Thank you, and very good question! The short answer is not really. I think that building momentum on existential risk reduction from the space sector could be tractable. One way to do this would be to found organisations that tackle some of the cosmic threats with unknown severity and probability. But to be honest I’m not sure if that’s necessary, maybe the LTTF or other governments and organisations should just fund some more research into these threats.
I think the main area in which EAs can have an impact is by developing existing organisations, with the aim of increasing their power to enforce policy, developing their interconnectedness, and increasing their prevalence. By doing this, we may be able to increase great power collaboration, build up institutions that will naturally evolve into space governance structures for the long term, while helping to tackle natural existential risks directly.
I’m making a post about this strategy at the moment, so happy to elaborate, but I don’t want to write the whole post in one comment! Here’s a diagram from the post draft to show how well covered most areas in space are:
Nice summary!
You mentioned the existing organisations managing each threat, are there any new orgs you’d like to see in the future?
Thank you, and very good question! The short answer is not really. I think that building momentum on existential risk reduction from the space sector could be tractable. One way to do this would be to found organisations that tackle some of the cosmic threats with unknown severity and probability. But to be honest I’m not sure if that’s necessary, maybe the LTTF or other governments and organisations should just fund some more research into these threats.
I think the main area in which EAs can have an impact is by developing existing organisations, with the aim of increasing their power to enforce policy, developing their interconnectedness, and increasing their prevalence. By doing this, we may be able to increase great power collaboration, build up institutions that will naturally evolve into space governance structures for the long term, while helping to tackle natural existential risks directly.
I’m making a post about this strategy at the moment, so happy to elaborate, but I don’t want to write the whole post in one comment! Here’s a diagram from the post draft to show how well covered most areas in space are: