Why worry about high-impact risks?

High-impact risks describe the likelihood of high-impact events to occur in any given period of time. Some high-impact events have devastating immediate effects but a low probability of occurring in our life-time. Others, like climate change, are close to certain to affect either us or our immediate descendants directly, but their impact is gradual and hard to predict with precision. What high-impact events have in common is that they involve a significant loss in life and property. In particular, the long tail of some high-impact risks involves the extinction of mankind.

Examples of high-impact events: from regional to global, from natural to man-made

tsunamis, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, asteroid collisions
terrorist attacks, wars, genocide, violent political upheaval
climate change, epidemics, accidents with nuclear power plants, hazardous waste disposals or particle accelerators

The motivation for our work is the fact that high-impact risks have several features that lead to their failure to attract adequate attention and resources.

The effects of high-impact events are rarely limited to one country. Hence, decision-makers only bear part of the cost of increasing the risk and enjoy only part of the benefit of precautionary investments to reduce it. The result is an incentive to under-invest in precautionary activity for any individual country or organisation. (Coordination Problem)
The human brain is not well equipped to deal with high-impact risks. There is an evolutionary bias to focus attention on immediate threats which our predecessors had the power to deal with. The options afforded by modern man´s dramatically increased scope of action to deal with high-impact risks are not reflected by our natural reflexes as to what dangers to pay attention to. (Psychological Bias)
Many high-impact events have a low probability to occur within any one life-time. Any precautionary investments are consequently partially to the benefit of future generations. Employing discount factors observed in common investment decisions to high-impact risks suggests the irrelevance of the well-being of future generations living in a few hundred years from now. The resulting resource allocation is at odds with common sense and ethical considerations. (Intergenerational Problem)
The actual effects of high-impact events typically depend on complex systems, like the global climate. This makes high-impact risks hard to understand and quantify. It also makes them hard to communicate to mobilise the political will and economic resources to address them. (Complexity & Communication Problem)

Our Mission

High-Impact-Risks.org aims to help overcome these problems to increase resources allocated to better understanding and dealing with high-impact risks.