Anthropic signature: strange anti-correlations

Neat. The minimal example would be if each risk had 50% chance of happening: then the observable correlation coefficient would be -0.5 (not -1, since there is 1/3 chance to get neither risk). If the chance of no disaster happening is N/(N+2), then the correlation will be -1/(N+1).

It is interesting to note that many insurance copula methods are used to make size-dependent correlations, but these are nearly always of the type of stronger positive correlations in the tail. This suggests - unsurprisingly - that insurance does not encounter much anthropic risk.

The effect is even clearer if we have a probabilistic relation between pandemics, recessions and extinction (something like: extinction risk proportional to product of recession size times pandemic size). Then we would see an anti-correlation rising smoothly with intensity.

So something like the plot of asteroid impact sizes vs time in "The Anthropic Shadow" where the upper-right corner is empty?

Should we be expecting people who could have hastened AGI to die before their time?

Interesting. Something's a bit odd, though. If the events are rare, then it's hard to know what the correlations are with any precision. If the events are common, then, yes, we should be able to see the anti-correlation, but this would be a really bad sign -- there'd be no reason to think that the disastrous event where both co-occur isn't right around the corner.

ETA: I exaggerate a bit. There'd be no reason if the independence model was true. If, in reality, there was some circumstance specially protecting us somehow the situation wouldn't have to be dire.

In the biz we call this selection bias. The most fun example of this is the tale of Abraham Wald and the Surviving Bombers.

There is a strange correlation between paradox of young Sun (it had lower luminosity) and stable Earth temperature which was provided by higher greenhouse effect. As sun goes brighter, CO2 declined. It was even analyses as evidence of anthropic effects. 

 

In his article "The Anthropic Principle in Cosmology and Geology" [Shcherbitsky, 1999], A. S. Shcherbakov thoroughly examines the anthropic principle's effect using the historical dynamics of Earth's atmosphere as an example. He writes: "It is known that geological evolution proceeds within an oscillatory regime. Its extreme points correspond to two states, known as the 'hot planet' and 'white planet'... The 'hot planet' situation occurs when large volumes of gaseous components, primarily carbon dioxide, are released from Earth's mantle...

As calculations show, the gradual evaporation of ocean water just 10 meters deep can create such greenhouse conditions that water begins to boil. This process continues without additional heat input. The endpoint of this process is the boiling away of the oceans, with near-surface temperatures and pressures rising to hundreds of atmospheres and degrees... Geological evidence indicates that Earth has four times come very close to total glaciation. An equal number of times, it has stopped short of ocean evaporation. Why did neither occur? There seems to be no common and unified saving cause. Instead, each time reveals a single and always unique circumstance. It is precisely when attempting to explain these that geological texts begin to show familiar phrases like '...extremely low probability,' 'if this geological factor had varied by a small fraction,' etc...

In the fundamental monograph 'History of the Atmosphere' [Budyko, 1985], there is discussion of an inexplicable correlation between three phenomena: solar activity rhythms, mantle degassing stages, and the evolution of life. 'The correspondence between atmospheric physicochemical regime fluctuations and biosphere development needs can only be explained by random coordination of direction and speed of unrelated processes - solar evolution and Earth's evolution. Since the probability of such coordination is exceptionally small, this leads to the conclusion about the exceptional rarity of life (especially its higher forms) in the Universe.'"

Great Post.

You should probably include war as another resource-depleting event which amplifies the effects of an epidemic.

This is nice in principle, although I'm not sure if there's much chance of finding enough events to observe a real effect.

It might be easier to detect a positive correlation on small events that goes missing on larger ones?

Should the first blurb begin "Imagine that civilization would definitely be destroyed by" instead of "Imagine that the only way that civilization could be destroyed was by"? That's what it seems like to me based on the second blurb.

Would resources have been of use in fighting pandemics before modern medicine?