in stress reduction, survival, and overall health. Understanding the role of neurotransmission and pleasurable states both positive and negative have been adequately studied over many decades [26–37], but comparative anatomical and neurobiological function between animals and homo sapiens appear to be required and seem to be in an infancy stage. Finding happiness is different between apes and humans As stated earlier in this expert opinion one key to happiness involves a network of good friends [38]. However, it is not entirely clear exactly how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to a sugar rush, winning a sports event or even sky diving, all of which augment dopamine release at the reward brain site. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure. Remarkably, there are pathways for ordinary liking and pleasure, which are limited in scope as described above in this commentary. However, there are many brain regions, often termed hot and cold spots, that significantly modulate (increase or decrease) our pleasure or even produce the opposite of pleasure— that is disgust and fear [39]. One specific region of the nucleus accumbens is organized like a computer keyboard, with particular stimulus triggers in rows— producing an increase and decrease of pleasure and disgust. Moreover, the cortex has unique roles in the cognitive evaluation of our feelings of pleasure [40]. Importantly, the interplay of these multiple triggers and the higher brain centers in the prefrontal cortex are very intricate and are just being uncovered. Desire and reward centers It is surprising that many different sources of pleasure activate the same circuits between the mesocorticolimbic regions (Figure 1). Reward and desire are two aspects pleasure induction and have a very widespread, large circuit. Some part of this circuit distinguishes between desire and dread. The so-called pleasure circuitry called “REWARD” involves a well-known dopamine pathway in the mesolimbic system that can influence both pleasure and motivation. In simplest terms, the well-established mesolimbic system is a dopamine circuit for reward. It starts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain and travels to the nucleus accumbens (Figure 2). It is the cornerstone target to all addictions. The VTA is encompassed with neurons using glutamate, GABA, and dopamine. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is located within the ventral striatum and is divided into two sub-regions—the motor and limbic regions associated with its core and shell, respectively. The NAc has spiny neurons that receive dopamine from the VTA and glutamate (a dopamine driver) from the hippocampus, amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex. Subsequently, the NAc projects GABA signals to an area termed the ventral pallidum (VP). The region is a relay station in the limbic loop of the basal ganglia, critical for motivation, behavior, emotions and the “Feel Good” response. This defined system of the brain is involved in all addictions –substance, and non –substance related. In 1995, our laboratory coined the term “Reward Deficiency Syndrome” (RDS) to describe genetic and epigenetic induced hypodopaminergia in the “Brain Reward Cascade” that contribute to addiction and compulsive behaviors [3,6,41]. Furthermore, ordinary “liking” of something, or pure pleasure, is represented by small regions mainly in the limbic system (old reptilian part of the brain). These may be part of larger neural circuits. In Latin, hedus is the term for “sweet”; and in Greek, hodone is the term for “pleasure.” Thus, the word Hedonic is now referring to various subcomponents of pleasure: some associated with purely sensory and others with more complex emotions involving morals, aesthetics, and social interactions. The capacity to have pleasure is part of being healthy and may even extend life, especially if linked to optimism as a dopaminergic response [42]. Psychiatric illness often includes symptoms of an abnormal inability to experience pleasure, referred to as anhedonia. A negative feeling state is called dysphoria, which can consist of many emotions such as pain, depression, anxiety, fear, and disgust. Previously many scientists used animal research to uncover the complex mechanisms of pleasure, liking, motivation and even emotions like panic and fear, as discussed above [43]. However, as a significant amount of related research about the specific brain regions of pleasure/reward circuitry has been derived from invasive studies of animals, these cannot be directly compared with subjective states experienced by humans. In an attempt to resolve the controversy regarding the causal contributions of mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward, we have previously evaluated the three-main competing explanatory categories: “liking,” “learning,” and “wanting” [3]. That is, dopamine may mediate (a) liking: the hedonic impact of reward, (b) learning: learned predictions about rewarding effects, or (c) wanting: the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli [44]. We have evaluated these hypotheses, especially as they relate to the RDS, and we find that the incentive salience or “wanting” hypothesis of dopaminergic functioning is supported by a majority of the scientific evidence. Various neuroimaging studies have shown that anticipated behaviors such as sex and gaming, delicious foods and drugs of abuse all affect brain regions associated with reward networks, and may not be unidirectional. Drugs of abuse enhance dopamine signaling which sensitizes mesolimbic brain mechanisms that apparently evolved explicitly to attribute incentive salience to various rewards [45]. Addictive substances are voluntarily self-administered, and they enhance (directly or indirectly) dopaminergic synaptic function in the NAc. This activation of the brain reward networks (producing the ecstatic “high” that users seek). Although these circuits were initially thought to encode a set point of hedonic tone, it is now being considered to be far more complicated in function, also encoding attention, reward expectancy, disconfirmation of reward expectancy, and incentive motivation [46]. The argument about addiction as a disease may be confused with a predisposition to substance and nonsubstance rewards relative to the extreme effect of drugs of abuse on brain neurochemistry. The former sets up an individual to be at high risk through both genetic polymorphisms in reward genes as well as harmful epigenetic insult. Some Psychologists, even with all the data, still infer that addiction is not a disease [47]. Elevated stress levels, together with polymorphisms (genetic variations) of various dopaminergic genes and the genes related to other neurotransmitters (and their genetic variants), and may have an additive effect on vulnerability to various addictions [48]. In this regard, Vanyukov, et al. [48] suggested based on review that whereas the gateway hypothesis does not specify mechanistic connections between “stages,” and does not extend to the risks for addictions the concept of common liability to addictions may be more parsimonious. The latter theory is grounded in genetic theory and supported by data identifying common sources of variation in the risk for specific addictions (e.g., RDS). This commonality has identifiable neurobiological substrate and plausible evolutionary explanations. Over many years the controversy of dopamine involvement in especially “pleasure” has led to confusion concerning separating motivation from actual pleasure (wanting versus liking) [49]. We take the position that animal studies cannot provide real clinical information as described by self-reports in humans. As mentioned earlier and in the abstract, on November 23rd, 2017, evidence for our concerns was discovered [50] In essence, although nonhuman primate brains are similar to our own, the disparity between other primates and those of human cognitive abilities tells us that surface similarity is not the whole story. Sousa et al. [50] small case found various differentially expressed genes, to associate with pleasure related systems. Furthermore, the dopaminergic interneurons located in the human neocortex were absent from the neocortex of nonhuman African apes. Such differences in neuronal transcriptional programs may underlie a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. In simpler terms, the system controls the production of dopamine, a chemical messenger that plays a significant role in pleasure and rewards. The senior author, Dr. Nenad Sestan from Yale, stated: “Humans have evolved a dopamine system that is different than the one in chimpanzees.” This may explain why the behavior of humans is so unique from that of non-human primates, even though our brains are so surprisingly similar, Sestan said: “It might also shed light on why people are vulnerable to mental disorders such as autism (possibly even addiction).” Remarkably, this research finding emerged from an extensive, multicenter collaboration to compare the brains across several species. These researchers examined 247 specimens of neural tissue from six humans, five chimpanzees, and five macaque monkeys. Moreover, these investigators analyzed which genes were turned on or off in 16 regions of the brain. While the differences among species were subtle, there was a remarkable contrast in the neocortices, specifically in an area of the brain that is much more developed in humans than in chimpanzees. In fact, these researchers found that a gene called ability to pursue various rewards that are perhaps months or even years away in the future. This same idea has been suggested by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky cited evidence that dopamine levels rise dramatically in humans when we anticipate potential rewards that are uncertain and even far off in our futures, such as retirement or even the possible alterlife. This may explain what often motivates people to work for things that have no apparent short-term benefit [51]. In similar work, Volkow and Bale [52] proposed a model in which dopamine can favor NOW processes through phasic signaling in reward circuits or LATER processes through tonic signaling in control circuits. Specifically, they suggest that through its modulation of the orbitofrontal cortex, which processes salience attribution, dopamine also enables shilting from NOW to LATER, while its modulation of the insula, which processes interoceptive information, influences the probability of selecting NOW versus LATER actions based on an individual’s physiological state. This hypothesis further supports the concept that disruptions along these circuits contribute to diverse pathologies, including obesity and addiction or RDS.

