OFF

Ukraine Aid is set to pass now – time is critical

Nobles et al 11-19 Ryan Austin Nobles (born September 15, 1976) is an American journalist.
He was a Congressional correspondent for CNN, and also a fill-in anchor for CNN shows, until
2022, when he joined NBC News, where he continues to cover Congress, based in Washington,
D.C. Previously, he worked for WWBT/NBC12. Julie Tsirken. Kristen Welker. “Congressional
Leaders are Aiming to Pass Ukraine and Israel Supplemental Aid Before Christmas”.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/congressional-leaders-are-aiming-pass-ukraine-
israel-supplemental-aid-rcna125845. LFS-SMR

Congressional leaders are hoping to muster a supplemental package to aid the war efforts in
Ukraine and Israel, as well as make improvements to the U.S. immigration system, by the end of
the year, according to multiple people involved in discussions.

The ambitious timeline would mean striking a deal that satisfies the funding requested by the
Department of Defense to aid conflict zones, while simultaneously crafting an immigration
package that not only provides resources for border security but includes a suite of policy
changes to appease conservatives without alienating progressive Democrats.

The Republican-led House has already passed an aid bill for Israel, but it includes hefty cuts to
the IRS and excludes humanitarian assistance — both items that the White House and Senate
Democrats find untenable. The question is how the next stage of negotiations will proceed.

Senate leaders, both Republican and Democratic, believe the best path toward writing a piece of
legislation that has a hope of passing both chambers and getting President Joe Biden’s signature
would likely need to originate in the Senate, where there is room for bipartisan negotiation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has made it clear that passing the supplemental
aid would be a top priority for him in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Taxes cost Biden’s political capital

Mark Penn, former political advisor, March 24, 2021

“Biden raising taxes would be ‘risky political move’: Former Clinton adviser,” Fox Business,
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/biden-raising-taxes-risky-clinton-adviser

“You’re in the middle of a pandemic, in which the leading economic spokespeople for the
administration just said that we have a long way for recovery. So obviously a big tax increase is
not a formula for economic recovery. So it's a risky political move to do a tax increase...until the
economy is on a stable and strong footing. Right now, the administration started out with a
decent honeymoon -- the public likes Joe Biden. I think they're waiting to really see more of him
in the upcoming press conference that's been long delayed. I think that the administration
should perhaps tread carefully here. The stimulus bill got passed -- almost 2 trillion -- but they're
going to try to put 2 to 4 trillion, the largest tax increase in history. The Democratic moderates
may not go along with it. The border is raging; there's an embarrassing China meeting...this
could be a short-lived honeymoon unless the administration slows down a bit, and accumulates
political capital here.

PC key.
Ayesha Rascoe & Mara Liasson 23. Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR.
"Politics chat: Biden appeals to Congress for aid, awaits new House Speaker". NPR. 10-22-2023.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/22/1207863733/politics-chat-biden-appeals-to-congress- for-aid-
awaits-new-house-speaker

RASCOE: The president is asking for aid for Israel , as well as for Ukraine and also for humanitarian assistance related
to those and other conflicts. I mean, is that something that the House of Representatives can act on without a speaker?

LIASSON: No, they can't. Right now, Biden's package cannot get a vote on the House floor until the House Republicans can figure out
how to function. They either can elect another speaker, or they can empower the acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, to put bills on
the floor. You know, if that happens, Biden's legislative strategy is pretty clear here. He's asking for a lot of things
all at once - tens of billions of dollars for aid to Israel, aid to Ukraine, money for humanitarian assistance in Gaza and money for
Taiwan, also for border security here at home.

I think the idea is even though there's opposition to each one of those pieces, there are
enough things in there that - for Biden to cobble together a majority . Republicans
don't want aid to Ukraine or humanitarian assistance to Gaza, but they do want aid to Israel
and border enforcement . Progressive Democrats do want aid to Ukraine and humanitarian
assistance but not aid to Israel. So we will see if old-fashioned logrolling as a legislative
strategy still works.

