Great post. #9 is interesting because the inverse might also be true, making your idea even stronger: maybe a great thing you can do for the short term is to make the long term go well. X-risk interventions naturally overlap with maintaining societal stability, because 1) a rational global order founded in peace and mutual understanding, which relatively speaking we have today more than ever before, reduces the probability of global catastrophes; and less convincingly 2) a catastrophe that nevertheless doesn’t kill everyone would indefinitely set the remaining population back at square one for all neartermist cause areas. Maintaining the global stability we’ve enjoyed since the World Wars is a necessary precondition for the coterminous vast improvements in global health and poverty, and it seems like a great bulk of X-risk work boils down to that. Your #2 is also relevant.
Great post. #9 is interesting because the inverse might also be true, making your idea even stronger: maybe a great thing you can do for the short term is to make the long term go well. X-risk interventions naturally overlap with maintaining societal stability, because 1) a rational global order founded in peace and mutual understanding, which relatively speaking we have today more than ever before, reduces the probability of global catastrophes; and less convincingly 2) a catastrophe that nevertheless doesn’t kill everyone would indefinitely set the remaining population back at square one for all neartermist cause areas. Maintaining the global stability we’ve enjoyed since the World Wars is a necessary precondition for the coterminous vast improvements in global health and poverty, and it seems like a great bulk of X-risk work boils down to that. Your #2 is also relevant.