<h4><strong>Pleasure and pain are intrinsic value and disvalue – everything else regresses – robust neuroscience. </h4><p>Blum et al. 18 </strong>Kenneth Blum, 1Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton VA Medical Center, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 4Division of Applied Clinical Research & Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA 5Department of Precision Medicine, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA 6Department of Addiction Research & Therapy, Nupathways Inc., Innsbrook, MO, USA 7Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA 8Division of Neuroscience-Based Addiction Therapy, The Shores Treatment & Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA 9Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary 10Division of Addiction Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC. North Kingston, RI, USA 11Victory Nutrition International, Lederach, PA., USA 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA, Marjorie Gondré-Lewis, 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA 13Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC US, Bruce Steinberg, 4Division of Applied Clinical Research & Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA, Igor Elman, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, David Baron, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Edward J Modestino, 14Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA, Rajendra D Badgaiyan, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, Mark S Gold 16Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, “Our evolved unique pleasure circuit makes humans different from apes: Reconsideration of data derived from animal studies”, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 28 February 2018, accessed: 19 August 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446569/, R.S.</p><p><u><strong><mark>Pleasure</strong></mark> is not only</u> one of the three <u>primary reward functions</u> but <u>it also <strong><mark>defines reward.</u></strong></mark> As homeostasis explains the <u>functions of</u> only a limited number of <u>rewards, <strong><mark>the</u></strong></mark> principal <u><strong><mark>reason why particular stimuli</strong></mark>, objects, events, situations, and activities <strong><mark>are rewarding</u></strong></mark> may be <u><strong><mark>due to pleasure</strong>.</u></mark> This applies first of all to sex and to the primary homeostatic rewards of food and liquid and extends to money, taste, beauty, social encounters and nonmaterial, internally set, and intrinsic rewards. <u><strong><mark>Pleasure</strong></mark>, as the primary effect of rewards</u>, drives the prime reward functions of learning, approach behavior, and decision making and <u><strong><mark>provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward</strong></mark> function. We are attracted by</u> most <u>rewards and exert intense efforts to obtain them</u>, just <u>because they are enjoyable</u> [10]. Pleasure is a passive reaction that derives from the experience or prediction of reward and may lead to a long-lasting state of happiness. The word happiness is difficult to define. In fact, just obtaining physical pleasure may not be enough. One key to happiness involves a network of good friends. However, it is not obvious how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to an ice cream cone, or to your team winning a sporting event. Recent multidisciplinary research, <u>using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure</u> [14]. <u>Pleasure as a hallmark of reward is sufficient for defining a reward</u>, but it may not be necessary. <u>A reward may generate positive</u> learning and approach <u>behavior</u> simply <u>because it contains substances that are essential for body function.</u> When we are hungry, we may eat bad and unpleasant meals. A monkey who receives hundreds of small drops of water every morning in the laboratory is unlikely to feel a rush of pleasure every time it gets the 0.1 ml. Nevertheless, with these precautions in mind, we may define any stimulus, object, event, activity, or situation that has the potential to produce pleasure as a reward. In the context of reward deficiency or for disorders of addiction, homeostasis pursues pharmacological treatments: drugs to treat drug addiction, obesity, and other compulsive behaviors. The theory of allostasis suggests broader approaches - such as re-expanding the range of possible pleasures and providing opportunities to expend effort in their pursuit. [15]. It is noteworthy, the first animal studies eliciting approach behavior by electrical brain stimulation interpreted their findings as a discovery of the brain’s pleasure centers [16] which were later partly associated with midbrain dopamine neurons [17–19] despite the notorious difficulties of identifying emotions in animals. Evolutionary theories of pleasure: The love connection BO:D Charles Darwin and other biological scientists that have examined the biological <u>evolution and its basic principles found</u> various <u>mechanisms that steer behavior and biological development.</u> Besides their theory on natural selection, it was particularly the sexual selection process that gained significance in the latter context over the last century, especially when it comes to the question of what makes us “what we are,” i.e., human. However, the capacity to sexually select and evolve is not at all a human accomplishment alone or a sign of our uniqueness; yet, we humans, as it seems, are ingenious in fooling ourselves and others–when we are in love or desperately search for it. It is well established that modern biological theory conjectures that <u><strong><mark>organisms are</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>result of evolutionary competition.</u></strong></mark> In fact, Richard <u>Dawkins stresses gene survival and propagation as the basic mechanism of life</u> [20]. Only genes that lead to <u>the fittest phenotype will make it.</u> It is noteworthy that the phenotype is selected based on behavior that maximizes gene propagation. To do so, the phenotype must survive and generate offspring, and be better at it than its competitors. Thus, <u>the ultimate, distal function of <strong><mark>rewards</strong></mark> is to <strong><mark>increase</strong></mark> evolutionary <strong><mark>fitness</u></strong></mark> by ensuring the survival of the organism and reproduction. It is agreed that learning, approach, economic decisions, and positive emotions are the proximal functions through which phenotypes obtain other necessary nutrients for survival, mating, and care for offspring. <u>Behavioral reward functions have evolved to help individuals to survive and propagate their genes</u>. Apparently, <u>people need to live well and long enough to reproduce.</u> Most would agree that homo-sapiens do so by ingesting the substances that make their bodies function properly. For this reason, foods and drinks are rewards. Additional rewards, including those used for economic exchanges, ensure sufficient palatable food and drink supply. Mating and gene propagation is supported by powerful sexual attraction. Additional properties, like body form, augment the chance to mate and nourish and defend offspring and are therefore also rewards. Care for offspring until they can reproduce themselves helps gene propagation and is rewarding; otherwise, many believe mating is useless. According to David E Comings, as <u>any small edge will ultimately result in evolutionary advantage</u> [21], additional reward mechanisms like novelty seeking and exploration widen the spectrum of available rewards and thus enhance the chance for survival, reproduction, and ultimate gene propagation. These functions may help us to obtain the benefits of distant rewards that are determined by our own interests and not immediately available in the environment. <u>Thus the distal reward function in gene propagation and evolutionary fitness defines the proximal reward functions that we see</u> in everyday behavior. <u><strong>That is why <mark>foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding</strong>.</mark> </u>There have been theories linking pleasure as a required component of health benefits salutogenesis, (salugenesis). In essence, under these terms, <u>pleasure is described as a state or feeling of happiness and satisfaction resulting from an experience that one enjoys.</u> Regarding pleasure, it is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it promotes positive feelings (like mindfulness) and even better cognition, possibly through the release of dopamine [22]. But on the other hand, pleasure simultaneously encourages addiction and other negative behaviors, i.e., motivational toxicity. It is a complex neurobiological phenomenon, relying on reward circuitry or limbic activity. It is important to realize that through the “Brain Reward Cascade” (BRC) endorphin and endogenous morphinergic mechanisms may play a role [23]. While natural rewards are essential for survival and appetitive motivation leading to beneficial biological behaviors like eating, sex, and reproduction, crucial social interactions seem to further facilitate the positive effects exerted by pleasurable experiences. Indeed, experimentation with addictive drugs is capable of directly acting on reward pathways and causing deterioration of these systems promoting hypodopaminergia [24]. Most would agree that pleasurable activities can stimulate personal growth and may help to induce healthy behavioral changes, including stress management [25]. The work of Esch and Stefano [26] concerning the link between compassion and love implicate the brain reward system, and pleasure induction suggests that social contact in general, i.e., love, attachment, and compassion, can be highly effective in stress reduction, survival, and overall health. Understanding the role of neurotransmission and pleasurable states both positive and negative have been adequately studied over many decades [26–37], but comparative anatomical and neurobiological function between animals and homo sapiens appear to be required and seem to be in an infancy stage. Finding happiness is different between apes and humans As stated earlier in this expert opinion one key to happiness involves a network of good friends [38]. However, it is not entirely clear exactly how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to a sugar rush, winning a sports event or even sky diving, all of which augment dopamine release at the reward brain site. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure. Remarkably, there are <u>pathways for ordinary liking and pleasure</u>, which <u>are limited in scope</u> as described above in this commentary. However, <u>there are <strong>many <mark>brain regions</u></strong></mark>, often termed hot and cold spots, <u>that significantly <strong><mark>modulate</u></strong></mark> (increase or decrease) <u>our <strong><mark>pleasure or</strong></mark> even <strong>produce <mark>the opposite</u></strong></mark> of pleasure— that is <u>disgust and fear</u> [39]. <u>One</u> specific <u>region</u> of the nucleus accumbens <u>is organized like a computer keyboard, with particular stimulus triggers in rows</u>— producing an increase and decrease of pleasure and disgust. Moreover, <u>the cortex has unique roles in the cognitive evaluation of our feelings of pleasure</u> [40]. Importantly, the interplay of these multiple triggers and the higher brain centers in the prefrontal cortex are very intricate and are just being uncovered. Desire and reward centers It is surprising that many different sources of pleasure activate the same circuits between the mesocorticolimbic regions (Figure 1). Reward and desire are two aspects pleasure induction and have a very widespread, large circuit. Some part of this circuit distinguishes between desire and dread. The so-called pleasure circuitry called “REWARD” involves a well-known dopamine pathway in the mesolimbic system that can influence both pleasure and motivation. In simplest terms, the well-established mesolimbic system is a dopamine circuit for reward. It starts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain and travels to the nucleus accumbens (Figure 2). It is the cornerstone target to all addictions. The VTA is encompassed with neurons using glutamate, GABA, and dopamine. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is located within the ventral striatum and is divided into two sub-regions—the motor and limbic regions associated with its core and shell, respectively. The NAc has spiny neurons that receive dopamine from the VTA and glutamate (a dopamine driver) from the hippocampus, amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex. Subsequently, the NAc projects GABA signals to an area termed the ventral pallidum (VP). The region is a relay station in the limbic loop of the basal ganglia, critical for motivation, behavior, emotions and the “Feel Good” response. This defined system of the brain is involved in all addictions –substance, and non –substance related. In 1995, our laboratory coined the term “Reward Deficiency Syndrome” (RDS) to describe genetic and epigenetic induced hypodopaminergia in the “Brain Reward Cascade” that contribute to addiction and compulsive behaviors [3,6,41]. Furthermore, ordinary <u>“<strong><mark>liking</strong></mark>” of <strong><mark>something</strong></mark>, or pure pleasure, <strong><mark>is represented by</u></strong></mark> small <u><strong><mark>regions</u></strong></mark> mainly <u><strong><mark>in the limbic system</u></strong></mark> (old reptilian part of the brain). These may be <u>part of larger neural circuits.</u> In Latin, hedus is the term for “sweet”; and in Greek, hodone is the term for “pleasure.” Thus, the word Hedonic is now referring to various subcomponents of pleasure: some associated with purely sensory and others with more complex emotions involving morals, aesthetics, and social interactions. The capacity to have pleasure is part of being healthy and may even extend life, especially if linked to optimism as a dopaminergic response [42]. Psychiatric illness often includes symptoms of an abnormal inability to experience pleasure, referred to as anhedonia. A negative feeling state is called dysphoria, which can consist of many emotions such as pain, depression, anxiety, fear, and disgust. Previously many scientists used animal research to uncover the complex mechanisms of pleasure, liking, motivation and even emotions like panic and fear, as discussed above [43]. However, as a significant amount of related research about the specific brain regions of pleasure/reward circuitry has been derived from invasive studies of animals, these cannot be directly compared with subjective states experienced by humans. In an attempt to resolve the controversy regarding the causal contributions of mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward, we have previously evaluated the three-main competing explanatory categories: “liking,” “learning,” and “wanting” [3]. That is, dopamine may mediate (a) liking: the hedonic impact of reward, (b) learning: learned predictions about rewarding effects, or (c) wanting: the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli [44]. We have evaluated these hypotheses, especially as they relate to the RDS, and we find that the incentive salience or “wanting” hypothesis of dopaminergic functioning is supported by a majority of the scientific evidence. Various neuroimaging studies have shown that anticipated behaviors such as sex and gaming, delicious foods and drugs of abuse all affect brain regions associated with reward networks, and may not be unidirectional. Drugs of abuse enhance dopamine signaling which sensitizes mesolimbic brain mechanisms that apparently evolved explicitly to attribute incentive salience to various rewards [45]. Addictive substances are voluntarily self-administered, and they enhance (directly or indirectly) dopaminergic synaptic function in the NAc. This activation of the brain reward networks (producing the ecstatic “high” that users seek). Although these circuits were initially thought to encode a set point of hedonic tone, it is now being considered to be far more complicated in function, also encoding attention, reward expectancy, disconfirmation of reward expectancy, and incentive motivation [46]. The argument about addiction as a disease may be confused with a predisposition to substance and nonsubstance rewards relative to the extreme effect of drugs of abuse on brain neurochemistry. The former sets up an individual to be at high risk through both genetic polymorphisms in reward genes as well as harmful epigenetic insult. Some Psychologists, even with all the data, still infer that addiction is not a disease [47]. Elevated stress levels, together with polymorphisms (genetic variations) of various dopaminergic genes and the genes related to other neurotransmitters (and their genetic variants), and may have an additive effect on vulnerability to various addictions [48]. In this regard, Vanyukov, et al. [48] suggested based on review that whereas the gateway hypothesis does not specify mechanistic connections between “stages,” and does not extend to the risks for addictions the concept of common liability to addictions may be more parsimonious. The latter theory is grounded in genetic theory and supported by data identifying common sources of variation in the risk for specific addictions (e.g., RDS). This commonality has identifiable neurobiological substrate and plausible evolutionary explanations. Over many years the controversy of dopamine involvement in especially “pleasure” has led to confusion concerning separating motivation from actual pleasure (wanting versus liking) [49]. We take the position that animal studies cannot provide real clinical information as described by self-reports in humans. As mentioned earlier and in the abstract, on November 23rd, 2017, evidence for our concerns was discovered [50] In essence, although nonhuman primate brains are similar to our own, the disparity between other primates and those of human cognitive abilities tells us that surface similarity is not the whole story. Sousa et al. [50] small case found various differentially expressed genes, to associate with pleasure related systems. Furthermore, the dopaminergic interneurons located in the human neocortex were absent from the neocortex of nonhuman African apes. Such differences in neuronal transcriptional programs may underlie a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. In simpler terms, the system controls the production of dopamine, a chemical messenger that plays a significant role in pleasure and rewards. The senior author, Dr. Nenad Sestan from Yale, stated: “Humans have evolved a dopamine system that is different than the one in chimpanzees.” This may explain why the behavior of humans is so unique from that of non-human primates, even though our brains are so surprisingly similar, Sestan said: “It might also shed light on why people are vulnerable to mental disorders such as autism (possibly even addiction).” Remarkably, this research finding emerged from an extensive, multicenter collaboration to compare the brains across several species. These <u><strong><mark>researchers examined</strong></mark> 247 specimens of <strong><mark>neural tissue</strong></mark> from six humans, five chimpanzees, and five macaque monkeys.</u> Moreover, these <u>investigators analyzed which genes were turned on or off in 16 regions of the brain.</u> While <u>the differences among species were subtle, <strong>there was</strong> a <strong>remarkable contrast in</strong> the<strong> <mark>neocortices</u></strong></mark>, specifically <u><strong><mark>in</strong></mark> an area of <strong><mark>the brain</strong></mark> that <strong>is <mark>much more developed in humans</mark> </strong>than in chimpanzees.</u> In fact, these researchers found that a gene called <u><strong><mark>ability to pursue</strong></mark> various <strong><mark>rewards that are</strong></mark> perhaps months or even <strong><mark>years away </u></strong></mark>in the future. This same idea has been suggested by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky cited evidence that dopamine levels rise dramatically in humans when we anticipate potential rewards that are uncertain and even far off in our futures, such as retirement or even the possible alterlife. <u>This may explain what often motivates people to work for things that have no apparent short-term benefit</u><strong> [51]. In similar work, Volkow and Bale [52] proposed a model in which dopamine can favor NOW processes through phasic signaling in reward circuits or LATER processes through tonic signaling in control circuits. Specifically, they suggest that through its modulation of the orbitofrontal cortex, which processes salience attribution, dopamine also enables shilting from NOW to LATER, while its modulation of the insula, which processes interoceptive information, influences the probability of selecting NOW versus LATER actions based on an individual’s physiological state. This hypothesis further supports the concept that disruptions along these circuits contribute to diverse pathologies, including obesity and addiction or RDS.</p></strong>

CPS R1 v Harker MK

1AC—Schengenlargement

1AC—Framing—Util

./documents/hsld22/MountainHouse/ElSu/MountainHouse-ElSu-Aff-CPS-LD-Invitational-Round-4.docx

A

CPS LD Invitational

4

Harker MK

Lukas Krause

1AC - Schengenlargement 1NC - T-cohen, EU CP, case 1AR - all 2NR - case 2AR - T case

hsld22/MountainHouse/ElSu/MountainHouse-ElSu-Aff-CPS-LD-Invitational-Round-4.docx

2023-01-02 23:45:29

ElSu

Mountain House ElSu

See 0 - Contact Info in cites for disclosure, etc.

El.....

Su.....

MountainHouse

Mountain House

CA

hsld22

HS LD 2022-23

ld

hs

[6] Extinction comes first!