Ukraine aid is key to winning the war – absent that aid, Russia will easily take
Ukraine
Gramer et al 23; Robbie Gramer [diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy,
covering the State Department. Before he joined FP in 2016, he managed the NATO portfolio at
the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, for three years. He’s a graduate of
American University, where he studied international relations and European affairs], Amy
Mackinnon [an award-winning national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy. She
has reported from across Eastern Europe and was previously based in Moscow and in Tbilisi,
Georgia, as senior editor for the crisis reporting site Coda Story], Jack Detsch [Jack Detsch is
Foreign Policy’s Pentagon and national security reporter. He was previously a staff writer for Al-
Monitor covering intelligence and defense]; December 6th 2023; “Putin Could Prevail if Ukraine
Aid Cut”; Foreign Policy; https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/06/putin-russia-ukraine-war-
military-aid-republicans/#:~:text=Without%20continued%20U.S.%20military%20and,the%20war
%20in%20Russia's%20favor // LFS CHef

despite his forces’ underwhelming military performance, President Vladimir Putin

Russia watchers have long cautioned that,

believes he can bide his time and wait out Ukraine’s Western backers. The Russian leader has previously stated that Ukraine
would not survive beyond “a week” if Western support were to dry up. In a call with the media on Tuesday, Biden’s
national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, cautioned that Putin’s military objectives in Ukraine remain unchanged . “Russia is

still intending to continue to advance,” Sullivan said. “Its objectives in Ukraine are the full subjugation of that country,

not just the taking of some territory in the south and the east,” he said. U.S. military aid to Ukraine far outstrips that provided by any

other nation, and other Western states would be unable to fulfill the shortfall in the event that it is cut off. “I’ll be
dialing for dollars and howitzers on a daily basis, but the bottom line is there is no substitute for the United States and what we can

provide,” Sullivan said. The U.S. has also played an important leadership role in organizing some 50

countries to provide aid to Kyiv through the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. As Washington has given increasingly powerful
weapons to Ukraine, including Abrams battle tanks, it has given cover for European nations to follow suit. “The alliance is unlikely simply to
trundle forward under its own steam as if we hadn’t been there,” Kagan said. “This will, of course, also be a massive betrayal of the allies who
have also leaned forward in incurring Putin’s wrath,” he said. Foreign Policy interviewed 12 current and former officials, congressional aides, and experts on the ongoing political
battles in Washington over the future of Ukraine aid and how the administration has linked it to funding for other national security priorities. One conclusion stands out above

all others: There’s a palpable sense of dread among Ukraine’s biggest supporters in Washington and Europe. Without continued U.S. military and
economic aid for Kyiv, those supporters argue, Ukraine may not lose the war tomorrow, but it will undoubtedly
tip the scale of the war in Russia’s favor. Biden administration officials and many members of Congress argue that Ukraine’s war is
an existential struggle for peace in Europe: If Russia achieves a victory in Ukraine, it won’t stop
there , and could invade U.S. allies on NATO’s eastern flank next.

A Russian victory spills out

Lange & Masala 11-28; 11-28-23; Nico Lange is the Senior Advisor to GLOBSEC and former
Chief of Executive Staff at the German Federal Ministry of Defence. Carlo Masala is the Professor
of International Politics at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich; “War Against
Ukraine: What if Russia Wins?”; https://www.globsec.org/what-we-do/commentaries/war-
against-ukraine-what-if-russia-wins#:~:text=A%20Russian%20victory%20over%20Ukraine,their
%20ideas%20of%20international%20order.(LFS-SMR)

Vladimir Putin's war is aimed at the European security order. If he gets his way, it will be the end
of the world as we know it. No one in Europe would be safe anymore. Nico Lange is a Senior Advisor at
GLOBSEC. Carlo Masala is a Professor of International Politics at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich. The two
political scientists are concerned about the Russian war against Ukraine. If the defence against the aggressor fails, they see a
threatening scenario.

