I don’t think confident belief that “There are no approaches that can reduce the chance of existential catastrophe in the near-term” can be justified; it’s not that many such approaches have been tried and found wanting but rather than almost no work has been done.
That said I’d still encourage people to follow personal aptitude when choosing what to work on; you’re very unlikely to do high-impact research otherwise and it’s worth having a portfolio approach.
I don’t think confident belief that “There are no approaches that can reduce the chance of existential catastrophe in the near-term” can be justified; it’s not that many such approaches have been tried and found wanting but rather than almost no work has been done.
That said I’d still encourage people to follow personal aptitude when choosing what to work on; you’re very unlikely to do high-impact research otherwise and it’s worth having a portfolio approach.