If I wanted to work at GCRI or a similar think-tank/institution, what skills would make me most valuable?
Well, I regret that GCRI doesn’t have the funds to be hiring right now. Also, I can’t speak for other think tanks. GCRI runs a fairly unique operation. But I can say a bit on what we look for in people we work with.
Some important things to have for GCRI include: (1) a general understanding of gcr/xrisk issues, for example by reading research from GCRI, FHI, and our colleagues; (2) deep familiarity with specific important gcrs, including research literature, expert communities, and practitioner communities; (3) capability with relevant methodologies in quantitative risk analysis such as risk modeling and expert elicitation; (4) demonstrated ability to publish in academic journals or significant popular media outlets, speak at professional conferences, or otherwise get your ideas heard; (5) ability to work across academic disciplines and professions, and to work with teams of similarly diverse backgrounds.
What are your suggestions for someone who’s technically inclined and interested in directly working on existential risk issues?
It depends on what you mean by ‘technically inclined’. Could you clarify?
I’m particularly worried about the risks of totalitarianism, potentially leading to a what, IIRC, Bostrom calls a ‘whimper’: just a generally shitty future in which most people don’t have a chance to achieve their potential. To me this seems as likely if not more so than AI risk. What are your thoughts?
I don’t have confident estimates on relative probabilities, but I agree that totalitarianism is important to have on our radar. It’s also a very delicate risk to handle, as it points directly to the highest bastions of power. Interestingly, totalitarianism risk resonates well with certain political conservatives who might otherwise dismiss gcr talk as alarmist. At any rate, I would not discourage you from looking into totalitarianism risk further.
Over the twentieth century we sort of systematically deconstructed a lot of our grand narratives, like ‘progress’. Throwing out the narratives that supported colonialism was probably a net win, but it seems like we’re now at a point where we really need some new stories for thinking about the dangerous place we are in, and the actions that we might need to take. Do you have any thoughts on narratives as a tool for dealing with x-risks?
First, I commend you for thinking in terms of deconstructed narratives and narratives as tools. I’m curious as to your background. Most people I know who self-identify as ‘technically inclined’ cannot speak coherently about narrative construction.
This is something I think about a lot. One narrative I use comes from James Martin’s book ‘The Meaning of the 21st Century’. The title on its own offers a narrative, essentially the same as in Martin Rees’s ‘Our Final Century’. Within the book, Martin speaks of this era of human civilization as going through a period of turbulence, like in a river with rapids. I don’t have the exact quote here but I think he uses the river metaphor. At any rate, the point is that global civilization is going through a turbulent period. If we can successfully navigate the turbulence, we have a great, beautiful future ahead of us. I’ve used this in a lot of talks with a lot of different audiences and it seems to resonate pretty well.
How can we make our societies generally resilient to threats? Once we have some idea of how to make ourselves more resilient, how can we enact these ideas?
One common proposal is to stockpile food and other resources, or even to build refuges. This could be very helpful. An especially promising idea from Dave Denkenberger of GCRI and Joshua Pearce of Michigan Tech is to grow food from fossil fuels, trees, and other biomass. So even if the sun is blocked (as in e.g. nuclear winter) we can still feed ourselves. See http://www.appropedia.org/Feeding_Everyone_No_Matter_What. These are some technological solutions. It’s also important to have social solutions. These are institutions that respond well to major disturbances, psychological practices, and more. We say a bit on this in http://sethbaum.com/ac/2013_AdaptationRecovery.html and http://gcrinstitute.org/aftermath, but this is an understudied area of gcr. However, there is a lot of great research on local-scale disaster vulnerability and resilience that can be leveraged for gcr.
I think that a really robust space program could be very important for x-risk mitigation. What are your thoughts? Do you see space-policy advocacy as an x-risk related activity?
It’s certainly relevant. I used to think it was not promising due to the extremely high cost of space programs relative to activities on Earth. However, Jacob Haqq-Misra (http://haqqmisra.net) of GCRI and Blue Marble Space made the great point that space programs may be happening anyway for other reasons, in particular political, scientific, and economic reasons. It may be reasonably cost-effective to ‘piggyback’ gcr reduction into existing space programs. This relates back to an earlier comment I made about the importance of stakeholder engagement.