Pummer 15

Pummer 15 [Theron, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. “Moral Agreement on Saving the World” Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. May 18, 2015] AT

There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now : that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here. reducing existential risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight as that of existing people. this case is strengthened by the fact that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge mistake. Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy. Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree. even those (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct. Even if they were 90% sure that their view is the correct one they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk. even if we are only 1% sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world. It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world. views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness seem to be fairly implausible views. even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly.

reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the whole world. so many people could exist in the future trillions upon trillions reducing existential risk is the most important even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight We should also take into account moral uncertainty. even if we are only 1% sure that well-being

There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. How we might in fact try to reduce such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. According to consequentialism, we should maximize the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here. If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how reducing existential risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight as that of existing people. Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper, this case is strengthened by the fact that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge mistake. Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. Even John Rawls wrote, “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk, at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the possibility of a ring of invisibility – suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Add to all of this Samuel Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree. But even those (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct. Even if they were 90% sure that their view is the correct one (and 10% sure that one of these other ones is correct), they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1% sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world. Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world. While there are some non-crazy views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless seem to be fairly implausible views. And even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: “We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy…. Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly.” (From chapter 36 of On What Matters)

<h4>[6] Extinction comes first!</h4><p><u><strong>Pummer 15</u></strong> [Theron, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. “Moral Agreement on Saving the World” Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. May 18, 2015] AT</p><p><u><strong>There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now</u></strong>, whatever general moral view we adopt<u><strong>: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war.</u></strong> How we might in fact try to reduce such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that <u><strong>we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. </u></strong>According to consequentialism, we should maximize the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. <u><strong>Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here.</u></strong> If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how<u><strong> <mark>reducing existential risk is </mark>easily <mark>the most important thing in the whole world.</mark> This is for the familiar reason that there are <mark>so many people </mark>who <mark>could exist in the future</mark> – there are <mark>trillions upon trillions</mark>… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that <mark>reducing existential risk is</mark> arguably <mark>the most important</mark> thing in the world, <mark>even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight </mark>as that of existing people.</u></strong> Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper, <u><strong>this case is strengthened by the fact that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge mistake.</u></strong> <u><strong>Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter.</u></strong> Even John Rawls wrote, “<u><strong>All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.</u></strong>” <u><strong>Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view.</u></strong> <u><strong>They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk</u></strong>, at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce existential risk. <u><strong>Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk.</u></strong> It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). <u><strong>To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being.</u></strong> To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the possibility of a ring of invisibility – <u><strong>suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being</u></strong>, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But <u><strong>once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk.</u></strong> Add to all of this Samuel Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. <u><strong><mark>We should also take into account moral uncertainty.</u></strong></mark> <u><strong>What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts?</u></strong> I’ve just argued that <u><strong>there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree.</u></strong> But <u><strong>even those (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct. Even if they were 90% sure that their view is the correct one </u></strong>(and 10% sure that one of these other ones is correct), <u><strong>they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk.</u></strong> Perhaps most disturbingly still, <u><strong><mark>even if we are only 1% sure that </mark>the <mark>well-being </mark>of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world.</u></strong> Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. <u><strong>It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if</u></strong>, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, <u><strong>all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world.</u></strong> While there are some non-crazy <u><strong>views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness</u></strong>, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless <u><strong>seem to be fairly implausible views.</u></strong> And <u><strong>even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve.</u></strong> Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: “We live during the hinge of history. <u><strong>Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. </u></strong>We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. <u><strong>If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. </u></strong>Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy…. <u><strong>Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly.</u></strong>” (From chapter 36 of On What Matters)</p>

Harvard Round 7

Framework

./documents/hsld20/Oxford/Me/Oxford-Mehta-Aff-Harvard-Round7.docx

A

Harvard

7

North Allegheny RR

Daniel Herrera

1AC - China v7 1NC - LogCon Must Spec LAWs Must have Solvency Advocate Must Not Read Epistemic Modesty and Extinction ow Case 1AR - All 2NR - Eval after 1NC Must Not Read Epistemic Modesty and Extinction ow 2AR - Case Lying Voter Skep RVI Must Not Read Epistemic Modesty and Extinction ow

hsld20/Oxford/Me/Oxford-Mehta-Aff-Harvard-Round7.docx

ViMe

Oxford ViMe

Vi.....

Me.....

Oxford

Oxford

CA

hsld20

HS LD 2020-21

ld

hs

Only pleasure and pain are intrinsically valuable – all other frameworks collapse.

Moen 16

Moen 16 [Ole Martin Moen, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo “An Argument for Hedonism” Journal of Value Inquiry (Springer), 50 (2) 2016: 267–281]

a widely shared judgment about intrinsic value and disvalue is that pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable. On virtually any proposed list of intrinsic values and disvalues (we will look at some of them below), pleasure is included among the intrinsic values and pain among the intrinsic disvalues. there is something undeniably good about the way pleasure feels and something undeniably bad about the way pain feels, and neither the goodness of pleasure nor the badness of pain seems to be exhausted by the further effects that these experiences might have. The special value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat these experiences in our everyday reasoning about values. I might ask: “What for?” This is a reasonable question, for when you go to the convenience store you usually do so for the sake of achieving something further that you deem to be valuable. If I then proceed by asking “But what is the pleasure of drinking the soda good for?” the discussion is likely to reach an awkward end. The reason is that the pleasure is not good for anything further; it is simply that for which going to the convenience store and buying the soda is good. : “We never ask [a man] what his end is in being pleased, because we assume that pleasure is choice worthy in itself. pleasure and pain are both places where we reach the end of the line in matters of value

pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable there is something undeniably good about pleasure and something undeniably bad about pain value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat experiences pleasure is not good for anything further pleasure and pain both reach the end of the line in matters of value

Let us start by observing, empirically, that a widely shared judgment about intrinsic value and disvalue is that pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable. On virtually any proposed list of intrinsic values and disvalues (we will look at some of them below), pleasure is included among the intrinsic values and pain among the intrinsic disvalues. This inclusion makes intuitive sense, moreover, for there is something undeniably good about the way pleasure feels and something undeniably bad about the way pain feels, and neither the goodness of pleasure nor the badness of pain seems to be exhausted by the further effects that these experiences might have. “Pleasure” and “pain” are here understood inclusively, as encompassing anything hedonically positive and anything hedonically negative.2 The special value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat these experiences in our everyday reasoning about values. If you tell me that you are heading for the convenience store, I might ask: “What for?” This is a reasonable question, for when you go to the convenience store you usually do so, not merely for the sake of going to the convenience store, but for the sake of achieving something further that you deem to be valuable. You might answer, for example: “To buy soda.” This answer makes sense, for soda is a nice thing and you can get it at the convenience store. I might further inquire, however: “What is buying the soda good for?” This further question can also be a reasonable one, for it need not be obvious why you want the soda. You might answer: “Well, I want it for the pleasure of drinking it.” If I then proceed by asking “But what is the pleasure of drinking the soda good for?” the discussion is likely to reach an awkward end. The reason is that the pleasure is not good for anything further; it is simply that for which going to the convenience store and buying the soda is good.3 As Aristotle observes: “We never ask [a man] what his end is in being pleased, because we assume that pleasure is choice worthy in itself.”4 Presumably, a similar story can be told in the case of pains, for if someone says “This is painful!” we never respond by asking: “And why is that a problem?” We take for granted that if something is painful, we have a sufficient explanation of why it is bad. If we are onto something in our everyday reasoning about values, it seems that pleasure and pain are both places where we reach the end of the line in matters of value

<h4>Only pleasure and pain are intrinsically valuable – all other frameworks collapse.</h4><p><strong>Moen 16</strong> [Ole Martin Moen, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo “An Argument for Hedonism” Journal of Value Inquiry (Springer), 50 (2) 2016: 267–281]</p><p>Let us start by observing, empirically, that <u>a widely shared judgment about intrinsic value and disvalue is that <mark>pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable</mark>.</u> <u>On virtually any proposed list of intrinsic values and disvalues (we will look at some of them below), pleasure is included among the intrinsic values and pain among the intrinsic disvalues.</u> This inclusion makes intuitive sense, moreover, for <u><mark>there is something undeniably good about</mark> the way <mark>pleasure</mark> feels <mark>and something undeniably bad about</mark> the way <mark>pain</mark> feels, and neither the goodness of pleasure nor the badness of pain seems to be exhausted by the further effects that these experiences might have.</u> “Pleasure” and “pain” are here understood inclusively, as encompassing anything hedonically positive and anything hedonically negative.2 <u>The special <mark>value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat</mark> these <mark>experiences </mark>in our everyday reasoning about values.</u> If you tell me that you are heading for the convenience store, <u>I might ask: “What for?” This is a reasonable question, for when you go to the convenience store you usually do so</u>, not merely for the sake of going to the convenience store, but <u>for the sake of achieving something further that you deem to be valuable.</u> You might answer, for example: “To buy soda.” This answer makes sense, for soda is a nice thing and you can get it at the convenience store. I might further inquire, however: “What is buying the soda good for?” This further question can also be a reasonable one, for it need not be obvious why you want the soda. You might answer: “Well, I want it for the pleasure of drinking it.” <u>If I then proceed by asking “But what is the pleasure of drinking the soda good for?” the discussion is likely to reach an awkward end. The reason is that the <mark>pleasure is not good for anything further</mark>; it is simply that for which going to the convenience store and buying the soda is good.</u>3 As Aristotle observes<u>: “We never ask [a man] what his end is in being pleased, because we assume that pleasure is choice worthy in itself.</u>”4 Presumably, a similar story can be told in the case of pains, for if someone says “This is painful!” we never respond by asking: “And why is that a problem?” We take for granted that if something is painful, we have a sufficient explanation of why it is bad. If we are onto something in our everyday reasoning about values, it seems that <u><mark>pleasure and pain</mark> are <mark>both</mark> places where we <mark>reach the end of the line in matters of value</p></u></mark>

Util

./documents/hsld21/HarvardWestlake/Le2/Harvard%20Westlake-Leee-Neg-Cal-Round4.docx

N

Cal

4

Fairview CS

Aqui, Nikki

Innovation China Heg Util Theory-Actor Democracy bad

hsld21/HarvardWestlake/Le2/Harvard%20Westlake-Leee-Neg-Cal-Round4.docx

MaLe

Harvard Westlake MaLe

Ma.....

Le.....

HarvardWestlake

Harvard Westlake

CA

hsld21

HS LD 2021-22

ld

hs

Warming causes extinction.

Ng 19

Ng 19 [Yew-Kwang; May 2019; Professor of Economics at Nanyang Technology University, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and Member of the Advisory Board at the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University, Ph.D. in Economics from Sydney University; Global Policy, “Keynote: Global Extinction and Animal Welfare: Two Priorities for Effective Altruism,” vol. 10, no. 2, p. 258-266; RP]

climate change causing global extinction is possible due to interrelated factors of non‐linearity, cascading effects, positive feedbacks, multiplicative factors, critical thresholds and tipping points A imminent tipping point could be ‘an abrupt ice sheet collapse [that] could cause rapid sea level rise’ There are many avenues for positive feedback replacement of an ice sea by a liquid surface from melting increases absorption of sunlight, leading to faster warming drying of forests increases forest fires and release of more carbon ocean temperatures lead to release of methane producing runaway global warming ‘The world is completely unprepared to envisage, and deal with CCC’ The threat of sea‐level rising from warming is well known, but there likely and imminent threats to the survivability of mankind the adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress from high temperature ‘even modest warming could expose large fractions of the [world] to unprecedented heat stress’ and with substantial warming, ‘the area of land rendered uninhabitable would dwarf sea level’ making extinction likely and the moderate assessment models unreliably low we cannot rule it out probabilities of 5 per cent, 0.5 per cent or even 0.005 per cent of excessive warming and resulting extinction probabilities cannot be ruled out and are unacceptable. Even if there is only a 1 per cent probability that there is a bomb in the airplane, you want to change your flight. Extinction of the whole world is more important to avoid by a trillion times

climate causing extinction is due to non‐linearity, cascading feedbacks and tipping points ice sheet collapse cause rapid sea rise’ faster warming forest fires and release of methane producing runaway warming adaptability limit to mak extinction likely and moderate models unreliabl Even if there is 1 per cent probability Extinction is more important by a trillion

Catastrophic climate change Though by no means certain, CCC causing global extinction is possible due to interrelated factors of non‐linearity, cascading effects, positive feedbacks, multiplicative factors, critical thresholds and tipping points (e.g. Barnosky and Hadly, 2016; Belaia et al., 2017; Buldyrev et al., 2010; Grainger, 2017; Hansen and Sato, 2012; IPCC 2014; Kareiva and Carranza, 2018; Osmond and Klausmeier, 2017; Rothman, 2017; Schuur et al., 2015; Sims and Finnoff, 2016; Van Aalst, 2006).7 A possibly imminent tipping point could be in the form of ‘an abrupt ice sheet collapse [that] could cause a rapid sea level rise’ (Baum et al., 2011, p. 399). There are many avenues for positive feedback in global warming, including: the replacement of an ice sea by a liquid ocean surface from melting reduces the reflection and increases the absorption of sunlight, leading to faster warming; the drying of forests from warming increases forest fires and the release of more carbon; and higher ocean temperatures may lead to the release of methane trapped under the ocean floor, producing runaway global warming. Though there are also avenues for negative feedback, the scientific consensus is for an overall net positive feedback (Roe and Baker, 2007). Thus, the Global Challenges Foundation (2017, p. 25) concludes, ‘The world is currently completely unprepared to envisage, and even less deal with, the consequences of CCC’. The threat of sea‐level rising from global warming is well known, but there are also other likely and more imminent threats to the survivability of mankind and other living things. For example, Sherwood and Huber (2010) emphasize the adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress from high environmental wet‐bulb temperature. They show that ‘even modest global warming could … expose large fractions of the [world] population to unprecedented heat stress’ p. 9552 and that with substantial global warming, ‘the area of land rendered uninhabitable by heat stress would dwarf that affected by rising sea level’ p. 9555, making extinction much more likely and the relatively moderate damages estimated by most integrated assessment models unreliably low. While imminent extinction is very unlikely and may not come for a long time even under business as usual, the main point is that we cannot rule it out. Annan and Hargreaves (2011, pp. 434–435) may be right that there is ‘an upper 95 per cent probability limit for S [temperature increase] … to lie close to 4°C, and certainly well below 6°C’. However, probabilities of 5 per cent, 0.5 per cent, 0.05 per cent or even 0.005 per cent of excessive warming and the resulting extinction probabilities cannot be ruled out and are unacceptable. Even if there is only a 1 per cent probability that there is a time bomb in the airplane, you probably want to change your flight. Extinction of the whole world is more important to avoid by literally a trillion times.