Sirens wail. Cell phone warning tones shrill a thousand times. Air raids in Paris, Warsaw, and Berlin. Cruise missiles and swarms of
drones invade European NATO airspace. NATO soldiers have been engaged in firefights in the Baltic States for days. In response to
Russian attacks there, NATO triggered Article 5. Russia responded with missiles. Some states withdrew from NATO and the EU, while
a hard core in the north and east put up fierce resistance. Germany and other countries are torn. Violent riots break out during
heated protests in many German, French, Italian, and Spanish cities, and the police must take robust action. Extremist and populist
parties benefit enormously from the situation, not least because global trade and the economy collapse. In the Indo-Pacific, China
has been launching attacks on Taiwan for weeks. Meanwhile, the United Nations is passing resolutions against the European NATO
Members because many African, Latin American, and Asian states are voting with Russia and China in the General Assembly.

It is, therefore,
Does that sound exaggerated? No! If Vladimir Putin wins his war of aggression, this scenario is realistic.
worth supporting Ukraine in its defence against the Russian aggressor with everything Europe
and the United States have at their disposal - because much more is at stake than the territorial
integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. Putin's attack is aimed at the European security order. To make this clear, we
embark on an intellectual journey and ask the question: What if Russia were to win this war?

We understand winning to mean a situation in which, as part of negotiations or because of military realities on the ground, Russia is,
in fact, permanently awarded the parts of Ukraine's territory that it currently occupies or conquers further.
Ukraine would then remain a permanent trouble spot in Eastern Europe. The Ukrainian Armed
Forces would continue their fight against the Russian invaders, either regularly or as partisans,
underground and with terrorist attacks. Constant attacks and assaults would continue the war
on another level, while Russia would continue the violence in the occupied territories with
purges, murder, child abductions and torture. Both the territories occupied by Russia and the
rest of Ukraine would be permanently unstable.
More Ukrainians would leave the country. Some because they do not want to live in the Russian-occupied territories and cannot live
there due to the Russian repression that is to be expected, and others because a remaining Ukraine that is still at war offers no
prospects for adults and children. The high degree of militarization of society, mass exodus and the de facto loss of territories would
encourage extremist and violent forces in Ukraine. The rapid development and operational readiness of Ukrainian nuclear weapons
would also become more likely. Europe would be dominated for years by a permanent conflict with nuclear weapons on both sides.
This could also result in an ongoing debate on nuclear armament for additional countries.

Refugees and expulsion would be a huge issue for Europe at a time when the EU is already overwhelmed by illegal migration from
other parts of the world.

If Russia emerges victorious from this conflict, it will give a considerable boost to Russian
nationalism and neo-imperialism. With a revanchist "We're back!", Russia would plan new
military attacks in the rush of victory against the backdrop of the experience that the collective
West has nodded off in front of Russian nuclear weapons and Russian military power and move
on to open political blackmail of the collapsed West with energy and raw material weapons. Kyiv
and the rest of Ukraine, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova would be just as clear military
targets as the Baltic states. What else should make Moscow believe that the NATO states - in the
face of Russian nuclear threats - will rush to the aid of their territorially small member states
with all their military might?

