🗓️  5:30 PM, Tuesday August 13th
📍  KK204, Victoria University Kelburn Campus

Future pandemics are bound to happen, and many could be far worse than COVID. However, there are some people (especially in Effective Altruism) who suggest that a man-made pandemic would be far worse, and even carries a substantial risk of causing human extinction in the next century.

On the other hand, David Thorstad has recently strongly challenged this view in his blog series ‘Exaggerating the Risks’. He suggests that it is completely contrary to the scientific consensus, does not properly acknowledge the extreme difficulty of engineering an extinction-causing pathogen, and is backed up with minimal arguments. Is he right? This talk digs into this debate in detail.

Afterwards we’ll head down to the Arborist to talk more and catch up.

While we run events at the university our group is comprised of both students and professionals. Anyone is welcome to join— we hope to see you there!