<h4>Warming causes extinction.</h4><p><strong>Ng 19 </strong>[Yew-Kwang; May 2019; Professor of Economics at Nanyang Technology University, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and Member of the Advisory Board at the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University, Ph.D. in Economics from Sydney University; Global Policy, “Keynote: Global Extinction and Animal Welfare: Two Priorities for Effective Altruism,” vol. 10, no. 2, p. 258-266; RP]</p><p>Catastrophic <u><mark>climate</mark> change</u> Though by no means certain, CCC <u><mark>causing</mark> <strong>global <mark>extinction</strong> is</mark> possible <mark>due to</mark> <strong>interrelated factors</strong> of <strong><mark>non‐linearity</strong>, <strong>cascading</mark> effects</strong>, <strong>positive <mark>feedbacks</strong></mark>, <strong>multiplicative factors</strong>, <strong>critical thresholds</strong> <mark>and <strong>tipping points</u></strong></mark> (e.g. Barnosky and Hadly, 2016; Belaia et al., 2017; Buldyrev et al., 2010; Grainger, 2017; Hansen and Sato, 2012; IPCC 2014; Kareiva and Carranza, 2018; Osmond and Klausmeier, 2017; Rothman, 2017; Schuur et al., 2015; Sims and Finnoff, 2016; Van Aalst, 2006).7 <u>A</u> possibly <u><strong>imminent</strong> tipping point could be</u> in the form of <u>‘an abrupt <strong><mark>ice sheet collapse</strong></mark> [that] could <mark>cause</u></mark> a <u><strong><mark>rapid</strong> sea</mark> level <mark>rise’</u></mark> (Baum et al., 2011, p. 399). <u>There are many avenues for <strong>positive feedback</u></strong> in global warming, including: the <u>replacement of an ice sea by a liquid</u> ocean <u>surface from melting</u> reduces the reflection and <u><strong>increases</u></strong> the <u><strong>absorption</strong> of sunlight, leading to <strong><mark>faster warming</u></strong></mark>; the <u>drying of <strong>forests</u></strong> from warming <u>increases <mark>forest fires and</u></mark> the <u>release of <strong>more carbon</u></strong>; and higher <u>ocean temperatures</u> may <u>lead to</u> the <u><mark>release of <strong>methane</u></strong></mark> trapped under the ocean floor, <u><mark>producing</mark> <strong><mark>runaway</strong></mark> global <mark>warming</u></mark>. Though there are also avenues for negative feedback, the scientific consensus is for an overall net positive feedback (Roe and Baker, 2007). Thus, the Global Challenges Foundation (2017, p. 25) concludes, <u>‘The world is</u> currently <u><strong>completely unprepared</strong> to envisage, and</u> even less <u>deal with</u>, the consequences of <u>CCC’</u>. <u>The threat of <strong>sea‐level rising</strong> from</u> global <u>warming is well known, but there</u> are also other <u><strong>likely</strong> and</u> more <u><strong>imminent</strong> threats to the <strong>survivability of mankind</u></strong> and other living things. For example, Sherwood and Huber (2010) emphasize <u>the <strong><mark>adaptability limit</strong> to</mark> climate change due to <strong>heat stress</strong> from high</u> environmental wet‐bulb <u>temperature</u>. They show that <u>‘even <strong>modest</strong> </u>global <u>warming could</u> … <u>expose <strong>large fractions</strong> of the [world]</u> population <u>to <strong>unprecedented</strong> heat stress’</u> p. 9552 <u>and</u> that <u>with substantial</u> global <u>warming, ‘the area of land rendered <strong>uninhabitable</u></strong> by heat stress <u>would dwarf</u> that affected by rising <u>sea level’</u> p. 9555, <u><mark>mak</mark>ing <strong><mark>extinction</u></strong></mark> much more <u><strong><mark>likely</strong> and</mark> the</u> relatively <u><mark>moderate</u></mark> damages estimated by most integrated <u>assessment <mark>models <strong>unreliabl</mark>y low</u></strong>. While imminent extinction is very unlikely and may not come for a long time even under business as usual, the main point is that <u>we cannot rule it out</u>. Annan and Hargreaves (2011, pp. 434–435) may be right that there is ‘an upper 95 per cent probability limit for S [temperature increase] … to lie close to 4°C, and certainly well below 6°C’. However, <u>probabilities of 5 per cent, 0.5 per cent</u>, 0.05 per cent <u>or even <strong>0.005 per cent</strong> of excessive warming and</u> the <u>resulting <strong>extinction probabilities</strong> cannot be ruled out and are <strong>unacceptable</strong>. <mark>Even if there is</mark> only a <strong><mark>1 per cent probability</strong></mark> that there is a</u> time <u>bomb in the airplane, you</u> probably <u>want to change your flight. <mark>Extinction</mark> of the <strong>whole world</strong> <mark>is <strong>more important</strong></mark> to avoid <mark>by</mark> </u>literally <u><mark>a <strong>trillion</mark> times</u></strong>.</p>

1nc

OFF

./documents/hspolicy20/Mamaroneck/LaPe/Mamaroneck-Land-Peters-Neg-toc-Round1.docx

N

toc

1

gunn os

pak, andrew

1ac -- mandatory minimums 2nr -- cap

hspolicy20/Mamaroneck/LaPe/Mamaroneck-Land-Peters-Neg-toc-Round1.docx

LaPe

Mamaroneck LaPe

Ja.....

La.....

Lu.....

Pe.....

Mamaroneck

Mamaroneck

NY

hspolicy20

HS Policy 2020-21

cx

hs

Decline cascades – nuclear war

Maavak 21

Maavak 21 – Mathew Maavak, PhD in Risk Foresight from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, External Researcher (PLATBIDAFO) at the Kazimieras Simonavicius University, Expert and Regular Commentator on Risk-Related Geostrategic Issues at the Russian International Affairs Council, “Horizon 2030: Will Emerging Risks Unravel Our Global Systems?”, Salus Journal – The Australian Journal for Law Enforcement, Security and Intelligence Professionals, Volume 9, Number 1, p. 2-8

scholars regard global social instability as the greatest threat The catalyst has been postulated to be a Second Great Depression which, in turn, will have profound implications for global security and national integrity emerging risks are intertwined Tight couplings in global systems have enabled risks accrued in one area to snowball into a full-blown crisis elsewhere banking, utility, farming, healthcare and retail sectors etc. are increasingly entwined. Risks accrued in one system may cascade into an unforeseen crisis the behaviour of intersecting systems is determined by complex and largely invisible interactions at the substratum a global financial crash will lead to a trickle-down meltdown, impacting all areas of human activity and lead to a Second Great Depression Economic stressors may induce radical geopolitical realignments. Bullions now carry more weight than NATO’s security guarantees in Eastern Europe this erosion in regional trust was based on historical precedents with two global Titanics – the U S and China on a collision course the seismic ripples will be felt far, wide and for a considerable period What happens to the environment when our economies implode? Think of a debt-laden workforce at sensitive nuclear and chemical plants, along with a concomitant surge in industrial accidents? Economic stressors pose the biggest threats to the environment global risks can no longer be boxed into a taxonomical silo Our JIT world aggravates the cascading potential of risks Production and delivery delays will eventually require industrial overcompensation Interlinked ecosystems may be hijacked The environmental fallouts loom like a Sword of Damocles over this decade The primary catalyst behind WWII was the Great Depression history often repeats itself, expect familiar bogeymen to reappear in societies roiling with impoverishment Anti-Semitism may reach alarming proportions possibly forcing Israel to undertake reprisal operations how will affected nations react? Balloon effects present a classic problematic Contemporary geopolitical risks include a possible Iran-Israel war; US-China military confrontation over Taiwan or the South China Sea; North Korean proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies; an India-Pakistan nuclear war; an Iranian closure of the Straits of Hormuz; fundamentalist-driven implosion in the Islamic world; or a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia

a Second Depression will have implications for global security couplings in global systems enabled risks in one area to snowball into full-blown crisis elsewhere banking farming, health and retail are entwined Economic stressors induce geopolitical realignments with U S and China ripples will be felt Think of a debt-laden workforce at nuclear and chemical plants with a surge in accidents The catalyst behind WWII was the Depression history repeats itself Balloon effects include Iran war; US-China confrontation over Taiwan India-Paki nuclear war NATO and Russia