In short, no one in Europe would be safe anymore. Humanitarian, economic, and military costs
would rise rapidly, far more than the current shortfall of at least two per cent of defence
spending as a percentage of gross domestic product.
What would be necessary for our security would be almost impossible to communicate within many NATO member states at this
point. A victorious Russia would give the right-wing and left-wing extremists in many European countries a considerable boost. They
could justifiably claim that they have always been right in saying that it is not worth supporting Ukraine, as it would lose anyway.
Russia is simply a power factor that you must live with and come to terms with, and in view of
its nuclear power, the only option in the end is submission. Russia would accompany this
development with intensive influence operations, open support and financing of populists and
extremists, and disinformation. Extremists who could win upcoming elections, form minority
governments or even enter governments as minor or major coalition partners would become
more likely in Europe.
Such a development would have a direct impact on the European Union, which right-wing and left-wing extremists are equally
opposed to, as well as on NATO, from which some of these parties would rather leave yesterday than tomorrow. Added to this are
the domestic political developments in the USA. NATO's days would be numbered. Russia would dominate Europe because of such a
development. Incidentally, this is precisely the aim of the "new security order in Europe", which, according to Putin himself, is the
strategic goal of his war against Ukraine.

A Russian victory against Ukraine would not only have catastrophic consequences for Europe
but also for the rest of the world. We are already seeing how China, Iran and other actors are
assessing the willingness of the "West" to stand up robustly for its values and the liberal world
order. It is no coincidence that, in the shadow of Russia's war of aggression, the Middle East is
being destabilized and that China is brutally testing its borders with the Philippines. Azerbaijan
took advantage of the West's distraction caused by the Russian war of aggression to launch a
second attack on its neighbour Armenia and to recapture the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which
is disputed under international law. From a global perspective, this would only be the beginning. Stronger states,
in the belief that there would be no significant international reaction, could invade smaller
states, settle old territorial scores, or dare to reach for regional supremacy. From this
perspective, a Chinese attack on Taiwan would not only be conceivable but highly likely. The
"reorganization of the world order", as Putin recently put it, would proceed with all its might
and force.
The rest of Ukraine and many other states in the world would draw the logical conclusion from the Russian war of aggression that
they cannot protect the international community of states and the rules-based order but only their own nuclear weapons .
A new
round of nuclear proliferation would be the consequence, at the end of which there could be
fifteen or more nuclear powers rather than the current nine. This would increase the risks of
miscalculation and the possibility of technical failure.

A Russian victory over Ukraine would herald the end of the world as we know it . The West
would be disavowed as a guarantor of stability, security, and order. Revisionist actors such as
China, Russia, Iran, and others, together with their allies, would impose their ideas of
international order. The universality of human rights would be relativized; autocratic regimes
would be strengthened globally, democracy would be weakened worldwide and made
contemptible, and global flows of goods and global prosperity would be diverted away from us.
Our lives in Europe would be more insecure, poorer, and lonelier.
CASE
 1NC — Baby Bonds
First, there is a plan flaw — “providing baby bonds” is not the technical term for
the social security extension, i.e., SSDI, OASI, SSI, etc.

But also, the plan doesn’t say that the affirmative is funded by a capital gains
tax, that means the plan is left without funding.

Racial inequality is decreasing in the status quo with scholarships, increased

public funding, etc.

They cant resolve the minority wealth gap when the plan is universal — it’s a
zero sum adjustment---actually the plan makes it worse — if the baby gets
more money based on family income that exacerbates the problem because
racial minorities earn comparatively less.
Cineas 21 [Fabiola Cineas, Cineas is a reporter at Vox.com, where she covers race and policy, Vox, "Baby bonds
could shrink the Black-white wealth gap," 02/17/21, https://www.vox.com/22268500/baby-bonds-black-white-
wealth-gap-booker-pressley, Date Accessed: 08/30/23 **figures omitted**] // SMW LS

