80,000 Hours Podcast With Rob Wiblin

If a rich country were really committed to pursuing an active biological weapons program, there’s not much we could do to stop them. With enough money and persistence, they’d be able to buy equipment, and hire people to carry out the work. But what we can do is intervene before they make that decision. Today’s guest, Jaime Yassif — Senior Fellow for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) — thinks that stopping states from wanting to pursue dangerous bioscience in the first place is one of our key lines of defence against global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs). Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. It helps to understand why countries might consider developing biological weapons. Jaime says there are three main possible reasons: 1. Fear of what their adversary might be up to 2. Belief that they could gain a tactical or strategic advantage, with limited risk of getting caught 3. Belief that even if they are caught, they are unlikely to be held