12.
Conspiracy theories as an obstacle for the scientific analysis of global risks
Global risk may sometimes be associated
with conspiracy theories such as the Illuminati or the idea that lizard men
control the world. Of course, every effort must be made to develop the study of
catastrophic global risks into a serious discipline that has no association
with such nutty theorizing.
When a conspiracy theory predicts a
certain risk, it tends to be highly specific: the world will end on
such-and-such a date, caused by such-and-such event. In contrast, the
scientific analysis of risk considers many possible risks, as probability
distributions over time, including the possibility of complex overlapping
factors and/or cascades. In addition, conspiracy theory risks will often come
with a pre-packaged solution; the promulgator of the conspiracy theory happens
to know the one solution to deal with the risk. In contrast, those engaged in
the scientific study of global catastrophic risk will
not necessarily claim that they have any idea how to deal with the risk. If
they do have a proposed solution, it will not be entirely certain—rather,
it will be a work in progress, amenable to further suggestions, elaborations,
redundant safety elements and precautions.
The more poorly we predict the future,
the more dangerous it is. The primary danger of the future is its
unpredictability. Conspiracy theories are harmful to future prediction, not
just because of their general lunacy, but because they focus attention on too
narrow a set of future possibilities. Furthermore, they assume superconfidence
in the prognostic abilities of their adherents. A good prediction of the future
does not predict concrete facts, but describes a space of possible scenarios.
On the basis of this knowledge it is possible to determine central points in
this space and deploy countermeasures to deal with them.
Such "predictions" undermine
trust in any sensible basis underlying them, for example that a large act of
terrorism could weaken the dollar and potentially cause an economic collapse as
part of a chain reaction. Conspiracy theories also tend to fall prey to the fundamental
attribution error—that is, that there must be a ÒThem,Ó a deliberately
malevolent actor on whom to place the blame. In reality, there is usually no
such arch-villain; there may be a group, or the disaster might happen as a
complete accident, or as a result of human actions which
are not deliberately malevolent. Focusing on conspiracy theories, or allowing
conspiracy theories to influence our thinking in any way, biases our thinking
in this way.
At the same time, although the majority
of conspiracy theories are false, there is always the wild chance that one of
them could turn out to be true. There was a conspiracy theory by industrialists
to take over the U.S. Government in a coup during 1933, the so-called Business
Plot, but it was foiled when a General in on the plot decided to report it to
the government. Conspiracies do exist, but conspiracy theorists tend to
overestimate the degree to which groups and individuals are capable of covert
coordination. Regardless, consider the saying: if you cannot catch a cat in a
dark room, that does not mean that the cat is not
present.