An All-of-Society Approach to Existential Threats We Face Today
We face
unprecedented threats to our survival – including increasingly sophisticated
adversaries with deadly chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and
explosive weapons, cyberattacks, global warming, artificial intelligence,
autonomous weapons, deforestation, the decimation of animal species, and the
list goes on. If we are to survive, an “all-of-society” response to these
existential threats is urgently needed. These are the conclusions my colleagues
Katharine Jennings, Susan Ehrlich, Caroline N. Broun, Kathryn H. Floyd, and
Michael L. Buenger reach in an article to be published next month in The Court Manager (“Courts Have
a Significant Role to Play in the Whole-of-Government Approach (WGA) to Our Safety
and Security,” Winter 2019 - Vol. 34/4).
The Problems of Complexity and Hyper-Specialization
In his posthumously published 2018 book, Brief Answers to Big Questions, Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned physicist and cosmologist, who we quote in our article, wrote that our earth is under threat from so many areas and the threats are too enormous and too numerous for him to be very optimistic about our survival as a species. He makes an interesting observation about the problem of what he calls “hyper-specialization” that contributes to his pessimism about tackling the threats we face. By addressing the problem of hyper-specialization, we believe that an all-of-society approach to the existential threats we face provides some hope of reducing the risks of global calamity.
Hawing notes that in the eighteenth century it may have been possible to read every book written at the time. Today, if you read one book every day, it would take tens of thousands of years to read the books in a national library; and the timescale of accumulation of even more information has shrunk over the last 300 years, with 50,000 new books published in the English language alone every year. As we write in our article in The Court Manager, this has brought unimaginable benefits, but the evolution of our store of information and knowledge is severely limited not only by the complexity of the intractable threats we face around the globe but also the hyper-specialization of knowledge and expertise of the problem solvers. “This has meant that no one person can be the master of more than a small corner of human knowledge,” writes Hawking. “People have to specialize in narrower and narrower fields.” While Hawking is certainly right in warning that this is a major problem today and in the future, it does point us to a way forward.
Knowledge is what protects the powerless from being destroyed. To remain in the small corner of knowledge and expertise mastered by any individual or even circumscribed segments of society, such as the military or the intelligence community, puts us at risk not only because of what we know we don’t know, but because of the far more troubling problem of what we don’t know we don’t know.
An All-of-Society Approach Needed
In the United States, most of the responsibility for preparedness and response to threats to our security and safety falls mostly to state and local public health practitioners, law-enforcement, and emergency responders. Response to transnational threats falls to the military and intelligence community. My colleagues and I contend that national and transnational threats to our safety and security require a much broader approach, and a higher level of urgency and cooperation, including rapid and honest communication, broad coordination, collaboration, and responses from diverse disciplines across all of society. Such an all-of-society approach is rooted in common-sense, most notably that the complex and threats to our national and transnational safety and security defy solutions by the actions of just a few entities such as the military and intelligence communities. Rather, an all-of-society approach stresses unity of action and a wide range of viewpoints and perspectives on threats and risks in an increasingly complex and uncertain world.
Today’s threats and risks demand coordinated and rapid responses by many diverse actors in and out of government including ethicists, moral philosophers, scientists, economists, and futurists. The argument we make in our article in The Court Manager in favor of justice systems’ participation in a whole-of-government-approach (WGA) is a simple one and applies more broadly to an all-of-society approach. The threats we face include “known unknowns,” threats we know exist, but we do not have all the information about them. We might not know, for example, that bioterrorists exist but where and precisely how many may be a known unknown. More frightening and difficult are the “unknown unknowns,” threats we are neither aware of or understand, events and situations impossible to anticipate.
One or more actors in an all-of society approach may recognize something not seen by others that staves off a catastrophe, thwarts a threat, or mitigates damage. It is far better for such agents to be on hand, ready and prepared, and not be needed, than to be needed and be helpless bystanders to a catastrophic occurrence.
Copyright CourtMetrics 2019. All rights reserved.
The Problems of Complexity and Hyper-Specialization
In his posthumously published 2018 book, Brief Answers to Big Questions, Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned physicist and cosmologist, who we quote in our article, wrote that our earth is under threat from so many areas and the threats are too enormous and too numerous for him to be very optimistic about our survival as a species. He makes an interesting observation about the problem of what he calls “hyper-specialization” that contributes to his pessimism about tackling the threats we face. By addressing the problem of hyper-specialization, we believe that an all-of-society approach to the existential threats we face provides some hope of reducing the risks of global calamity.
Hawing notes that in the eighteenth century it may have been possible to read every book written at the time. Today, if you read one book every day, it would take tens of thousands of years to read the books in a national library; and the timescale of accumulation of even more information has shrunk over the last 300 years, with 50,000 new books published in the English language alone every year. As we write in our article in The Court Manager, this has brought unimaginable benefits, but the evolution of our store of information and knowledge is severely limited not only by the complexity of the intractable threats we face around the globe but also the hyper-specialization of knowledge and expertise of the problem solvers. “This has meant that no one person can be the master of more than a small corner of human knowledge,” writes Hawking. “People have to specialize in narrower and narrower fields.” While Hawking is certainly right in warning that this is a major problem today and in the future, it does point us to a way forward.
Knowledge is what protects the powerless from being destroyed. To remain in the small corner of knowledge and expertise mastered by any individual or even circumscribed segments of society, such as the military or the intelligence community, puts us at risk not only because of what we know we don’t know, but because of the far more troubling problem of what we don’t know we don’t know.
An All-of-Society Approach Needed
In the United States, most of the responsibility for preparedness and response to threats to our security and safety falls mostly to state and local public health practitioners, law-enforcement, and emergency responders. Response to transnational threats falls to the military and intelligence community. My colleagues and I contend that national and transnational threats to our safety and security require a much broader approach, and a higher level of urgency and cooperation, including rapid and honest communication, broad coordination, collaboration, and responses from diverse disciplines across all of society. Such an all-of-society approach is rooted in common-sense, most notably that the complex and threats to our national and transnational safety and security defy solutions by the actions of just a few entities such as the military and intelligence communities. Rather, an all-of-society approach stresses unity of action and a wide range of viewpoints and perspectives on threats and risks in an increasingly complex and uncertain world.
Today’s threats and risks demand coordinated and rapid responses by many diverse actors in and out of government including ethicists, moral philosophers, scientists, economists, and futurists. The argument we make in our article in The Court Manager in favor of justice systems’ participation in a whole-of-government-approach (WGA) is a simple one and applies more broadly to an all-of-society approach. The threats we face include “known unknowns,” threats we know exist, but we do not have all the information about them. We might not know, for example, that bioterrorists exist but where and precisely how many may be a known unknown. More frightening and difficult are the “unknown unknowns,” threats we are neither aware of or understand, events and situations impossible to anticipate.
One or more actors in an all-of society approach may recognize something not seen by others that staves off a catastrophe, thwarts a threat, or mitigates damage. It is far better for such agents to be on hand, ready and prepared, and not be needed, than to be needed and be helpless bystanders to a catastrophic occurrence.
Copyright CourtMetrics 2019. All rights reserved.