Various scholars and institutions regard global social instability as the greatest threat facing this decade. The catalyst has been postulated to be a Second Great Depression which, in turn, will have profound implications for global security and national integrity. This paper, written from a broad systems perspective, illustrates how emerging risks are getting more complex and intertwined; blurring boundaries between the economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological taxonomy used by the World Economic Forum for its annual global risk forecasts. Tight couplings in our global systems have also enabled risks accrued in one area to snowball into a full-blown crisis elsewhere. The COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic fallouts exemplify this systemic chain-reaction. Onceinexorable forces of globalization are rupturing as the current global system can no longer be sustained due to poor governance and runaway wealth fractionation. The coronavirus pandemic is also enabling Big Tech to expropriate the levers of governments and mass communications worldwide. This paper concludes by highlighting how this development poses a dilemma for security professionals. Key Words: Global Systems, Emergence, VUCA, COVID-9, Social Instability, Big Tech, Great Reset INTRODUCTION The new decade is witnessing rising volatility across global systems. Pick any random “system” today and chart out its trajectory: Are our education systems becoming more robust and affordable? What about food security? Are our healthcare systems improving? Are our pension systems sound? Wherever one looks, there are dark clouds gathering on a global horizon marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). But what exactly is a global system? Our planet itself is an autonomous and selfsustaining mega-system, marked by periodic cycles and elemental vagaries. Human activities within however are not system isolates as our banking, utility, farming, healthcare and retail sectors etc. are increasingly entwined. Risks accrued in one system may cascade into an unforeseen crisis within and/or without (Choo, Smith & McCusker, 2007). Scholars call this phenomenon “emergence”; one where the behaviour of intersecting systems is determined by complex and largely invisible interactions at the substratum (Goldstein, 1999; Holland, 1998). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a case in point. While experts remain divided over the source and morphology of the virus, the contagion has ramified into a global health crisis and supply chain nightmare. It is also tilting the geopolitical balance. China is the largest exporter of intermediate products, and had generated nearly 20% of global imports in 2015 alone (Cousin, 2020). The pharmaceutical sector is particularly vulnerable. Nearly “85% of medicines in the U.S. strategic national stockpile” sources components from China (Owens, 2020). An initial run on respiratory masks has now been eclipsed by rowdy queues at supermarkets and the bankruptcy of small businesses. The entire global population – save for major pockets such as Sweden, Belarus, Taiwan and Japan – have been subjected to cyclical lockdowns and quarantines. Never before in history have humans faced such a systemic, borderless calamity. COVID-19 represents a classic emergent crisis that necessitates real-time response and adaptivity in a real-time world, particularly since the global Just-in-Time (JIT) production and delivery system serves as both an enabler and vector for transboundary risks. From a systems thinking perspective, emerging risk management should therefore address a whole spectrum of activity across the economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological (EEGST) taxonomy. Every emerging threat can be slotted into this taxonomy – a reason why it is used by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for its annual global risk exercises (Maavak, 2019a). As traditional forces of globalization unravel, security professionals should take cognizance of emerging threats through a systems thinking approach. METHODOLOGY An EEGST sectional breakdown was adopted to illustrate a sampling of extreme risks facing the world for the 2020-2030 decade. The transcendental quality of emerging risks, as outlined on Figure 1, below, was primarily informed by the following pillars of systems thinking (Rickards, 2020): • Diminishing diversity (or increasing homogeneity) of actors in the global system (Boli & Thomas, 1997; Meyer, 2000; Young et al, 2006); • Interconnections in the global system (Homer-Dixon et al, 2015; Lee & Preston, 2012); • Interactions of actors, events and components in the global system (Buldyrev et al, 2010; Bashan et al, 2013; Homer-Dixon et al, 2015); and • Adaptive qualities in particular systems (Bodin & Norberg, 2005; Scheffer et al, 2012) Since scholastic material on this topic remains somewhat inchoate, this paper buttresses many of its contentions through secondary (i.e. news/institutional) sources. ECONOMY According to Professor Stanislaw Drozdz (2018) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, “a global financial crash of a previously unprecedented scale is highly probable” by the mid- 2020s. This will lead to a trickle-down meltdown, impacting all areas of human activity. The economist John Mauldin (2018) similarly warns that the “2020s might be the worst decade in US history” and may lead to a Second Great Depression. Other forecasts are equally alarming. According to the International Institute of Finance, global debt may have surpassed $255 trillion by 2020 (IIF, 2019). Yet another study revealed that global debts and liabilities amounted to a staggering $2.5 quadrillion (Ausman, 2018). The reader should note that these figures were tabulated before the COVID-19 outbreak. The IMF singles out widening income inequality as the trigger for the next Great Depression (Georgieva, 2020). The wealthiest 1% now own more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people (Coffey et al, 2020) and this chasm is widening with each passing month. COVID-19 had, in fact, boosted global billionaire wealth to an unprecedented $10.2 trillion by July 2020 (UBS-PWC, 2020). Global GDP, worth $88 trillion in 2019, may have contracted by 5.2% in 2020 (World Bank, 2020). As the Greek historian Plutarch warned in the 1st century AD: “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics” (Mauldin, 2014). The stability of a society, as Aristotle argued even earlier, depends on a robust middle element or middle class. At the rate the global middle class is facing catastrophic debt and unemployment levels, widespread social disaffection may morph into outright anarchy (Maavak, 2012; DCDC, 2007). Economic stressors, in transcendent VUCA fashion, may also induce radical geopolitical realignments. Bullions now carry more weight than NATO’s security guarantees in Eastern Europe. After Poland repatriated 100 tons of gold from the Bank of England in 2019, Slovakia, Serbia and Hungary quickly followed suit. According to former Slovak Premier Robert Fico, this erosion in regional trust was based on historical precedents – in particular the 1938 Munich Agreement which ceded Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. As Fico reiterated (Dudik & Tomek, 2019): “You can hardly trust even the closest allies after the Munich Agreement… I guarantee that if something happens, we won’t see a single gram of this (offshore-held) gold. Let’s do it (repatriation) as quickly as possible.” (Parenthesis added by author). President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia (a non-NATO nation) justified his central bank’s gold-repatriation program by hinting at economic headwinds ahead: “We see in which direction the crisis in the world is moving” (Dudik & Tomek, 2019). Indeed, with two global Titanics – the United States and China – set on a collision course with a quadrillions-denominated iceberg in the middle, and a viral outbreak on its tip, the seismic ripples will be felt far, wide and for a considerable period. A reality check is nonetheless needed here: Can additional bullions realistically circumvallate the economies of 80 million plus peoples in these Eastern European nations, worth a collective $1.8 trillion by purchasing power parity? Gold however is a potent psychological symbol as it represents national sovereignty and economic reassurance in a potentially hyperinflationary world. The portents are clear: The current global economic system will be weakened by rising nationalism and autarkic demands. Much uncertainty remains ahead. Mauldin (2018) proposes the introduction of Old Testament-style debt jubilees to facilitate gradual national recoveries. The World Economic Forum, on the other hand, has long proposed a “Great Reset” by 2030; a socialist utopia where “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” (WEF, 2016). In the final analysis, COVID-19 is not the root cause of the current global economic turmoil; it is merely an accelerant to a burning house of cards that was left smouldering since the 2008 Great Recession (Maavak, 2020a). We also see how the four main pillars of systems thinking (diversity, interconnectivity, interactivity and “adaptivity”) form the mise en scene in a VUCA decade. ENVIRONMENTAL What happens to the environment when our economies implode? Think of a debt-laden workforce at sensitive nuclear and chemical plants, along with a concomitant surge in industrial accidents? Economic stressors, workforce demoralization and rampant profiteering – rather than manmade climate change – arguably pose the biggest threats to the environment. In a WEF report, Buehler et al (2017) made the following pre-COVID-19 observation: The ILO estimates that the annual cost to the global economy from accidents and work-related diseases alone is a staggering $3 trillion. Moreover, a recent report suggests the world’s 3.2 billion workers are increasingly unwell, with the vast majority facing significant economic insecurity: 77% work in part-time, temporary, “vulnerable” or unpaid jobs. Shouldn’t this phenomenon be better categorized as a societal or economic risk rather than an environmental one? In line with the systems thinking approach, however, global risks can no longer be boxed into a taxonomical silo. Frazzled workforces may precipitate another Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl (1986), Deepwater Horizon (2010) or Flint water crisis (2014). These disasters were notably not the result of manmade climate change. Neither was the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011) nor the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004). Indeed, the combustion of a long-overlooked cargo of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had nearly levelled the city of Beirut, Lebanon, on Aug 4 2020. The explosion left 204 dead; 7,500 injured; US$15 billion in property damages; and an estimated 300,000 people homeless (Urbina, 2020). The environmental costs have yet to be adequately tabulated. Environmental disasters are more attributable to Black Swan events, systems breakdowns and corporate greed rather than to mundane human activity. Our JIT world aggravates the cascading potential of risks (Korowicz, 2012). Production and delivery delays, caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, will eventually require industrial overcompensation. This will further stress senior executives, workers, machines and a variety of computerized systems. The trickle-down effects will likely include substandard products, contaminated food and a general lowering in health and safety standards (Maavak, 2019a). Unpaid or demoralized sanitation workers may also resort to indiscriminate waste dumping. Many cities across the United States (and elsewhere in the world) are no longer recycling wastes due to prohibitive costs in the global corona-economy (Liacko, 2021). Even in good times, strict protocols on waste disposals were routinely ignored. While Sweden championed the global climate change narrative, its clothing flagship H&M was busy covering up toxic effluences disgorged by vendors along the Citarum River in Java, Indonesia. As a result, countless children among 14 million Indonesians straddling the “world’s most polluted river” began to suffer from dermatitis, intestinal problems, developmental disorders, renal failure, chronic bronchitis and cancer (DW, 2020). It is also in cauldrons like the Citarum River where pathogens may mutate with emergent ramifications. On an equally alarming note, depressed economic conditions have traditionally provided a waste disposal boon for organized crime elements. Throughout 1980s, the Calabriabased ‘Ndrangheta mafia – in collusion with governments in Europe and North America – began to dump radioactive wastes along the coast of Somalia. Reeling from pollution and revenue loss, Somali fisherman eventually resorted to mass piracy (Knaup, 2008). The coast of Somalia is now a maritime hotspot, and exemplifies an entwined form of economic-environmental-geopolitical-societal emergence. In a VUCA world, indiscriminate waste dumping can unexpectedly morph into a Black Hawk Down incident. The laws of unintended consequences are governed by actors, interconnections, interactions and adaptations in a system under study – as outlined in the methodology section. Environmentally-devastating industrial sabotages – whether by disgruntled workers, industrial competitors, ideological maniacs or terrorist groups – cannot be discounted in a VUCA world. Immiserated societies, in stark defiance of climate change diktats, may resort to dirty coal plants and wood stoves for survival. Interlinked ecosystems, particularly water resources, may be hijacked by nationalist sentiments. The environmental fallouts of critical infrastructure (CI) breakdowns loom like a Sword of Damocles over this decade. GEOPOLITICAL The primary catalyst behind WWII was the Great Depression. Since history often repeats itself, expect familiar bogeymen to reappear in societies roiling with impoverishment and ideological clefts. Anti-Semitism – a societal risk on its own – may reach alarming proportions in the West (Reuters, 2019), possibly forcing Israel to undertake reprisal operations inside allied nations. If that happens, how will affected nations react? Will security resources be reallocated to protect certain minorities (or the Top 1%) while larger segments of society are exposed to restive forces? Balloon effects like these present a classic VUCA problematic. Contemporary geopolitical risks include a possible Iran-Israel war; US-China military confrontation over Taiwan or the South China Sea; North Korean proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies; an India-Pakistan nuclear war; an Iranian closure of the Straits of Hormuz; fundamentalist-driven implosion in the Islamic world; or a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia. Fears that the Jan 3 2020 assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani might lead to WWIII were grossly overblown. From a systems perspective, the killing of Soleimani did not fundamentally change the actor-interconnection-interaction adaptivity equation in the Middle East. Soleimani was simply a cog who got replaced.