Under the American Opportunity Accounts Act reintroduced this month by Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a baby
bonds program would give every child in America a savings account seeded with $1,000 when
they are born. Children would receive up to $2,000 more each year, depending on their family’s
income, and wouldn’t be able to access the funds until they turn 18. A child from a low-income
household has the chance to receive around $46,000 by then, to be used for buying a home,
paying for school, or starting a business. “To truly ‘build back better’ our economy, we cannot ignore the extreme and
persistent wealth inequality that deprives kids of economic opportunity right out of the gate,” Booker told Vox. “ We know this
growing gap has been driven in part by federal policies and a federal tax code that subsidizes
asset building for some Americans but fails to extend and expand that opportunity for all
Americans. Baby bonds will start to level the playing field.” While there are still details to be ironed out about
the specifics of baby bonds — including how 18-year-olds would access the investment and how the government would regulate the
funds — numerous economists and lawmakers point to it as a step toward racial wealth parity. And it’s a policy Congress can take
action on today. Smith believes the bill would completely change what’s possible for her children and grandchildren. “ This
would
give them a boost in the right direction and act as a bridge opportunity and the chance to build
wealth,” she said. “And it would be a recognition from our government that some of us keep having
to play catch-up knowing that we will never, ever catch up.”

This evidence doesn’t say if rich or poor babies get more money — that means
the plan is too vague and gets misinterpreted by congress.
And, this Cineas evidence says baby’s get the money when they are 18—that
means their lives aren’t materially better until they are an adult---that means
the timeframe of the disadvantage is more important.

Abusive parents t/c

 1NC — Solvency
1 – Their first card says that they give people 46K all at once by giving 2k each
year BUT SS benefits are about 1K each month which, after 3 years outweighs
the baby bonds – meaning current social security benefits already cover the
issue of wealth inequality

2 – not all 18 year olds can be trusted with 46k, some might use it for poor
decisions, which ensures they don’t solve wealth inequality

3–
 1NC — Framing
Existential risks outweigh.
Ord 20. Toby Ord, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Oxford University & world-renowned
risk-assessment expert who’s advised the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the World
Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council and the UK Prime Minister’s Office. (3-3-2020,
“The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity,” Hachette Book Group & Bloomsbury
Publishing, https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Precipice/3aSiDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0,
Google Books)//pacc + AM *bracketed for clarity*

UNDERSTANDING EXISTENTIAL RISK

Humanity’s future is ripe with possibility . We have achieved a rich understanding of the
world we inhabit and a level of health and prosperity of which our ancestors could only dream. We
have begun to explore the other worlds in the heavens above us, and to create virtual worlds completely beyond our
ancestors’ comprehension. We know of almost no limits to what we might ultimately achieve.

Human extinction would foreclose our future . It would destroy our potential. It would
eliminate all possibilities but one: a world bereft [lacking] of human flourishing. Extinction
would bring about this failed world and lock it in forever —there would be no coming back .

The philosopher Nick Bostrom showed that extinction is not the only way this could happen: there are other
catastrophic outcomes in which we lose not just the present, but all our potential for the future.

Consider a world in ruins: animmense catastrophe has triggered a global collapse of civilization ,
reducing humanity to a pre-agricultural state . During this catastrophe, the Earth’s environment was
damaged so severely that it has become impossible for the survivors to ever reestablish

civilization . Even if such a catastrophe did not cause our extinction , it would have a similar
effect on our future. The vast realm of futures currently open to us would have collapse d to a

narrow range of meager options. We would have a failed world with no way back .
Or consider a world in chains: in a future reminiscent of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the entire world has become
locked under the rule of an oppressive totalitarian regime, determined to perpetuate itself. Through powerful, technologically
enabled indoctrination, surveillance and enforcement, it has become impossible for even a handful of dissidents to find each
other, let alone stage an uprising. With everyone on Earth living under such rule, the regime is stable from threats, internal and
external. If such a regime could be maintained indefinitely, then descent into this totalitarian future would also have much in
common with extinction: just a narrow range of terrible futures remaining, and no way out.

[FIGURE 2.1 Omitted]

Following Bostrom, I shall call these “existential catastrophes,” defining them as follows: 3
An existential catastrophe is the destruction of humanity’s longterm potential.

An existential risk is a risk that threatens the destruction of humanity’s longterm

potential .

These definitions capture the idea that the outcome of an existential catastrophe is both
dismal and irrevocable . We will not just fail to fulfill our potential, but this very potential
itself will be permanently lost . While I want to keep the official definitions succinct, there are several areas that
warrant clarification.

