What's the likelihood of irrecoverable civilizational collapse if 90% of the population dies?

By simeon_c @ 2022-08-07T19:47 (+21)


Having estimates of irrecoverable civilizational collapse is extremely important because it determines whether nuclear risks and pandemics are X-risks or non-existential global catastrophic risks. So I'd love to have people's thoughts on this, especially from people who have thought about it. It doesn't matter if it's a rough estimate. 
 

The only investigation I know of is Luisa Rodriguez's one and my understanding was that she didn't put a lot of weight on it but it seems like it's an argument that seems important in other thinker's worldviews (e.g Toby Ord mentioned this in a private discussion to explain the high probability he gives to biorisks being an X-risk) so I'd like to get a better sense on people's view on that question: 

What's the likelihood of irrecoverable civilizational collapse if 90% of the human population dies? 


Will Aldred @ 2022-08-07T20:34 (+12)

This question feels similar in spirit to the one I asked a couple weeks ago, "Odds of recovering values after collapse?", so OP you might be interested in checking out that question and the responses to it.

simeon_c @ 2022-08-08T07:17 (+4)

Thanks! 
Do you think that biorisks/nuclear war could plausibly cause us never to recover our values? What's the weight you give to such a scenario? 

(I want to know if the weight you put on "worse values" is due to stable totalitarianism due to new technologies or due to collapse -> bad people win).
 

Will Aldred @ 2022-08-09T14:51 (+3)

(DM'ed you)