Is there a physical location or office? Whom does the role report to?
What are example emergencies where reservists would be activated? What would they do when activated? Are there comparable orgs in other domains I should index to when thinking about ALERT?
How many hours / week, roughly? What does it mean that the role would not be on duty most days? Is there an existing staff or would one need to be hired?
When the National Guard is activated they are called away to a physical space to work with others, is it like that?
Great questions. Most of the below could be reshaped by the director:
No physical location—director has discretion. (One cool idea we had was to enlist existing teams at EA orgs, so that they’re constantly building readiness and already colocated or functionally remote.)
Role reports to the board, currently Jan Kulveit, Vishal Maini, Ales Flidr and me but likely to need more.
Some unvetted examples we came up with: COVID in late December 2019; Russia-Ukraine (minor investigation from December 2021, expanding to active nuclear risk forecasting by end January); nuclear explosion of any kind; new large leaks of Snowden type; new physics apparently discovered; someone attempts climate engineering; global stilling; volcano acting weird; etc.
See what we did during covid: massive fast data collection, fast great research, visualisation, pro bono consulting, serving on government advisory boards, policy design, making up for inadequate institutions of all kinds, coordination, countering bullshit. (This was all improvised; next time we’ll do better.) 1DaySooner are a big inspiration too.
Comparable orgs are Epidemic Forecasting, RAMP, MeSES, ALLFED, the strategic side of FEMA. None have this particular dormant structure, though ALLFED do vigilance and wargames.
Unclear to me (I’ve never set up a proper org or managed more than 4 people) but I guess during peacetime < 0.5 FTE. During a crisis, >1 FTE.
After setting up the organisation, hiring, designing processes, pulling together everyone’s skills and network and so on, and after the annual wargames are organised, the role consists of listening to the forecasters and deciding day to day whether to activate the reservists. So it’s an exaggeration to say “not on duty”; instead, often around 1 hour per day.
No existing staff, just the board duct-taping things together and a list of about 40 volunteers for reservists.
Co-location during the crisis could make sense, depends on the crisis.
Maybe they should, maybe the shouldn’t, but I don’t think Gavin was saying such things should be encouraged. I think he was saying that there should be some kind of response if such leaks happen.
Is there a physical location or office? Whom does the role report to? What are example emergencies where reservists would be activated? What would they do when activated? Are there comparable orgs in other domains I should index to when thinking about ALERT? How many hours / week, roughly? What does it mean that the role would not be on duty most days? Is there an existing staff or would one need to be hired? When the National Guard is activated they are called away to a physical space to work with others, is it like that?
Great questions. Most of the below could be reshaped by the director:
No physical location—director has discretion. (One cool idea we had was to enlist existing teams at EA orgs, so that they’re constantly building readiness and already colocated or functionally remote.)
Role reports to the board, currently Jan Kulveit, Vishal Maini, Ales Flidr and me but likely to need more.
Some unvetted examples we came up with: COVID in late December 2019; Russia-Ukraine (minor investigation from December 2021, expanding to active nuclear risk forecasting by end January); nuclear explosion of any kind; new large leaks of Snowden type; new physics apparently discovered; someone attempts climate engineering; global stilling; volcano acting weird; etc.
See what we did during covid: massive fast data collection, fast great research, visualisation, pro bono consulting, serving on government advisory boards, policy design, making up for inadequate institutions of all kinds, coordination, countering bullshit. (This was all improvised; next time we’ll do better.) 1DaySooner are a big inspiration too.
Comparable orgs are Epidemic Forecasting, RAMP, MeSES, ALLFED, the strategic side of FEMA. None have this particular dormant structure, though ALLFED do vigilance and wargames.
Unclear to me (I’ve never set up a proper org or managed more than 4 people) but I guess during peacetime < 0.5 FTE. During a crisis, >1 FTE.
After setting up the organisation, hiring, designing processes, pulling together everyone’s skills and network and so on, and after the annual wargames are organised, the role consists of listening to the forecasters and deciding day to day whether to activate the reservists. So it’s an exaggeration to say “not on duty”; instead, often around 1 hour per day.
No existing staff, just the board duct-taping things together and a list of about 40 volunteers for reservists.
Co-location during the crisis could make sense, depends on the crisis.
One cool idea would be embedding a physical EOC into refuges, and calling reservists in once some crisis threshold was crossed.
“New large leaks of the Snowden type.”
I agree that effective altruists should do more to encourage these.
Maybe they should, maybe the shouldn’t, but I don’t think Gavin was saying such things should be encouraged. I think he was saying that there should be some kind of response if such leaks happen.