<h4>Decline <u>cascades</u> – nuclear war</h4><p><strong>Maavak 21</strong> – Mathew Maavak, PhD in Risk Foresight from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, External Researcher (PLATBIDAFO) at the Kazimieras Simonavicius University, Expert and Regular Commentator on Risk-Related Geostrategic Issues at the Russian International Affairs Council, “Horizon 2030: Will Emerging Risks Unravel Our Global Systems?”, Salus Journal – The Australian Journal for Law Enforcement, Security and Intelligence Professionals, Volume 9, Number 1, p. 2-8</p><p>Various <u>scholars</u> and institutions <u>regard <strong>global social instability</strong> as the <strong>greatest threat</u></strong> facing this decade. <u>The catalyst has been postulated to be <mark>a <strong>Second</mark> Great <mark>Depression</strong></mark> which, in turn, <mark>will have</mark> <strong>profound <mark>implications</strong> for <strong>global security</strong></mark> and national integrity</u>. This paper, written from a broad systems perspective, illustrates how <u>emerging risks are</u> getting more complex and <u><strong>intertwined</u></strong>; blurring boundaries between the economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological taxonomy used by the World Economic Forum for its annual global risk forecasts. <u><strong>Tight <mark>couplings</strong> in</u></mark> our <u><strong><mark>global systems</strong></mark> have</u> also <u><mark>enabled risks</mark> accrued <mark>in <strong>one area</strong> to <strong>snowball</strong> into </mark>a <strong><mark>full-blown crisis</strong> <strong>elsewhere</u></strong></mark>. The COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic fallouts exemplify this systemic chain-reaction. Onceinexorable forces of globalization are rupturing as the current global system can no longer be sustained due to poor governance and runaway wealth fractionation. The coronavirus pandemic is also enabling Big Tech to expropriate the levers of governments and mass communications worldwide. This paper concludes by highlighting how this development poses a dilemma for security professionals. Key Words: Global Systems, Emergence, VUCA, COVID-9, Social Instability, Big Tech, Great Reset INTRODUCTION The new decade is witnessing rising volatility across global systems. Pick any random “system” today and chart out its trajectory: Are our education systems becoming more robust and affordable? What about food security? Are our healthcare systems improving? Are our pension systems sound? Wherever one looks, there are dark clouds gathering on a global horizon marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). But what exactly is a global system? Our planet itself is an autonomous and selfsustaining mega-system, marked by periodic cycles and elemental vagaries. Human activities within however are not system isolates as our <u><mark>banking</mark>, utility, <mark>farming, <strong>health</strong></mark>care <mark>and retail</mark> sectors etc. <mark>are</mark> increasingly <strong><mark>entwined</strong></mark>. Risks accrued in <strong>one system</strong> may <strong>cascade</strong> into an <strong>unforeseen crisis</u></strong> within and/or without (Choo, Smith & McCusker, 2007). Scholars call this phenomenon “emergence”; one where <u>the behaviour of <strong>intersecting systems</strong> is determined by <strong>complex</strong> and largely <strong>invisible interactions</strong> at the <strong>substratum</u></strong> (Goldstein, 1999; Holland, 1998). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a case in point. While experts remain divided over the source and morphology of the virus, the contagion has ramified into a global health crisis and supply chain nightmare. It is also tilting the geopolitical balance. China is the largest exporter of intermediate products, and had generated nearly 20% of global imports in 2015 alone (Cousin, 2020). The pharmaceutical sector is particularly vulnerable. Nearly “85% of medicines in the U.S. strategic national stockpile” sources components from China (Owens, 2020). An initial run on respiratory masks has now been eclipsed by rowdy queues at supermarkets and the bankruptcy of small businesses. The entire global population – save for major pockets such as Sweden, Belarus, Taiwan and Japan – have been subjected to cyclical lockdowns and quarantines. Never before in history have humans faced such a systemic, borderless calamity. COVID-19 represents a classic emergent crisis that necessitates real-time response and adaptivity in a real-time world, particularly since the global Just-in-Time (JIT) production and delivery system serves as both an enabler and vector for transboundary risks. From a systems thinking perspective, emerging risk management should therefore address a whole spectrum of activity across the economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological (EEGST) taxonomy. Every emerging threat can be slotted into this taxonomy – a reason why it is used by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for its annual global risk exercises (Maavak, 2019a). As traditional forces of globalization unravel, security professionals should take cognizance of emerging threats through a systems thinking approach. METHODOLOGY An EEGST sectional breakdown was adopted to illustrate a sampling of extreme risks facing the world for the 2020-2030 decade. The transcendental quality of emerging risks, as outlined on Figure 1, below, was primarily informed by the following pillars of systems thinking (Rickards, 2020): • Diminishing diversity (or increasing homogeneity) of actors in the global system (Boli & Thomas, 1997; Meyer, 2000; Young et al, 2006); • Interconnections in the global system (Homer-Dixon et al, 2015; Lee & Preston, 2012); • Interactions of actors, events and components in the global system (Buldyrev et al, 2010; Bashan et al, 2013; Homer-Dixon et al, 2015); and • Adaptive qualities in particular systems (Bodin & Norberg, 2005; Scheffer et al, 2012) Since scholastic material on this topic remains somewhat inchoate, this paper buttresses many of its contentions through secondary (i.e. news/institutional) sources. ECONOMY According to Professor Stanislaw Drozdz (2018) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, “<u>a global financial crash</u> of a previously unprecedented scale is highly probable” by the mid- 2020s. This <u>will lead to a <strong>trickle-down meltdown</strong>, impacting <strong>all areas</strong> of human activity</u>. The economist John Mauldin (2018) similarly warns that the “2020s might be the worst decade in US history” <u>and</u> may <u>lead to a <strong>Second Great Depression</u></strong>. Other forecasts are equally alarming. According to the International Institute of Finance, global debt may have surpassed $255 trillion by 2020 (IIF, 2019). Yet another study revealed that global debts and liabilities amounted to a staggering $2.5 quadrillion (Ausman, 2018). The reader should note that these figures were tabulated before the COVID-19 outbreak. The IMF singles out widening income inequality as the trigger for the next Great Depression (Georgieva, 2020). The wealthiest 1% now own more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people (Coffey et al, 2020) and this chasm is widening with each passing month. COVID-19 had, in fact, boosted global billionaire wealth to an unprecedented $10.2 trillion by July 2020 (UBS-PWC, 2020). Global GDP, worth $88 trillion in 2019, may have contracted by 5.2% in 2020 (World Bank, 2020). As the Greek historian Plutarch warned in the 1st century AD: “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics” (Mauldin, 2014). The stability of a society, as Aristotle argued even earlier, depends on a robust middle element or middle class. At the rate the global middle class is facing catastrophic debt and unemployment levels, widespread social disaffection may morph into outright anarchy (Maavak, 2012; DCDC, 2007). <u><mark>Economic stressors</u></mark>, in transcendent VUCA fashion, <u>may</u> also <u><mark>induce</mark> <strong>radical <mark>geopolitical realignments</strong></mark>. Bullions now carry more weight than NATO’s <strong>security guarantees</strong> in <strong>Eastern Europe</u></strong>. After Poland repatriated 100 tons of gold from the Bank of England in 2019, Slovakia, Serbia and Hungary quickly followed suit. According to former Slovak Premier Robert Fico, <u>this <strong>erosion</strong> in <strong>regional trust</strong> was based on historical precedents</u> – in particular the 1938 Munich Agreement which ceded Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. As Fico reiterated (Dudik & Tomek, 2019): “You can hardly trust even the closest allies after the Munich Agreement… I guarantee that if something happens, we won’t see a single gram of this (offshore-held) gold. Let’s do it (repatriation) as quickly as possible.” (Parenthesis added by author). President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia (a non-NATO nation) justified his central bank’s gold-repatriation program by hinting at economic headwinds ahead: “We see in which direction the crisis in the world is moving” (Dudik & Tomek, 2019). Indeed, <u><mark>with</mark> two global Titanics – the <strong><mark>U</u></strong></mark>nited <u><strong><mark>S</u></strong></mark>tates <u><mark>and China</u></mark> – set <u>on a <strong>collision course</u></strong> with a quadrillions-denominated iceberg in the middle, and a viral outbreak on its tip, <u>the <strong>seismic <mark>ripples</strong> will be felt</mark> <strong>far</strong>, <strong>wide</strong> and for a <strong>considerable period</u></strong>. A reality check is nonetheless needed here: Can additional bullions realistically circumvallate the economies of 80 million plus peoples in these Eastern European nations, worth a collective $1.8 trillion by purchasing power parity? Gold however is a potent psychological symbol as it represents national sovereignty and economic reassurance in a potentially hyperinflationary world. The portents are clear: The current global economic system will be weakened by rising nationalism and autarkic demands. Much uncertainty remains ahead. Mauldin (2018) proposes the introduction of Old Testament-style debt jubilees to facilitate gradual national recoveries. The World Economic Forum, on the other hand, has long proposed a “Great Reset” by 2030; a socialist utopia where “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” (WEF, 2016). In the final analysis, COVID-19 is not the root cause of the current global economic turmoil; it is merely an accelerant to a burning house of cards that was left smouldering since the 2008 Great Recession (Maavak, 2020a). We also see how the four main pillars of systems thinking (diversity, interconnectivity, interactivity and “adaptivity”) form the mise en scene in a VUCA decade. ENVIRONMENTAL <u>What happens to the <strong>environment</strong> when our <strong>economies implode</strong>? <mark>Think of a <strong>debt-laden</strong> workforce at</mark> sensitive <strong><mark>nuclear</strong> and <strong>chemical plants</strong></mark>, along <mark>with a</mark> concomitant <strong><mark>surge</strong> in</mark> <strong>industrial <mark>accidents</strong></mark>? <strong>Economic stressors</u></strong>, workforce demoralization and rampant profiteering – rather than manmade climate change – arguably <u>pose the <strong>biggest threats</strong> to the environment</u>. In a WEF report, Buehler et al (2017) made the following pre-COVID-19 observation: The ILO estimates that the annual cost to the global economy from accidents and work-related diseases alone is a staggering $3 trillion. Moreover, a recent report suggests the world’s 3.2 billion workers are increasingly unwell, with the vast majority facing significant economic insecurity: 77% work in part-time, temporary, “vulnerable” or unpaid jobs. Shouldn’t this phenomenon be better categorized as a societal or economic risk rather than an environmental one? In line with the systems thinking approach, however, <u>global risks can no longer be boxed into a <strong>taxonomical silo</u></strong>. Frazzled workforces may precipitate another Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl (1986), Deepwater Horizon (2010) or Flint water crisis (2014). These disasters were notably not the result of manmade climate change. Neither was the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011) nor the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004). Indeed, the combustion of a long-overlooked cargo of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had nearly levelled the city of Beirut, Lebanon, on Aug 4 2020. The explosion left 204 dead; 7,500 injured; US$15 billion in property damages; and an estimated 300,000 people homeless (Urbina, 2020). The environmental costs have yet to be adequately tabulated. Environmental disasters are more attributable to Black Swan events, systems breakdowns and corporate greed rather than to mundane human activity. <u>Our JIT world aggravates the <strong>cascading potential</strong> of risks</u> (Korowicz, 2012). <u>Production and delivery delays</u>, caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, <u>will eventually require industrial <strong>overcompensation</u></strong>. This will further stress senior executives, workers, machines and a variety of computerized systems. The trickle-down effects will likely include substandard products, contaminated food and a general lowering in health and safety standards (Maavak, 2019a). Unpaid or demoralized sanitation workers may also resort to indiscriminate waste dumping. Many cities across the United States (and elsewhere in the world) are no longer recycling wastes due to prohibitive costs in the global corona-economy (Liacko, 2021). Even in good times, strict protocols on waste disposals were routinely ignored. While Sweden championed the global climate change narrative, its clothing flagship H&M was busy covering up toxic effluences disgorged by vendors along the Citarum River in Java, Indonesia. As a result, countless children among 14 million Indonesians straddling the “world’s most polluted river” began to suffer from dermatitis, intestinal problems, developmental disorders, renal failure, chronic bronchitis and cancer (DW, 2020). It is also in cauldrons like the Citarum River where pathogens may mutate with emergent ramifications. On an equally alarming note, depressed economic conditions have traditionally provided a waste disposal boon for organized crime elements. Throughout 1980s, the Calabriabased ‘Ndrangheta mafia – in collusion with governments in Europe and North America – began to dump radioactive wastes along the coast of Somalia. Reeling from pollution and revenue loss, Somali fisherman eventually resorted to mass piracy (Knaup, 2008). The coast of Somalia is now a maritime hotspot, and exemplifies an entwined form of economic-environmental-geopolitical-societal emergence. In a VUCA world, indiscriminate waste dumping can unexpectedly morph into a Black Hawk Down incident. The laws of unintended consequences are governed by actors, interconnections, interactions and adaptations in a system under study – as outlined in the methodology section. Environmentally-devastating industrial sabotages – whether by disgruntled workers, industrial competitors, ideological maniacs or terrorist groups – cannot be discounted in a VUCA world. Immiserated societies, in stark defiance of climate change diktats, may resort to dirty coal plants and wood stoves for survival. <u>Interlinked ecosystems</u>, particularly water resources, <u>may be <strong>hijacked</u></strong> by nationalist sentiments. <u>The <strong>environmental fallouts</u></strong> of critical infrastructure (CI) breakdowns <u>loom like a <strong>Sword of Damocles</strong> over this decade</u>. GEOPOLITICAL <u><mark>The</mark> <strong>primary <mark>catalyst</strong> behind <strong>WWII</strong> was the</mark> <strong>Great <mark>Depression</u></strong></mark>. Since <u><mark>history</mark> often <strong><mark>repeats itself</strong></mark>, expect <strong>familiar bogeymen</strong> to <strong>reappear</u></strong> <u>in societies roiling with <strong>impoverishment</u></strong> and ideological clefts. <u>Anti-Semitism</u> – a societal risk on its own – <u>may reach alarming proportions</u> in the West (Reuters, 2019), <u>possibly <strong>forc</strong>ing Israel to undertake <strong>reprisal operations</u></strong> inside allied nations. If that happens, <u>how will <strong>affected nations</strong> react?</u> Will security resources be reallocated to protect certain minorities (or the Top 1%) while larger segments of society are exposed to restive forces? <u><strong><mark>Balloon effects</u></strong></mark> like these <u>present a classic</u> VUCA <u>problematic</u>. <u>Contemporary geopolitical risks <mark>include</mark> a possible <strong><mark>Iran</mark>-Israel <mark>war</strong>; <strong>US-China</mark> military <mark>confrontation</strong> over <strong>Taiwan</strong> </mark>or the <strong>S</strong>outh <strong>C</strong>hina <strong>S</strong>ea; <strong>North Korean proliferation</strong> of <strong>nuclear</strong> and <strong>missile technologies</strong>; an <strong><mark>India-Paki</mark>stan <mark>nuclear war</strong></mark>; an <strong>Iranian closure</strong> of the Straits of <strong>Hormuz</strong>; <strong>fundamentalist-driven implosion in the Islamic world</strong>; or a <strong>nuclear confrontation</strong> between <strong><mark>NATO</strong> and <strong>Russia</u></strong></mark>. Fears that the Jan 3 2020 assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani might lead to WWIII were grossly overblown. From a systems perspective, the killing of Soleimani did not fundamentally change the actor-interconnection-interaction adaptivity equation in the Middle East. Soleimani was simply a cog who got replaced.</p>

1NC—OFF

1NC---DA

./documents/hsld22/ArchbishopMitty/JoYu/ArchbishopMitty-JoYu-Neg-Mid-America-Cup-Round-3.docx

N

Mid America Cup

3

Stanford OHS Amanda Yu

Misra

1ac telehealth 1nc disclosure t multi cp blockchain cp econ da hacking da 1ar all 2nr econ da 2ar all

hsld22/ArchbishopMitty/JoYu/ArchbishopMitty-JoYu-Neg-Mid-America-Cup-Round-3.docx

2022-09-25 18:07:47

JoYu

Archbishop Mitty JoYu

Jo.....

Yu.....

ArchbishopMitty

Archbishop Mitty

CA

hsld22

HS LD 2022-23

ld

hs

1 – Extinction o/ws under any framework, even under moral uncertainty – infinite future generations

Pummer 15

Pummer 15 — (Theron Pummer, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford, “Moral Agreement on Saving the World“, Practical Ethics University of Oxford, 5-18-2015, Available Online at http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/05/moral-agreement-on-saving-the-world/, accessed 7-2-2018, HKR-AM) **we do not endorse ableist language=

There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. . If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how reducing existential risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight as that of existing people there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. Even John Rawls wrote, “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk, We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree . Even if they were 90% sure that their view is the correct one (and 10% sure that one of these other ones is correct), they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1% sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy…. Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly

reducing existential risk is the most important there are trillions upon trillions future people even if the well-being were given 0.001% weight Non-consequentialism is not that the latter don’t matter Minimally plausible versions of deont and virtue ethics must be concerned with promoting the good imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk Even if they were 90% sure they would have reason, from moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk

There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. How we might in fact try to reduce such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. According to consequentialism, we should maximize the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here. If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how reducing existential risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight as that of existing people. Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper, this case is strengthened by the fact that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge mistake. Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. Even John Rawls wrote, “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk, at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the possibility of a ring of invisibility – suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Add to all of this Samuel Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree. But even those (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct. Even if they were 90% sure that their view is the correct one (and 10% sure that one of these other ones is correct), they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1% sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world. Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world. While there are some non-crazy views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless seem to be fairly implausible views. And even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: “We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy…. Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly.” (From chapter 36 of On What Matters) Afc paragraph theory

<h4>1 – Extinction o/ws under any framework, even under moral uncertainty – infinite future generations </h4><p><strong>Pummer 15</strong> — (Theron Pummer, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford, “Moral Agreement on Saving the World“, Practical Ethics University of Oxford, 5-18-2015, Available Online at http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/05/moral-agreement-on-saving-the-world/, accessed 7-2-2018, HKR-AM) **we do not endorse ableist language=</p><p><u>There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy.</u> Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe <u>there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war.</u> How we might in fact try to reduce such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. According to consequentialism, we should maximize the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here<u>. If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how <mark>reducing existential risk is</mark> easily <mark>the most important</mark> thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – <mark>there are</mark> <mark>trillions upon trillions</mark>… upon trillions.</u> <u>There are so many possible <mark>future people</mark> that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world,</u> <u><mark>even if the well-being</mark> of these possible people <mark>were</mark> <mark>given</mark> only <mark>0.001% </mark>as much <mark>weight</mark> as that of existing people</u>. Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper, this case is strengthened by the fact that <u>there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists</u>. But that is a huge mistake. <u><mark>Non-consequentialism </mark>is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it <mark>is not</mark> the view <mark>that the latter don’t matter</mark>. Even John Rawls wrote, “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” <mark>Minimally plausible versions of deont</mark>ology <mark>and virtue ethics must be concerned</mark> in part <mark>with promoting the good</mark>, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus <mark>imply</mark> very <mark>strong reasons to reduce existential risk</mark>, </u>at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the possibility of a ring of invisibility – suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Add to all of this Samuel Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. <u>We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree</u>. But even those (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct<u>. <mark>Even if they were 90% sure </mark>that their view is the correct one (and 10% sure that one of these other ones is correct), <mark>they would have </mark>pretty strong <mark>reason, from </mark>the standpoint of <mark>moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk</mark>. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1% sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world</u>. Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world. While there are some non-crazy views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless seem to be fairly implausible views. And even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. <u>Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately:</u> “We live during the hinge of history. <u>Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period.</u> <u>Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy…. Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly</u>.” (From chapter 36 of On What Matters)</p><p>Afc paragraph theory</p>

1

./documents/hsld18/Harker/Vi/Harker-Vinod-Neg-Valley-Round2.docx

N

Valley

2

John Paul II BP

Tom Enven

1AC - Whole res 1N - Terror Lashout Util 1AR - New theory substance 2N - AFC bad

hsld18/Harker/Vi/Harker-Vinod-Neg-Valley-Round2.docx

AdVi

Harker AdVi

Ad.....

