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02017 02020 4 years a bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event within a six month period starting no later than dec 31 02020 long bets sign in register to participate the rules of long bets bets predictions on the record make a prediction about long bets faq answers bet 9 duration 4 years 02017 02020 a bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event within a six month period starting no later than dec 31 02020 detailed terms predictor martin rees challenger steven pinker stakes 400 will go to givewell if rees wins or givewell if pinker wins rees s argument biotechnology is plainly advancing rapidly and by 2020 there will be thousands even millions of people with the capability to cause a catastrophic biological disaster my concern is not only organized terrorist groups but individual weirdos with the mindset of the people who now design computer viruses even if all nations impose effective regulations on potentially dangerous technologies the chance of an active enforcement seems to me as small as in the case of the drug laws by bioerror i mean something which has the same effect as a terror attack but rises from inadvertance rather than evil intent pinker s argument 1 cognitive biases inflate the subjective odds of disaster if a scenario is imaginable it seems probable 2 moral market forces also distort the odds pessimists are seen as serious and responsible optimists as complacent and naive because of 1 2 most doomsday predictions are false thermonuclear war between the us and ussr y2k disaster the population bomb resource wars weekly 9 11 scale terrorist attacks etc 3 bayesian base rate if an extreme and specific category of event has never before happened the odds are stacked against it the only successful past cases of bioterror are the rajneeshee cult 751 cases 0 deaths and the anthrax mailing 5 deaths the soviet era anthrax bioweapon leak killed another 66 4 pool of potential perpetrators the number of people eager for senseless destruction is small otherwise we d have daily bombings mass shootings sabotage etc in every city rather than sporadic headline worthy ones multiply by the fraction with the knowledge skill intelligence and discipline to engineer a superbug as opposed to the bumbling underwear bomber and tsarnaev brother types the pool may be smaller still i suspect that being very smart lowers the odds of enjoying mass death and mayhem 5 murphy s law multiply further by the fraction who escape detection and accidents e g being stricken by one s own bioweapon and whose plan succeeds despite the unpredictability of epidemiological processes 6 multiply further by the chance that the black hat will defeat the white hats namely the world s medical and epidemiological networks who would combat an outbreak with containment vaccines antibiotics etc the product is not 0 but i don t think it s high granted i have the benefit of 15 years of hindsight i need only three more outbreak free years but sir martin has the benefit of unforeseen advances in synthetic biology such as crispr cas9 we d need definitions of casualty death permanent disability or just infection bioterror state sponsored apolitical vengeance spree killing and bioerror i assume a mere lack of preparedness doesn t count but that shouldn t be too hard detailed terms casualties will be defined by who cdc or bphs whoever has the highest numbers casualties should ideally include victims requiring hospitalization and not include indirect deaths caused by the pathogen although ultimately long now will rely on the criteria set by the above organizations for determining casualties to adjudicate this bet updated adjudication terms may 10th 02022 as of spring 2022 the bet is unresolved pending uncertainty as to whether sars cov 2 originated at the wuhan institute of virology in which case it would count as an instance of bioerror and rees would win the bet the problem is how to decide when this issue is resolved according to some a priori and objective criteria given the necessary uncertainties including possible attempts by the chinese government to hobble an open investigation we have agreed upon the following resolution the prediction site metaculus encourages bets on many resolvable forecasts not just by one bettor on each side but by a cashless prediction market they they have an open forecast health agencies claim covid from lab by 25 https www metaculus com questions 3682 health agencies to claim lab escape by 25 they make this precise in the form before the end of 2024 will at least two public health agencies claim that covid 19 more likely than not originated in a laboratory and make it still more precise in their resolution this questions resolves positively if before the end of 2024 at least two of the public health agencies listed below claim that it is more likely than not that the covid 19 strain of coronavirus originated from a chinese virology laboratory for the purpose of this question we consider only statements by the following public health agencies which they proceed to list this strikes us as a reasonable way to operationalize our bet not just because it makes all the terms resolvable but because the decision will be made for us when metaculus announces its resolution please enable javascript to view the comments powered by disqus home the rules bets predictions make a prediction about faq contact us