Other than cryonics (I’m already a member of Alcor) what are some other accessible decisions that act as a lottery ticket: enabling high pay off—if unlikely—future outcomes?
“Accessible,” to me, does not include abandoning my career to directly meddle—yet.
I suppose donating to SIAI might be a lottery ticket, but I’m not entirely convinced that it is such. I honestly have no idea what the SIAI does in their day to day business and the material I can find on them doesn’t provide much information. I also have no idea how credible the SIAI is among those who might be in a position to turn disasters off so its hard to determine how much to value an SIAI donation at compared to alternatives.
Supporting SENS could be a lottery ticket, although to some extent the same concerns with the SIAI apply to SENS—I don’t have enough information to evaluate it compared to alternatives.
Supporting existential risk research in some way seems like a good approach to turning disasters off, since this growing branch of research appears to be creating a solid basis for future risk mitigation methods. I might investigate that further.
I’m sure there are many options I don’t know that I don’t know.
A neat thing about cryonics is that the disaster (my death) can come to pass, but even after that point I still have a chance to survive. Should I look for things to invest in that share that insurance-like dynamic? It seems powerful. Is insurance against death a more effective investment than trying to resolve the causes of death? I suppose this depends on the amount of knowledge the civilization has at the time you go to make the bet.
Most of the really good “lottery ticket” examples are things like starting a startup company in the hopes of being a millionaire, becoming a drug dealer in hopes of becoming a kingpin, informing a crush of their status as such in hopes of getting to be with them, and anything else on which subject you can imagine some Chicken Soup for the Soul person saying “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.
Other than cryonics (I’m already a member of Alcor) what are some other accessible decisions that act as a lottery ticket: enabling high pay off—if unlikely—future outcomes?
“Accessible,” to me, does not include abandoning my career to directly meddle—yet.
I suppose donating to SIAI might be a lottery ticket, but I’m not entirely convinced that it is such. I honestly have no idea what the SIAI does in their day to day business and the material I can find on them doesn’t provide much information. I also have no idea how credible the SIAI is among those who might be in a position to turn disasters off so its hard to determine how much to value an SIAI donation at compared to alternatives.
Supporting SENS could be a lottery ticket, although to some extent the same concerns with the SIAI apply to SENS—I don’t have enough information to evaluate it compared to alternatives.
Supporting existential risk research in some way seems like a good approach to turning disasters off, since this growing branch of research appears to be creating a solid basis for future risk mitigation methods. I might investigate that further.
I’m sure there are many options I don’t know that I don’t know.
A neat thing about cryonics is that the disaster (my death) can come to pass, but even after that point I still have a chance to survive. Should I look for things to invest in that share that insurance-like dynamic? It seems powerful. Is insurance against death a more effective investment than trying to resolve the causes of death? I suppose this depends on the amount of knowledge the civilization has at the time you go to make the bet.
Most of the really good “lottery ticket” examples are things like starting a startup company in the hopes of being a millionaire, becoming a drug dealer in hopes of becoming a kingpin, informing a crush of their status as such in hopes of getting to be with them, and anything else on which subject you can imagine some Chicken Soup for the Soul person saying “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.