Vi.....

Harker

Harker

hsld18

HS LD 2018-19

ld

hs

Util- You should vote AFF if the 1AC’s contingently true---even if they’re right about everything else.

Baum & Barrett 18

Seth D. Baum & Anthony M. Barrett 18. Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. 2018. “Global Catastrophes: The Most Extreme Risks.” Risk in Extreme Environments: Preparing, Avoiding, Mitigating, and Managing, edited by Vicki Bier, Routledge, pp. 174–184.

Taken literally, a global catastrophe can be any event that is in some way catastrophic across the globe This suggests a rather low threshold However, in common usage, a global catastrophe would be catastrophic for a significant portion of the globe Others have emphasized catastrophes that cause long-term declines in the trajectory of human civilization that human civilization does not recover from that drastically reduce humanity’s potential for future achievements Bostrom using the term “existential risk”), or that result in human extinction A common theme across all these treatments of GCR is that some catastrophes are vastly more important than others Without nuclear winter, a global nuclear war might kill several hundred million people. This is obviously a major catastrophe, but humanity would presumably carry on. However, with nuclear winter humanity could go extinct. The loss would be not just an additional four billion or so deaths, but the loss of all future generations the loss would be billions and billions of lives, or even more Sagan estimated 500 trillion lives, assuming humanity would continue for ten million more years, which he cited as typical for a successful species. Sagan’s 500 trillion number may even be an underestimate An open question in astronomy is whether it is possible for the descendants of humanity to continue living for an infinite length of time or instead merely an astronomically large but finite length of time the stakes with global catastrophes could be much larger than the loss of 500 trillion lives. Debates about the infinite vs. the merely astronomical are of theoretical interest but they have limited practical significance. This can be seen when evaluating GCRs from a standard risk-equals-probability-times-magnitude framework. Using Sagan’s 500 trillion lives estimate, it follows that reducing the probability of global catastrophe by a mere one-in-500-trillion chance is of the same significance as saving one human life. Phrased differently, society should try 500 trillion times harder to prevent a global catastrophe than it should to save a person’s life. Or, preventing one million deaths is equivalent to a one-in500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe. This suggests society should make extremely large investment in GCR reduction, at the expense of virtually all other objectives. society should be willing to spend $1 million for a one-in-500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe while reasonable disagreement exists on how large of a VSL to use and how much to count future generations, even low-end positions suggest vast resource allocations should be redirected to reducing GCR. This conclusion is only strengthened when considering the astronomical size of the stakes as long as something along the lines of the standard riskequals-probability-times-magnitude framework is being used, then even tiny GCR reductions merit significant effort. This point holds especially strongly for risks of catastrophes that would cause permanent harm to global human civilization. The discussion thus far has assumed that all human lives are valued equally. This assumption is not universally held People often value some people more than others Great debates rage on across moral philosophy, economics, and other fields about how much people should value others This debate is crucial While everyone has the right to their own views and feelings the strongest arguments are for the widely held position that all human lives should be valued equally. Philosophers speak of an agent-neutral, objective “view from nowhere” or a “veil of ignorance” in which each person considers what is best for society irrespective of which member of society they happen to be Such a perspective suggests valuing everyone equally, regardless of who they are or where or when they live. This in turn suggests a very high value for reducing GCR, or a high degree of priority for GCR reduction efforts.

some catastrophes are vastly more important than others humanity could go extinct loss of all future generations. 500 trillion lives may be an underestimate risk-equals-probability-times-magnitude society should try 500 trillion times harder to prevent global catastrophe than to save a person’s life While everyone has the right to their own views the strongest arguments are for the widely held position that all human lives should be valued equally Philosophers speak of a a “veil of ignorance” in which each considers what is best for society irrespective of which member they happen to be valuing everyone equally suggests a very high value for reducing GCR

2. What Is GCR And Why Is It Important? Taken literally, a global catastrophe can be any event that is in some way catastrophic across the globe. This suggests a rather low threshold for what counts as a global catastrophe. An event causing just one death on each continent (say, from a jet-setting assassin) could rate as a global catastrophe, because surely these deaths would be catastrophic for the deceased and their loved ones. However, in common usage, a global catastrophe would be catastrophic for a significant portion of the globe. Minimum thresholds have variously been set around ten thousand to ten million deaths or $10 billion to $10 trillion in damages (Bostrom and Ćirković 2008), or death of one quarter of the human population (Atkinson 1999; Hempsell 2004). Others have emphasized catastrophes that cause long-term declines in the trajectory of human civilization (Beckstead 2013), that human civilization does not recover from (Maher and Baum 2013), that drastically reduce humanity’s potential for future achievements (Bostrom 2002, using the term “existential risk”), or that result in human extinction (Matheny 2007; Posner 2004). A common theme across all these treatments of GCR is that some catastrophes are vastly more important than others. Carl Sagan was perhaps the first to recognize this, in his commentary on nuclear winter (Sagan 1983). Without nuclear winter, a global nuclear war might kill several hundred million people. This is obviously a major catastrophe, but humanity would presumably carry on. However, with nuclear winter, per Sagan, humanity could go extinct. The loss would be not just an additional four billion or so deaths, but the loss of all future generations. To paraphrase Sagan, the loss would be billions and billions of lives, or even more. Sagan estimated 500 trillion lives, assuming humanity would continue for ten million more years, which he cited as typical for a successful species. Sagan’s 500 trillion number may even be an underestimate. The analysis here takes an adventurous turn, hinging on the evolution of the human species and the long-term fate of the universe. On these long time scales, the descendants of contemporary humans may no longer be recognizably “human”. The issue then is whether the descendants are still worth caring about, whatever they are. If they are, then it begs the question of how many of them there will be. Barring major global catastrophe, Earth will remain habitable for about one billion more years 2 until the Sun gets too warm and large. The rest of the Solar System, Milky Way galaxy, universe, and (if it exists) the multiverse will remain habitable for a lot longer than that (Adams and Laughlin 1997), should our descendants gain the capacity to migrate there. An open question in astronomy is whether it is possible for the descendants of humanity to continue living for an infinite length of time or instead merely an astronomically large but finite length of time (see e.g. Ćirković 2002; Kaku 2005). Either way, the stakes with global catastrophes could be much larger than the loss of 500 trillion lives. Debates about the infinite vs. the merely astronomical are of theoretical interest (Ng 1991; Bossert et al. 2007), but they have limited practical significance. This can be seen when evaluating GCRs from a standard risk-equals-probability-times-magnitude framework. Using Sagan’s 500 trillion lives estimate, it follows that reducing the probability of global catastrophe by a mere one-in-500-trillion chance is of the same significance as saving one human life. Phrased differently, society should try 500 trillion times harder to prevent a global catastrophe than it should to save a person’s life. Or, preventing one million deaths is equivalent to a one-in500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe. This suggests society should make extremely large investment in GCR reduction, at the expense of virtually all other objectives. Judge and legal scholar Richard Posner made a similar point in monetary terms (Posner 2004). Posner used $50,000 as the value of a statistical human life (VSL) and 12 billion humans as the total loss of life (double the 2004 world population); he describes both figures as significant underestimates. Multiplying them gives $600 trillion as an underestimate of the value of preventing global catastrophe. For comparison, the United States government typically uses a VSL of around one to ten million dollars (Robinson 2007). Multiplying a $10 million VSL with 500 trillion lives gives $5x1021 as the value of preventing global catastrophe. But even using “just" $600 trillion, society should be willing to spend at least that much to prevent a global catastrophe, which converts to being willing to spend at least $1 million for a one-in-500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe. Thus while reasonable disagreement exists on how large of a VSL to use and how much to count future generations, even low-end positions suggest vast resource allocations should be redirected to reducing GCR. This conclusion is only strengthened when considering the astronomical size of the stakes, but the same point holds either way. The bottom line is that, as long as something along the lines of the standard riskequals-probability-times-magnitude framework is being used, then even tiny GCR reductions merit significant effort. This point holds especially strongly for risks of catastrophes that would cause permanent harm to global human civilization. The discussion thus far has assumed that all human lives are valued equally. This assumption is not universally held. People often value some people more than others, favoring themselves, their family and friends, their compatriots, their generation, or others whom they identify with. Great debates rage on across moral philosophy, economics, and other fields about how much people should value others who are distant in space, time, or social relation, as well as the unborn members of future generations. This debate is crucial for all valuations of risk, including GCR. Indeed, if each of us only cares about our immediate selves, then global catastrophes may not be especially important, and we probably have better things to do with our time than worry about them. While everyone has the right to their own views and feelings, we find that the strongest arguments are for the widely held position that all human lives should be valued equally. This position is succinctly stated in the United States Declaration of Independence, updated in the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and 3 women are created equal”. Philosophers speak of an agent-neutral, objective “view from nowhere” (Nagel 1986) or a “veil of ignorance” (Rawls 1971) in which each person considers what is best for society irrespective of which member of society they happen to be. Such a perspective suggests valuing everyone equally, regardless of who they are or where or when they live. This in turn suggests a very high value for reducing GCR, or a high degree of priority for GCR reduction efforts.

