Risk Avoidance: All or Nothing

Abstract

Minimax based on suitable risk thresholds is a strong preventative against catastrophic risk. To that, we add an environment under which outcomes are known only very imperfectly. This strong prescription based on wide potential application increases the chances that our goals, values, and actions will in someway conflict. So, in order to achieve an adequate degree of power against risk, we make our risk criteria more prone to risk dilemmas. Risk dilemmas therefore follow from the “all or nothing” character of precaution: Partial solutions don’t properly deal with the catastrophe problem (“in the long run, there is no long run”).