My suggestions regarding the epistemics of the original post are fairly in line with the content in your first paragraph. I think allocating decision weight in proportion to the expected impacts different scenarios have on your life is the correct approach. Generating scenarios and forecasting their likelihood is difficult, and there is also a great deal of uncertainty with how you should change your behavior in light of these scenarios. I think that making peace with the outcomes of disastrous scenarios that you or humanity cannot avoid is a strong action-path for processing thinking about uncontrollable scenarios. As for scenarios that you can prepare for, such as the effects of climate change, shallow AI, embryo selection / gene-editing, and forms of gradual technological progress, among other things, perhaps determining what you value and want if you could only live / live comfortably for the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, etc… years might be a useful exercise, since each of these scenarios (e.g., only living 5 more years vs. only living 10 more years vs. only more 5 years in global business-as-usual) might lead you to make different actions. I am in a similar decision-boat as you, as I believe that in coming years the nature of the human operations in the world will change significantly and on many fronts. I am in my early 20s, I have been doing some remote work / research in the areas of forecasting and ML, want to make contributions to AI Safety, want to have children with my partner (in around 6 years), do not know where I would like to live, do not know what my investment behaviors should be, do not know what proportion of my time should be spent doing such things as reading, programming, exercising, etc… A useful heuristic for me has been to worry less. I think moving away from people and living closer to the wilderness have benefitted me as well; the location I am in currently seem robust to climate change and mass exoduses from cities (should they ever occur), has few natural disasters, has good air quality, is generally peaceful and quiet, and is agriculturally robust w/ sources of water. Perhaps finding some location or set of habits that are in line with “what I hoped to retire into / do in a few years or what I’ve always desired for myself” might make for a strong remainder-of-life / remainder-of-business-as-usual, whichever you attach more weight to.
My suggestions regarding the epistemics of the original post are fairly in line with the content in your first paragraph. I think allocating decision weight in proportion to the expected impacts different scenarios have on your life is the correct approach. Generating scenarios and forecasting their likelihood is difficult, and there is also a great deal of uncertainty with how you should change your behavior in light of these scenarios. I think that making peace with the outcomes of disastrous scenarios that you or humanity cannot avoid is a strong action-path for processing thinking about uncontrollable scenarios. As for scenarios that you can prepare for, such as the effects of climate change, shallow AI, embryo selection / gene-editing, and forms of gradual technological progress, among other things, perhaps determining what you value and want if you could only live / live comfortably for the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, etc… years might be a useful exercise, since each of these scenarios (e.g., only living 5 more years vs. only living 10 more years vs. only more 5 years in global business-as-usual) might lead you to make different actions. I am in a similar decision-boat as you, as I believe that in coming years the nature of the human operations in the world will change significantly and on many fronts. I am in my early 20s, I have been doing some remote work / research in the areas of forecasting and ML, want to make contributions to AI Safety, want to have children with my partner (in around 6 years), do not know where I would like to live, do not know what my investment behaviors should be, do not know what proportion of my time should be spent doing such things as reading, programming, exercising, etc… A useful heuristic for me has been to worry less. I think moving away from people and living closer to the wilderness have benefitted me as well; the location I am in currently seem robust to climate change and mass exoduses from cities (should they ever occur), has few natural disasters, has good air quality, is generally peaceful and quiet, and is agriculturally robust w/ sources of water. Perhaps finding some location or set of habits that are in line with “what I hoped to retire into / do in a few years or what I’ve always desired for myself” might make for a strong remainder-of-life / remainder-of-business-as-usual, whichever you attach more weight to.