The best arguments against the VWH solution is in the post Enlightenment values in a vulnerable world, especially once we are realistic about what incentives states are under:

The above risks arise from a global state which is loyally following its mandate of protecting humanity’s future from dangerous inventions. A state which is not so loyal to this mandate would still find these tools for staying in power instrumental, but would use them in pursuit of much less useful goals. Bostrom provides no mechanism for making sure that this global government stays aligned with the goal of reducing existential risk and conflates a government with the ability to enact risk reducing policies with one that will actually enact risk reducing policies. But the ruling class of this global government could easily preside over a catastrophic risk to their citizens and still enrich themselves. Even with strong-minded leaders and robust institutions, a global government with this much power is a single point of failure for human civilization. Power within this state will be sought after by every enterprising group whether they care about existential risk or not. All states today are to some extent captured by special interests which lead them to do net social harm for the good of some group. If the global state falls into the control of a group with less than global interests, the alignment of the state towards global catastrophic risks will not hold.

A state which is aligned with the interests of some specific religion, race, or an even smaller oligarchic group can preside over and perpetrate the killing of billions of people and still come out ahead with respect to its narrow interests. The history of government gives no evidence that alignment with decreasing global catastrophic risk is stable. By contrast, there is evidence that alignment with the interests of some powerful subset of constituents is essentially the default condition of government.

If Bostrom is right that minimizing existential risk requires a stable and powerful global government, then politicide, propaganda, genocide, scapegoating, and stagnation are all instrumental in pursuing the strategy of minimizing anthropogenic risk. A global state with this goal is therefore itself a catastrophic risk. If it disarmed other more dangerous risks, such a state could an antidote but whether it would do so isn’t obvious. In the next section we consider whether the panopticon government is likely to disarm many existential risks.

Beyond these two examples, a global surveillance state would be searching the urn specifically for black balls. This state would have little use for technologies which would improve the lives of the median person, and they would actively suppress those which would change the most important and high status factors of production. What they want are technologies which enhance their ability to maintain control over the globe. Technologies which add to their destructive and therefore deterrent power. Bio-weapons, nuclear weapons, AI, killer drones, and geo-engineering all fit the bill.

A global state will always see maintaining power as essential. A nuclear arsenal and an AI powered panopticon are basic requirements for the global surveillance state that Bostrom imagines. It is likely that such a state will find it valuable to expand its technological lead over all other organizations by actively seeking out black ball technologies. So in addition to posing an existential risk in and of itself, a global surveillance state would increase the risk from black ball technologies by actively seeking destructive power and preventing anyone else from developing antidotes.

Here's a link to the longer version of the post.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/A4fMkKhBxio83NtBL/enlightenment-values-in-a-vulnerable-world

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Random safe AGI idea dump

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Random safe AGI idea dump

Different ways to lie about the substrate