So for most people directly working on existential risk is inefficient. How can you tell if it would be efficient?
This question is the heart of why I suggest avoiding it, as a field. Feedback is golden. Imagine writing something where, as soon as you pressed a button, it would give you feedback on what you’ve written, compared to writing something where you had to print it out, mail it out, wait for a reply, and then get feedback. Even if the feedback is ten times better in the second case, the first one will encourage you to work much harder and faster.
So, when it comes to x-risk it seems the best plans are ones that increase feedback. If you want to improve our systems to guard against asteroids striking the Earth and catastrophic climate change, it seems like the best approach is to acquire millions of dollars and create a satellite network that generates better information about what Earth’s weather is like and tracks near-Earth asteroids. (And, the first approach in such a plan is to call up your Congressperson and a NASA head, trying to arrange a private grant, rather than doing this yourself with your engineering buddies. If you do decide it’s better to do it yourself, poach experienced people, don’t start with inexperienced ones.) Information is generally a net positive, while opinions are not nearly as valuable.
So, if your choice is “do I go into a value-generating field, or do I write papers about how scary asteroids are?” it seems to me the first is the better choice. If no one is approaching the issue you are interested in, then maybe you should devote yourself to it.
Thanks, I particularly found the whole “just go to classes you feel like” bit interesting. Slash looking forward to it.
So for most people directly working on existential risk is inefficient. How can you tell if it would be efficient?
This question is the heart of why I suggest avoiding it, as a field. Feedback is golden. Imagine writing something where, as soon as you pressed a button, it would give you feedback on what you’ve written, compared to writing something where you had to print it out, mail it out, wait for a reply, and then get feedback. Even if the feedback is ten times better in the second case, the first one will encourage you to work much harder and faster.
So, when it comes to x-risk it seems the best plans are ones that increase feedback. If you want to improve our systems to guard against asteroids striking the Earth and catastrophic climate change, it seems like the best approach is to acquire millions of dollars and create a satellite network that generates better information about what Earth’s weather is like and tracks near-Earth asteroids. (And, the first approach in such a plan is to call up your Congressperson and a NASA head, trying to arrange a private grant, rather than doing this yourself with your engineering buddies. If you do decide it’s better to do it yourself, poach experienced people, don’t start with inexperienced ones.) Information is generally a net positive, while opinions are not nearly as valuable.
So, if your choice is “do I go into a value-generating field, or do I write papers about how scary asteroids are?” it seems to me the first is the better choice. If no one is approaching the issue you are interested in, then maybe you should devote yourself to it.
Would an appropriate short version be “Doing stuff takes money and data, so you should be working towards one of those”?
I think that’s a good summary of half of it. The other half is opinions are high cost and low value for most applications.