First, I am understanding humanity’s longterm potential in terms of the set of all possible futures that remain open to us. 4
This is an expansive idea of possibility, including everything that humanity could eventually achieve,
even if we have yet to invent the means of achieving it . 5 But it follows that while our choices can lock
things in, closing off possibilities, they can’t open up new ones. So any reduction in humanity’s potential should be
understood as permanent . The challenge of our time is to preserve our vast potential, and to
protect it against the risk of future destruction. The ultimate purpose is to allow our descendants to fulfill our

potential , realizing one of the best possible futures open to us.

While it may seem abstract at this scale, this is really a familiar idea that we encounter every day. Consider a child with high
longterm potential: with futures open to her in which she leads a great life. It is important that her potential is preserved: that
her best futures aren’t cut off due to accident, trauma or lack of education. It is important that her potential is protected: that
we build in safeguards to make such a loss of potential extremely unlikely. And it is important that she ultimately fulfills her
potential: that she ends up taking one of the best paths open to her. So too for humanity.

Existential risks threaten the destruction of humanity’s potential. This includes cases where this destruction is complete (such
as extinction) and where it is nearly complete, such as a permanent collapse of civilization in which the possibility for some
very minor types of flourishing remain, or where there remains some remote chance of recovery. 6 I
leave the
thresholds vague, but it should be understood that in any existential catastrophe the greater
part of our potential is gone and very little remains .

Second, my focus on humanity in the definitions is not supposed to exclude considerations of

the value of the environment , other animals, successors to Homo sapiens, or creatures elsewhere in the cosmos. It is not
that I think only humans count. Instead, it is that humans are the only beings we know of that are
responsive to moral reasons and moral argument—the beings who can examine the world and decide to do
what is best. If we fail , that upward force, that capacity to push toward what is best or what is just , will

vanish from the world.

Our potential is a matter of what humanity can achieve through the combined actions of
each and every human . The value of our actions will stem in part from what we do to and for humans, but it will
depend on the effects of our actions on non-humans too. If we somehow give rise to new kinds of moral agents in the future,
the term “humanity” in my definition should be taken to include them.

My focus on humanity prevents threats to a single country or culture from counting as existential risks. There is a similar term
that gets used this way—when people say that something is “an existential threat to this country.” Setting aside the fact that
these claims are usually hyperbole, they are expressing a similar idea: that something threatens to permanently destroy the
longterm potential of a country or culture.

Third, any notion of risk

must involve some kind of probability. What kind is involved in existential risk?
Understanding the probability in terms of objective long-run frequencies won’t work, as the
existential catastrophes we are concerned with can only ever happen once, and will always be
unprecedented until the moment it is too late . We can’t say the probability of an
existential catastrophe is precisely zero just because it hasn’t happened yet.

Situations like these

require an evidential sense of probability , which describes the
appropriate degree of belief we should have on the basis of the available information. This is
the familiar type of probability used in courtrooms, banks and betting shops. When I speak of the probability of an existential
catastrophe, I will mean the credence humanity should have that it will occur , in light of our
best evidence .9
There are many utterly terrible outcomes that do not count as existential catastrophes.

One way this could happen is if there were no single precipitous event, but a multitude of smaller failures. This is because I
take on the usual sense of catastrophe as a single, decisive event, rather than any combination of events that is bad in sum. If
we were to squander our future simply by continually treating each other badly, or by never getting around to doing anything
great, this could be just as bad an outcome but wouldn’t have come about via a catastrophe.

Alternatively, there might be a single catastrophe, but one that leaves open some way for humanity to eventually recover.
From our own vantage, looking out to the next few generations, this may appear equally bleak. But a thousand years hence it
may be considered just one of several dark episodes in the human story. A
true existential catastrophe must by
its very nature be the decisive moment of human history—the point where we failed .
Even catastrophes large enough to bring about the global collapse of civilization may fall short of being existential
catastrophes. While colloquially referred to as “the end of the world,” a global collapse of civilization need not be the end of the
human story. It has the required severity, but may not be permanent or irrevocable.

