Thanks for this thoughtful reflection. I do want to register that I think I disagree there wouldn’t be much EA to do post- a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia—it would be a scary hard world to live in, and one where many of our previous priorities are no longer relevant, but it’s work I think we could do and could improve the trajectory of civilization by doing.
I’d be a bit surprised if EAs were even good at surviving post-apocalypse. We’ve spent all this time learning how best to live in a civilization… we’re not preppers, we’re not experts in agriculture or building water wells or keeping raiders away from food stashes, I’m not sure how we’ll communicate without the internet (but Starlink may well survive), and does ALLFED have any solutions to offer within the next year?
If there is a loss of civilization, I agree there would not be that much that EAs could do. However, I think there is a lot we could do to try to prevent the loss of civilization after nuclear war, which is part of what theseposts were about. Yes, ALLFED is working on solutions that could be scaled up quickly in the case of nuclear war.
Thanks for this thoughtful reflection. I do want to register that I think I disagree there wouldn’t be much EA to do post- a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia—it would be a scary hard world to live in, and one where many of our previous priorities are no longer relevant, but it’s work I think we could do and could improve the trajectory of civilization by doing.
I’d be a bit surprised if EAs were even good at surviving post-apocalypse. We’ve spent all this time learning how best to live in a civilization… we’re not preppers, we’re not experts in agriculture or building water wells or keeping raiders away from food stashes, I’m not sure how we’ll communicate without the internet (but Starlink may well survive), and does ALLFED have any solutions to offer within the next year?
If there is a loss of civilization, I agree there would not be that much that EAs could do. However, I think there is a lot we could do to try to prevent the loss of civilization after nuclear war, which is part of what these posts were about. Yes, ALLFED is working on solutions that could be scaled up quickly in the case of nuclear war.
With the chance of Putin nuking Ukraine being ~7% in the next 3 months, perhaps a campaign to share ALLFED’s ideas would be wise right now. Related: most recent post about ALLFED.