We can all agree that x-risk prevention is a Worthy Cause, or even the most worthy cause. And at some point, you need to divert increasing parts of your resources to that rather than to building resources to be spent, and that this time is, as one otherwise awful teacher of mine called it, immediately if not sooner.
The key question, in terms of implications/VOI, is: Is ‘work on x-risk’ the kind of all-consuming task (a la SSC’s scholars who must use every waking moment to get to those last few minutes where they can make progress, or other all-consuming jobs like start-up founder in a cash crunch) where you must/should let everything else burn, because you have power law returns to investment and the timeline is short enough that you’ll burn out now and fix it later? Or is it where you can and should do both, especially given there isn’t really a cash crunch and the timeline distribution is highly uncertain and so is what would be helpful?
I want vastly more resources into x-risk, but some (very well meaning) actors have taken the attitude of ‘if it’s not directly about x-risk I have no interest’ and otherwise making everything fit into one of the ‘proven effective’ boxes, which starves community for resources since it doesn’t count as an end goal. It’s a big problem.
Anyway, whole additional huge topic and all that. And I’m currently debating how to divide my own resources between these goals!
I’ve got a lot of thoughts on this myself I haven’t gotten done yet either, but it appears many effective altruists and rationalists share your perspective of a common problem disrupting other community projects. See this comment.
We can all agree that x-risk prevention is a Worthy Cause, or even the most worthy cause. And at some point, you need to divert increasing parts of your resources to that rather than to building resources to be spent, and that this time is, as one otherwise awful teacher of mine called it, immediately if not sooner.
The key question, in terms of implications/VOI, is: Is ‘work on x-risk’ the kind of all-consuming task (a la SSC’s scholars who must use every waking moment to get to those last few minutes where they can make progress, or other all-consuming jobs like start-up founder in a cash crunch) where you must/should let everything else burn, because you have power law returns to investment and the timeline is short enough that you’ll burn out now and fix it later? Or is it where you can and should do both, especially given there isn’t really a cash crunch and the timeline distribution is highly uncertain and so is what would be helpful?
I want vastly more resources into x-risk, but some (very well meaning) actors have taken the attitude of ‘if it’s not directly about x-risk I have no interest’ and otherwise making everything fit into one of the ‘proven effective’ boxes, which starves community for resources since it doesn’t count as an end goal. It’s a big problem.
Anyway, whole additional huge topic and all that. And I’m currently debating how to divide my own resources between these goals!
I’ve got a lot of thoughts on this myself I haven’t gotten done yet either, but it appears many effective altruists and rationalists share your perspective of a common problem disrupting other community projects. See this comment.