<h4><strong>Util- You should vote AFF if the 1AC’s contingently true---even if they’re right about everything else. </h4><p></strong>Seth D. <strong>Baum &</strong> Anthony M. <strong>Barrett 18<u></strong>. Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. 2018. “Global Catastrophes: The Most Extreme Risks.” Risk in Extreme Environments: Preparing, Avoiding, Mitigating, and Managing, edited by Vicki Bier, Routledge, pp. 174–184.</p><p></u>2. What Is GCR And Why Is It Important? <u>Taken <strong>literally</strong>, a global catastrophe can be any event that is in some way catastrophic across the globe</u>. <u>This suggests a rather low threshold</u> for what counts as a global catastrophe. An event causing just one death on each continent (say, from a jet-setting assassin) could rate as a global catastrophe, because surely these deaths would be catastrophic for the deceased and their loved ones. <u>However, in common usage, a global catastrophe would be <strong>catastrophic</strong> for a significant portion of the globe</u>. Minimum thresholds have variously been set around ten thousand to ten million deaths or $10 billion to $10 trillion in damages (Bostrom and Ćirković 2008), or death of one quarter of the human population (Atkinson 1999; Hempsell 2004). <u>Others have emphasized catastrophes that cause <strong>long-term declines in the trajectory of human civilization</u></strong> (Beckstead 2013), <u>that human civilization <strong>does not recover from</u></strong> (Maher and Baum 2013), <u>that drastically reduce humanity’s potential for future achievements</u> (<u>Bostrom</u> 2002, <u>using the term “<strong>existential risk</strong>”), or that result in <strong>human extinction</u></strong> (Matheny 2007; Posner 2004). <u>A common theme across all these treatments of GCR is that <strong><mark>some</mark> <mark>catastrophes</mark> <mark>are vastly more important than others</u></strong></mark>. Carl Sagan was perhaps the first to recognize this, in his commentary on nuclear winter (Sagan 1983). <u>Without nuclear winter, a global nuclear war might kill several hundred million people. This is obviously a major catastrophe, but humanity would presumably carry on. However, with <strong>nuclear winter</u></strong>, per Sagan, <u><strong><mark>humanity</mark> <mark>could go extinct</strong></mark>. The loss would be not just an additional four billion or so deaths, but the <mark>loss of <strong>all future generations</u></strong>.</mark> To paraphrase Sagan, <u>the loss would be billions and billions of lives, or even <strong>more</u></strong>. <u>Sagan estimated <strong><mark>500 trillion lives</strong></mark>, assuming humanity would continue for ten million more years, which he cited as typical for a successful species. Sagan’s 500 trillion number <mark>may</mark> even <mark>be an <strong>underestimate</u></strong></mark>. The analysis here takes an adventurous turn, hinging on the evolution of the human species and the long-term fate of the universe. On these long time scales, the descendants of contemporary humans may no longer be recognizably “human”. The issue then is whether the descendants are still worth caring about, whatever they are. If they are, then it begs the question of how many of them there will be. Barring major global catastrophe, Earth will remain habitable for about one billion more years 2 until the Sun gets too warm and large. The rest of the Solar System, Milky Way galaxy, universe, and (if it exists) the multiverse will remain habitable for a lot longer than that (Adams and Laughlin 1997), should our descendants gain the capacity to migrate there. <u>An open question in astronomy is whether it is possible for the descendants of humanity to continue living for an <strong>infinite length of time</strong> or instead merely an <strong>astronomically large but finite</strong> length of time</u> (see e.g. Ćirković 2002; Kaku 2005). Either way,<u> the stakes with global catastrophes <strong>could</strong> be <strong>much larger than the loss of 500 trillion lives. </strong>Debates about the infinite vs. the merely astronomical are of theoretical interest</u> (Ng 1991; Bossert et al. 2007), <u>but they have <strong>limited practical significance</strong>. This can be seen when <strong>evaluating GCRs from a standard <mark>risk-equals-probability-times-magnitude</mark> framework</strong>. Using Sagan’s 500 trillion lives estimate, it follows that reducing the probability of global catastrophe by a mere one-in-500-trillion chance is of the same significance as saving one human life. Phrased differently, <mark>society should <strong>try 500 trillion times harder to prevent</mark> a <mark>global catastrophe</mark> <mark>than</mark> it should <mark>to save a person’s life</strong></mark>. Or, preventing one million deaths is equivalent to a one-in500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe. This suggests society should <strong>make extremely large investment in GCR reduction, at the expense of virtually all other objectives. </u></strong>Judge and legal scholar Richard Posner made a similar point in monetary terms (Posner 2004). Posner used $50,000 as the value of a statistical human life (VSL) and 12 billion humans as the total loss of life (double the 2004 world population); he describes both figures as significant underestimates. Multiplying them gives $600 trillion as an underestimate of the value of preventing global catastrophe. For comparison, the United States government typically uses a VSL of around one to ten million dollars (Robinson 2007). Multiplying a $10 million VSL with 500 trillion lives gives $5x1021 as the value of preventing global catastrophe. But even using “just" $600 trillion, <u>society should be willing to spend</u> at least that much to prevent a global catastrophe, which converts to being willing to spend at least <u>$1 million for a one-in-500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe</u>. Thus <u>while reasonable disagreement exists on how large of a VSL to use and how much to count future generations, even low-end positions suggest <strong>vast resource allocations</strong> should be redirected to reducing GCR. This conclusion is only <strong>strengthened</strong> when considering the <strong>astronomical size of the stakes</u></strong>, but the same point holds either way. The bottom line is that, <u>as long as something along the lines of the standard riskequals-probability-times-magnitude framework is being used, then <strong>even tiny GCR reductions</strong> merit significant effort. This point holds especially strongly for risks of catastrophes that would cause <strong>permanent harm to global human civilization</strong>. The discussion thus far has assumed that all human lives are valued equally. This assumption is <strong>not universally held</u></strong>. <u>People often value some people more than others</u>, favoring themselves, their family and friends, their compatriots, their generation, or others whom they identify with. <u>Great debates rage on across moral philosophy, economics, and other fields about how much people should value others</u> who are distant in space, time, or social relation, as well as the unborn members of future generations. <u>This debate is crucial</u> for all valuations of risk, including GCR. Indeed, if each of us only cares about our immediate selves, then global catastrophes may not be especially important, and we probably have better things to do with our time than worry about them. <u><mark>While everyone has the right to their <strong>own views</mark> and feelings</u></strong>, we find that <u><mark>the strongest arguments are for the <strong>widely held position</strong> that <strong>all human lives should be valued equally</strong></mark>.</u> This position is succinctly stated in the United States Declaration of Independence, updated in the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and 3 women are created equal”. <u><mark>Philosophers speak of a</mark>n agent-neutral, objective “view from nowhere”</u> (Nagel 1986) <u>or <mark>a “veil of ignorance”</u></mark> (Rawls 1971) <u><mark>in which each</mark> person <mark>considers what is best for society <strong>irrespective of which member</mark> of society <mark>they happen to be</u></strong></mark>. <u>Such a perspective <strong>suggests <mark>valuing everyone equally</strong></mark>, regardless of who they are or where or when they live. This in turn <mark>suggests a <strong>very high value for reducing GCR</mark>, or a high degree of priority for GCR reduction efforts. </p></u></strong>

2AC

K

ROB

./documents/ndtceda19/Navy/LeGu/Navy-Lewis-Gutierrez-Aff-Kentucky-Round7.docx

A

Kentucky

7

Missouri State KR

Patrice

1AC -Same a RD1 1NC - Technomilitarism K 2NR - D-Dev

ndtceda19/Navy/LeGu/Navy-Lewis-Gutierrez-Aff-Kentucky-Round7.docx

LeGu

Navy LeGu

Wi.....

Le.....

Ni.....

Gu.....

Navy

Navy

ndtceda19

NDT/CEDA 2019-20

cx

college

The “United States federal government” means the three branches of the central government

OECD, 87

OECD, 87

Political and organisational structure of government The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states The Federal Government is composed of three branches: the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch

The U S is a federal republic The Federal Government is composed of three branches: legislative executive and judicial

(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Council, 1987, “United States,” The Control and Management of Government Expenditure, p. 179) JD 1. Political and organisational structure of government The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states. States have their own constitutions and within each State there are at least two additional levels of government, generally designated as counties and cities, towns or villages. The relationships between different levels of government are complex and varied (see Section B for more information). The Federal Government is composed of three branches: the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. Budgetary decisionmaking is shared primarily by the legislative and executive branches. The general structure of these two branches relative to budget formulation and execution is as follows.

<h4>The “United States federal government” means the <u>three branches</u> of the central government</h4><p><strong>OECD, 87</strong> </p><p>(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Council, 1987, “United States,” The Control and Management of Government Expenditure, p. 179) JD</p><p>1. <u>Political and organisational structure of government</u> <u><mark>The U</mark>nited <mark>S</mark>tates of America <mark>is a federal republic</mark> consisting of 50 states</u>. States have their own constitutions and within each State there are at least two additional levels of government, generally designated as counties and cities, towns or villages. The relationships between different levels of government are complex and varied (see Section B for more information). <u><mark>The Federal Government is composed of three branches<strong>:</strong></mark> the <mark>legislative</mark> branch, the <mark>executive</mark> branch, <mark>and</mark> the <mark>judicial</mark> branch</u>. Budgetary decisionmaking is shared primarily by the legislative and executive branches. The general structure of these two branches relative to budget formulation and execution is as follows.</p>

1NC

Off

1NC

./documents/ndtceda21/LibertyUniversity/RaWa/Liberty%20University-Ramsey-Wallenmeyer-Neg-Texas-Round2.docx

N

Texas

2

Kansas BaSp

Rebecca Steiner

1AC - Cybernetics 1NC - Cap K T-USFG 2NR - Cap K

ndtceda21/LibertyUniversity/RaWa/Liberty%20University-Ramsey-Wallenmeyer-Neg-Texas-Round2.docx

RaWa

Liberty University RaWa

Jo.....

Ra.....

Ju.....

Wa.....

LibertyUniversity

Liberty University

ndtceda21

NDT/CEDA 2021-22

cx

college

“In the area” means all of the activities within the area

UN 13

UN 13, United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty, http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part1.htm PART I¶ INTRODUCTION¶ Article 1

activities in the Area" means all activities of the Area

activities in the Area" means all activities of the Area

Use of terms and scope¶ 1. For the purposes of this Convention: (1) "Area" means the seabed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction; (2) "Authority" means the International Seabed Authority; (3) "activities in the Area" means all activities of exploration for, and exploitation of, the resources of the Area;t

<h4>“In the area” means all of the activities within the area</h4><p><strong>UN 13</strong>, United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty, http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part1.htm PART I¶ INTRODUCTION¶ Article 1</p><p>Use of terms and scope¶ 1. For the purposes of this Convention: (1) "Area" means the seabed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction; (2) "Authority" means the International Seabed Authority; (3) "<u><mark>activities in the Area" means all activities</u></mark> of exploration for, and exploitation of, the resources <u><mark>of the Area</u></mark>;t</p>

x

./documents/ndtceda18/WichitaState/HiPh/Wichita%20State-Hinecker-Phillips-Neg-kentucky-Round3.docx

N

kentucky

3

Missouri state

Allison Harper

1ac - trade 1nc - t-restrict wto cp oil cp esr cp executive powers midterms dollar heg da on case 2nr - midterms

ndtceda18/WichitaState/HiPh/Wichita%20State-Hinecker-Phillips-Neg-kentucky-Round3.docx

HiPh

Wichita State HiPh

Al.....

Hi.....

Bo.....

Ph.....

WichitaState

Wichita State

ndtceda18

NDT/CEDA 2018-19

cx

college

Economic decline leads to nuclear war.

Tonnesson 15

Tonnesson 15 [Stein Tonnesson, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace program, Uppsala University, 2015, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311] JS

recent works have made contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict Interdependence raises the cost of conflict but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that increase the risk of military conflict decisions for war are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations If leaders begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline they may blame external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and refuse to be deterred by nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly in East Asia The greatest risk is not a territorial dispute but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional war

Interdependence raises the cost of conflict If leaders seriously anticipate their nation’s decline they may blame external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate force and refuse to be deterred by nuclear arms a shift could happen abruptly The greatest risk is changes in the world economy alter circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace precarious This could have consequences with nuclear deterrence the only factor to protect from Armageddon, Deterrence could lose credibility great powers might gamble in a cyber or conventional war

Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.

<h4><strong>Economic decline leads to nuclear war.</h4><p><u>Tonnesson 15</u></strong> [Stein Tonnesson, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace program, Uppsala University, 2015, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311] JS</p><p>Several <u><strong>recent works</u></strong> on China and Sino–US relations <u><strong>have made</u></strong> substantial <u><strong>contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances</u></strong> a combination of <u><strong>nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers</u></strong>. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that <u><strong>interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict</u></strong> are right. <u><strong><mark>Interdependence raises the cost of conflict</u></strong></mark> for all sides <u><strong>but</u></strong> <u><strong>asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations</u></strong> may <u><strong>generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that</u></strong> in turn <u><strong>increase the risk of military conflict</u></strong> (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, <u><strong>decisions for war</u></strong> and peace <u><strong>are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations</u></strong>. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. <u><strong><mark>If leaders</u></strong></mark> on either side of the Atlantic <u><strong>begin to <mark>seriously</mark> fear or <mark>anticipate their</mark> own <mark>nation’s decline</u></strong></mark> then <u><strong><mark>they may blame</u></strong></mark> this on <u><strong><mark>external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate</mark> the use of <mark>force</mark> to gain</u></strong> respect or <u><strong>credibility, adopt protectionist policies, <mark>and</u></strong></mark> ultimately <u><strong><mark>refuse to be deterred by</u></strong></mark> either <u><strong><mark>nuclear arms</mark> or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such <mark>a</mark> dangerous <mark>shift could happen abruptly</u></strong></mark>, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions <u><strong>in East Asia</u></strong> are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. <u><strong><mark>The greatest risk is</mark> not</u></strong> that <u><strong>a territorial dispute</u></strong> leads to war under present circumstances <u><strong>but that <mark>changes in the world economy alter</mark> those <mark>circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace</mark> more <mark>precarious</u></strong></mark>. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. <u><strong><mark>This could have</mark> unforeseen <mark>consequences</mark> in the field of security, <mark>with nuclear deterrence</mark> remaining <mark>the only factor to protect</mark> the world <mark>from Armageddon, </mark>and </strong>unreliably so. <mark>Deterrence<strong> could lose</mark> its <mark>credibility</u></strong></mark>: one of the two <u><strong><mark>great powers might gamble</mark> that the other yield <mark>in a cyber</mark>-war <mark>or conventional</u></strong></mark> limited <u><strong><mark>war</u></strong></mark>, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.</p>

Advantage 1 is Econ

./documents/hsld17/LaSalle/To/La%20Salle-Towner-Aff-Berkeley-Round4.docx

A

Berkeley

4

Harvard Westlake JN

John Overing

1AC Corporations 1NC Abolish T Mueller DA Case 1AR Must check T interps All 2NR 1AR shell Mueller DA Case 2AR Case DA Impact Turns

hsld17/LaSalle/To/La%20Salle-Towner-Aff-Berkeley-Round4.docx

AsTo

La Salle AsTo

As.....

To.....

LaSalle

La Salle

hsld17

HS LD 2017-18

ld

hs