I have done a modest amount of online writing in several web publications, blogs, and forums over the years. Here is a summary of that writing. The views expressed may not always reflect my current views.
In The Jersey Journal/nj.com:
* Even with electric vehicles, an expanded Turnpike Extension would be bad for the environment, published 9 January 2023. (GCRI blog post)
In City Limits (my page there):
* New York's housing plans must address affordability-& climate change, published 29 December 2022. (GCRI blog post)
In BBC Future:
* How to evaluate the risk of nuclear war, published 10 March 2022.
* Why catastrophes can change the course of humanity, published 8 April 2019.
In the Effective Altruism Forum (my page there):
* Doing better on climate change, published 7 October 2022.
* Early reflections and resources on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, published 18 March 2022.
* The case for long-term corporate governance of AI (with Jonas Schuett), published 3 November 2021.
In Project Syndicate (my page there):
* Preventing an AI Apocalypse, published 16 May 2018. Reprinted in The New Times (Rwanda), Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates), World Economic Forum, MarketWatch, Japan Times, Asia Times, Médias24 (Morocco), Times of Oman, Khmer Times, Taipei Times, Dagens Perspektiv (Oslo)
I have a (currently inactive) column at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - see my page there.
* What Trump means for global catastrophic risk, published 9 December 2016. Covered in Quartz, The Next Chapter, NonProphets, and Elite Daily.
* Tackling near and far AI threats at once, published 6 October 2016.
* Japan should restart more nuclear power plants, published 20 October 2015.
* A picture's power to prevent, published 5 August 2015.
* Breaking down the risk of nuclear deterrence failure, published 27 July 2015.
* Should nuclear devices be used to stop asteroids?, published 16 June 2015.
* Is Stratospheric Geoengineering Worth the Risk?, published 5 June 2015.
* On Winter-Safe Deterrence and Interdisciplinary Research, published 2 April 2015 as part of a roundtable discussion The Winter-Safe Deterrence Debate.
* On Winter-Safe Deterrence and Biological Weapons, published 20 March 2015 as part of a roundtable discussion The Winter-Safe Deterrence Debate.
* Deterrence, Without Nuclear Winter, published 9 March 2015.
* Stopping Killer Robots and Other Future Threats, published 22 February 2015.
* Support the Austria Pledge, published 27 January 2015.
* Nuclear War, the Black Swan We Can Never See, published 21 November 2014.
* The Lesson of Lake Toba, published 21 October 2014.
In Nautilus:
* Space colonization and the meaning of life, published December 2016.
In The Guardian Political Science blog:
* When robots kill (with Trevor White), published 23 July 2015.
In Medium (my page there):
* Getting Smart About Global Catastrophes, in special section 7 Days of Genius, published 16 March 2015.
In Scientific American Blogs:
* Should We Let Uploaded Brains Take Over the World?, published 18 October 2016.
* Antinuclear Austria Should Lead the Way on Nuclear Power, published 29 September 2015.
* Our Final Invention: Is AI the Defining Issue for Humanity?, published 11 October 2013. Reprinted in Yahoo News, Huffington Post, and Medium
* When Global Catastrophes Collide: The Climate Engineering Double Catastrophe, published 6 February 2013. Reprinted in Yahoo News and Huffington Post
* Hurricane Sandy Hints at the Perils of Global Catastrophe, published 6 November 2012. Reprinted in Yahoo News and Huffington Post
At the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, where I was an Affiliate Scholar
* What Are the Best Ways to Prevent Global Catastrophe?, published 26 February 2015.
* Planetary Boundaries And Global Catastrophic Risk, published 21 October 2014.
* How to Create an International Treaty for Emerging Technologies (with Grant Wilson), published 21 February 2013.
* Seven Reasons For Integrated Emerging Technologies Governance, published 23 January 2013.
For The Huffington Post (my page there):
* Best And Worst Case Scenarios for Ukraine Crisis: World Peace And Nuclear War, published 7 March 2014.
* The Central Library Plan Deserves an Educated Public Debate, published 5 March 2014.
* Taming the Gigaton Gorilla: Using Syria Diplomacy to Help Avoid U.S.-Russia Nuclear War, published 15 September 2013. Reprinted in Medium
* When Global Catastrophes Collide: The Climate Engineering Double Catastrophe (reprinted from Scientific American)
* Hurricane Sandy Hints at the Perils of Global Catastrophe (reprinted from Scientific American)
* Dedicated Bus Corridors Could Help Get New York Moving Again, published 31 October 2012 (in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy)
* Earth Day, Conspiracy and World Government, published 22 April 2012 (reprinted from FutureChallenges)
I previously wrote for the (now inactive) website FutureChallenges.org, a project of the Bertelsmann Foundation of Germany. My articles there are:
* Anticipating Catastrophe (pdf), published 26 September 2012.
* Backwards Steps For American Democracy (pdf), published 13 September 2012. Reprinted by the Bertelsmann Foundation 19 Sept 2012
* The Planet Needs Our Help (pdf), published 1 September 2012
* Curing Aging Could Transform Society (pdf), published 16 May 2012
* Earth Day, Conspiracy and World Government (pdf), published 23 April 2012. Reprinted in Huffington Post
* Global Disaster Recovery (pdf), published 17 April 2012
* When Our Technology Is Used Against Us (pdf), published 9 April 2012
* 'Friends' of the Environment (pdf), published 9 April 2012
* Activist Fatigue In The United States And The Arab World (pdf), published 18 August 2011
* American Democracy And Global Climate Change (pdf), published 18 August 2011
* Urban Gentrification In The United States (pdf), published 1 December 2010
* US 2010 Elections: Bleak Prospects For Climate Change (pdf), published 20 October 2010
Circa 2006-2007, my main online project was Felicifia, an online community discussing the ethics of utilitarianism and related topics. The term "Felicifia" is an adaptation of "felicific calculus", a term that Jeremy Bentham used to describe the analysis that a utilitarian would use for evaluating possible actions. I originally launched Felicifia at felicifia.blogspot.com; see this for a summary. That site helped me connected with David Pearce, Jason Matheny, and Alan Dawrst. Together we launched felicifia.com using the SoapBlox platform to make it more of a community site. As traffic at felicifia.com slowed down, the community, lead by Ryan Carey and others (some of whom write anonymously), decided to switch to a forum format, which was established at felicifia.org. The URL felicifia.com was later converted to a wiki. An archive of the forum is available at https://felicifia.github.io. Some history of Felicifia and related projects here.
I have also written at a few other websites over the years:
* I wrote about 15 blog posts to DailyKos, including a series on human extinction. DailyKos covers many topics but is primarily a partisan political site. My views are ultimately grounded in ethics, not politics, but I consider politics to be nonetheless important.
* I wrote three posts at the blog Ecology and Economics: see this, this, and this.
* I wrote one post at the SIAI blog: see this.
* Finally, when I was living in Boston, I participated in the archboston.org forum under the name quadratdackel.
Created 8 Mar 2010 * Updated 10 Jan 2023
