If I survive for an extra two weeks, that’s about 4% of a QALY, which is about $4,000. So if there’s a 1% yearly risk of nuclear apocalypse, it’s worth spending $40/year for that chance of extra time. I don’t think there’s any additional return from my death being dignified. If I try and die I’m still dead.
In case of nuclear apocalypse humanity appears to be best off if most people die quickly, because this will improve the ratio of food to mouths and reduce the risk of long-term problems where, for example, we eat all the fish and go extinct.
If you have a model where there are collective benefits from one more family surviving two more weeks I’m interested in hearing it.
I consider it collectively important that alignment researchers and their +1s survive, as well as other x-risk researchers and probably other cause areas.
So if there’s a 1% yearly risk of nuclear apocalypse
Some think the number is much higher than priors due to current events. You’re also not factoring in that that yearly percentage adds up, and a lot of preparations are a one-off action that benefits future you (assuming you don’t dig into your backup food).
The 1% number was intended to be illustrative, not definitive. I’m not a nuclear risk expert. The QALY figure may also vary.
A $40/yr cost could be a $400 investment that depreciates over ten years. In that case I would value it based on the projected risk over ten years.
I’m not seeing additional value in “nuclear dignity points” above these admittedly hard-to-calculate figures.
To preserve x-risk research during civilizational collapse I think attempts to preserve information and insights would perform better than attempting to preserve individual researchers, especially since it could be done in parallel with preserving other information that aids recovery.
If I survive for an extra two weeks, that’s about 4% of a QALY, which is about $4,000. So if there’s a 1% yearly risk of nuclear apocalypse, it’s worth spending $40/year for that chance of extra time. I don’t think there’s any additional return from my death being dignified. If I try and die I’m still dead.
In case of nuclear apocalypse humanity appears to be best off if most people die quickly, because this will improve the ratio of food to mouths and reduce the risk of long-term problems where, for example, we eat all the fish and go extinct.
If you have a model where there are collective benefits from one more family surviving two more weeks I’m interested in hearing it.
I consider it collectively important that alignment researchers and their +1s survive, as well as other x-risk researchers and probably other cause areas.
Some think the number is much higher than priors due to current events. You’re also not factoring in that that yearly percentage adds up, and a lot of preparations are a one-off action that benefits future you (assuming you don’t dig into your backup food).
The 1% number was intended to be illustrative, not definitive. I’m not a nuclear risk expert. The QALY figure may also vary. A $40/yr cost could be a $400 investment that depreciates over ten years. In that case I would value it based on the projected risk over ten years. I’m not seeing additional value in “nuclear dignity points” above these admittedly hard-to-calculate figures.
To preserve x-risk research during civilizational collapse I think attempts to preserve information and insights would perform better than attempting to preserve individual researchers, especially since it could be done in parallel with preserving other information that aids recovery.