I’d be interested to know: what is missing from my new list of causes of bad things and potential types of solutions? Thanks to those of you who commented on my prior version!

Causes of bad things in the world:

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1) EXTERNAL CAUSES

1i) Nature or evolution (e.g., malaria, cancer) -> Potential solutions: technological development, such as medical cures

1ii) Bad luck (e.g., landslides, earthquakes, droughts) -> charity, government programs providing social safety nets

1iii) Scarcity (e.g., insufficient food or water in an area) -> migration away from high scarcity areas, technological development to increase food production

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2) FAILINGS OF HUMAN NATURE

2i) Highly selfish actions by non-evil people (e.g., some of the crimes that are committed, some of the manipulation that occurs) -> cultural norms discouraging selfishness, cultural norms to punish those taking highly selfish actions

2ii) Harmful actions taken in highly emotional, confused, or desperate mental states (e.g., crimes of passion, harmful, desperate reactions out of fear, harm caused during extreme mental illness) -> widely available and effective mental health treatment, widespread education/training related to mental health and emotional regulation

2iii) Well-intentioned ideologues who are convinced that their simple but wrong model of the world is the absolute truth (e.g., some of the genocides and wars, many harmful yet well-intentioned policies) -> rationality education/training, a robust culture of respectful disagreement and debate

2iv) Cognitive biases leading to actions with severe negative consequences (e.g., greatly misjudging whether a project will bring enough benefit to be worth the cost, excessive fear towards or devaluing of ‘othered’ outsiders leading to mistreatment or harm to outsiders, lack of preparation for likely occurrences that are not salient) -> rationality education/training, careful design of systems to counteract biases, strong moral norms of respect towards all, moral circle expansion

2v) Retaliation or revenge (e.g., cycles of retribution) -> a culture of forgiveness, effective dispute resolution methods and institutions, reliable enforcement of laws

2vi) Evil people acting alone (e.g., serial murder, child abuse) -> effective police forces, high crime clearance rates, enforcement of laws, scientific investigation into the root causes of evil

2vii) Evil people who rally supporters (e.g., some genocides and wars, some extractive government policies) -> strong norms around truth telling and social punishment for lying, a robust culture of respectful disagreement and debate, a culture of empathy toward and acceptance of those who are different than you, a well-educated and informed citizenry, scientific investigation into the root causes of evil, a strong constitution, a strong independent judiciary, strong norms around maintaining freedom and independence of thought

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3) CHALLENGES OF COORDINATION AND INFORMATION

3i) Negative-sum competition (e.g., fighting over food when there isn’t enough to go around) -> technological innovation to increase abundance, thoroughly enforced laws forbidding negative-sum behaviors

3ii) Unintended side effects of actions that are not innately unethical (e.g., addiction caused by the invention of social media, new promising-seeming medical treatments that turn out to have horrendous side effects) -> a robust and low-transaction cost systems for those who were harmed to be compensated by those who caused the harm, hard to undermine enforced regulation requiring organizations to ameliorate harms once they have been identified

3iii) Collective action problems and negative externalities caused by individually reasonable behavior (e.g., pollution, climate change, overuse of resources) -> methods for assigning prices to negative externalities so that someone bears the cost, regulation to limit negative externalities

3iv) Prisoner’s dilemmas and difficulties of pre-commitment and coordination (e.g., arms races, such as with nuclear weapons) -> technology to facilitate coordination and simultaneous action, public projects by governments and private donors

What other broad causes of bad things or potential types of solutions am I missing?

This piece was first written on November 2, 2025, and first appeared on my website on November 17, 2025.

Here are a few important things to keep in mind:

• The most common symptoms of COVID-19 seem to be fever, dry cough, fatigue, sputum production, shortness of breath, and sore throat. Not everyone who contracts the illness experiences all of these symptoms.
• Unfortunately, even when the virus is not fatal, it can make you sick for an extended period of time. While most who contract the illness experience mild symptoms, the more severe symptoms can be much worse than the flu.
• The fatality rate from the virus appears to be low for people under age 40 who are in good health. The risk grows substantially for older people and people with severe pre-existing medical conditions. Even if you aren’t too worried about getting it yourself, it’s important to avoid spreading the virus to elderly people or people with severe pre-existing medical conditions.

Some common sense precautions you can take now:

1. Practice avoiding touching your eyes/nose/mouth when you’re out of the home (this is difficult, but you can get better over time).
2. Stock up on at least two weeks of extra (non-perishable) food. If things get bad in your area, this will enable you to stay home if necessary. Keep in mind that the worst time to get infected is when there are too many cases for the hospital system in your area to handle. So if that occurs, and you have the ability, you may want to stay home for a while to ride it out. In the event that you get sick, it’s also really nice to already have food at home, as you may not feel well enough to go out, and you won’t want to expose others to the virus. Of course, if you remain unaffected, you can just eat the extra food over time.
3. Wash your hands more thoroughly and more often than normal. Especially be conscientious about washing them after coming into contact with people, and immediately after returning to your home. Bring hand sanitizer (that is at least 60% alcohol) with you when you’re out of the house for an extended period, and use it after riding public transportation. Note though that the combination of soap and water is seemingly even more effective than hand sanitizer, but hand sanitizer is convenient when on the go.
4. Stock up on any needed medications, so that you won’t run out.
5. Call anyone you know may struggle to care for themselves in the event that the virus gets bad. Make sure they have what they need (e.g., that they have stocked up on their medications and that they have plenty of food at home).

To be prepared, just in case things get bad in your area, I recommend reading the CDCs information site about how to prepare for a potential pandemic:

https://www.ready.gov/pandemic

And here is a post I wrote, that has a lot of more detailed information about the virus:

https://www.clearerthinking.org/single-post/2020/02/26/Coronavirus-what-you-need-to-know

Additionally, here is a Wiki I started to put together that tries to address some important questions about the virus. If you have additional useful information, please add it (the Wiki is freely editable):

https://cov19.spencergreenberg.com/

This more recent post by a doctor also contains a lot of very useful information:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/02/coronavirus-links-speculation-open-thread/

This website can help you stay up to date on where cases are happening (just check to make sure the last time it’s been updated, which is shown in the bottom left hand corner):

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

And here is a forecasting website where the wisdom of the crowds is used to make predictions about how likely the virus is to get to different levels (which is constantly updated with new, aggregated forecasts every day – the numbers can shift a lot):

Predicted cases in the U.S. by April 27th

Predicted infections worldwide by end of 2020

Predicted fatalities worldwide by end of 2020