First, I commend you for thinking in terms of deconstructed narratives and narratives as
tools. I’m curious as to your background. Most people I know who self-identify as
‘technically inclined’ cannot speak coherently about narrative construction.
I took an honors BA which included a pretty healthy dose of post-structuralist inflected literary theory, along with math and fine arts. I did a masters in architecture, worked in that field for a time, then as a ‘creative technologist’ and now I’m very happy as a programmer, trying to learn as much math as I can in my free time.
I took an honors BA which included a pretty healthy dose of post-structuralist inflected literary theory, along with math and fine arts. I did a masters in architecture, worked in that field for a time, then as a ‘creative technologist’ and now I’m very happy as a programmer, trying to learn as much math as I can in my free time.
You’re welcome!
Well, I regret that GCRI doesn’t have the funds to be hiring right now. Also, I can’t speak for other think tanks. GCRI runs a fairly unique operation. But I can say a bit on what we look for in people we work with.
Some important things to have for GCRI include: (1) a general understanding of gcr/xrisk issues, for example by reading research from GCRI, FHI, and our colleagues; (2) deep familiarity with specific important gcrs, including research literature, expert communities, and practitioner communities; (3) capability with relevant methodologies in quantitative risk analysis such as risk modeling and expert elicitation; (4) demonstrated ability to publish in academic journals or significant popular media outlets, speak at professional conferences, or otherwise get your ideas heard; (5) ability to work across academic disciplines and professions, and to work with teams of similarly diverse backgrounds.
It depends on what you mean by ‘technically inclined’. Could you clarify?
I don’t have confident estimates on relative probabilities, but I agree that totalitarianism is important to have on our radar. It’s also a very delicate risk to handle, as it points directly to the highest bastions of power. Interestingly, totalitarianism risk resonates well with certain political conservatives who might otherwise dismiss gcr talk as alarmist. At any rate, I would not discourage you from looking into totalitarianism risk further.
First, I commend you for thinking in terms of deconstructed narratives and narratives as tools. I’m curious as to your background. Most people I know who self-identify as ‘technically inclined’ cannot speak coherently about narrative construction.
This is something I think about a lot. One narrative I use comes from James Martin’s book ‘The Meaning of the 21st Century’. The title on its own offers a narrative, essentially the same as in Martin Rees’s ‘Our Final Century’. Within the book, Martin speaks of this era of human civilization as going through a period of turbulence, like in a river with rapids. I don’t have the exact quote here but I think he uses the river metaphor. At any rate, the point is that global civilization is going through a turbulent period. If we can successfully navigate the turbulence, we have a great, beautiful future ahead of us. I’ve used this in a lot of talks with a lot of different audiences and it seems to resonate pretty well.
One common proposal is to stockpile food and other resources, or even to build refuges. This could be very helpful. An especially promising idea from Dave Denkenberger of GCRI and Joshua Pearce of Michigan Tech is to grow food from fossil fuels, trees, and other biomass. So even if the sun is blocked (as in e.g. nuclear winter) we can still feed ourselves. See http://www.appropedia.org/Feeding_Everyone_No_Matter_What. These are some technological solutions. It’s also important to have social solutions. These are institutions that respond well to major disturbances, psychological practices, and more. We say a bit on this in http://sethbaum.com/ac/2013_AdaptationRecovery.html and http://gcrinstitute.org/aftermath, but this is an understudied area of gcr. However, there is a lot of great research on local-scale disaster vulnerability and resilience that can be leveraged for gcr.
It’s certainly relevant. I used to think it was not promising due to the extremely high cost of space programs relative to activities on Earth. However, Jacob Haqq-Misra (http://haqqmisra.net) of GCRI and Blue Marble Space made the great point that space programs may be happening anyway for other reasons, in particular political, scientific, and economic reasons. It may be reasonably cost-effective to ‘piggyback’ gcr reduction into existing space programs. This relates back to an earlier comment I made about the importance of stakeholder engagement.
I took an honors BA which included a pretty healthy dose of post-structuralist inflected literary theory, along with math and fine arts. I did a masters in architecture, worked in that field for a time, then as a ‘creative technologist’ and now I’m very happy as a programmer, trying to learn as much math as I can in my free time.
Very interesting!