In this book, I shall use the term civilization collapse quite literally, to refer to an outcome where humanity across the globe
loses civilization (at least temporarily), being reduced to a pre-agricultural way of life. The term is often used loosely to refer
merely to a massive breakdown of order, the loss of modern technology, or an end to our culture. But I am talking about a
world without writing, cities, law, or any of the other trappings of civilization.

This would be a very severe disaster and extremely hard to trigger. For all the historical pressures on civilizations, never once
has this happened— not even on the scale of a continent.10 The fact that Europe survived losing 25 to 50 percent of its
population in the Black Death, while keeping civilization firmly intact, suggests that triggering the collapse of civilization
would require more than 50 percent fatality in every region of the world.11

Even if civilization did collapse, it is likely that it could be reestablished. As we have seen, civilization has already been
independently established at least seven times by isolated peoples.12 While one might think resource depletion could make
this harder, it is more likely that it has become substantially easier. Most disasters short of human extinction would leave our
domesticated animals and plants, as well as copious material resources in the ruins of our cities—it is much easier to re-forge
iron from old railings than to smelt it from ore. Even expendable resources such as coal would be much easier to access, via
abandoned reserves and mines, than they ever were in the eighteenth century. 13 Moreover, evidence that civilization is
possible, and the tools and knowledge to help rebuild, would be scattered across the world.

There are, however, two close connections between the collapse of civilization and existential risk. First, a collapse would
count as an existential catastrophe if it were unrecoverable. For example, it is conceivable that some form of extreme climate
change or engineered plague might make the planet so inhospitable that humanity would be irrevocably reduced to scattered
foragers.14 And second, a global collapse of civilization could increase the chance of extinction, by leaving us more vulnerable
to subsequent catastrophe.

One way a collapse could lead to extinction is if the population of the largest remaining group fell below the minimum viable
population—the level needed for a population to survive. There is no precise figure for this, as it is usually defined
probabilistically and depends on many details of the situation: where the population is, what technology they have access to,
the sort of catastrophe they have suffered. Estimates range from hundreds of people up to tens of thousands.15 If a
catastrophe directly reduces human population to below these levels, it will be more useful to classify it as a direct extinction
event, rather than an unrecoverable collapse. And I expect that this will be one of the more common pathways to extinction.

We rarely think seriously about risks to humanity’s entire potential . We encounter them mostly in
action films, where our emotional reactions are dulled by their overuse as an easy way to heighten the drama.16 Or we see
them in online lists of “ten ways the world could end,” aimed primarily to thrill and entertain. Since the end of the Cold War,
we rarely encounter sober discussions by our leading thinkers on what extinction would mean for us, our cultures or
humanity. 17 And so in casual contexts people are sometimes flippant about the prospect of human extinction.

But when a risk is made vivid and credible—when it is clear that billions of lives and all
future generations are actually on the line —the importance of protecting humanity’s
longterm potential is not, for most people, controversial. If we learned that a large asteroid was heading toward
Earth, posing a greater than 10 percent chance of human extinction later this century, there would be little debate about
whether to make serious efforts to build a deflection system, or to ignore the issue and run the risk. To the contrary,
responding to the threat would immediately become one of the world’s top prioriti es. Thus
our lack of concern about these threats is much more to do with not yet believing that there are such threats, than it is about
seriously doubting the immensity of the stakes.
Yet it is important to spend a little while trying to understand more clearly the different sources of this importance. Such an
understanding can buttress feeling and inspire action; it can bring to light new considerations; and it can aid in
decisions about how to set our priorities .

Extinciton is a distinct ontological category of death because its irreversible.

The above arguments disprove the butter fly effect