Hi, I’m Florian. I am enthusiastic about working on large scale problems that require me to learn new skills and extend my knowledge into new fields and subtopics. My main interests are climate change, existential risks, feminism, history, hydrology and food security.
FJehn
Karma: 732
Getting a feel for changes of karma and controversy in the EA Forum over time
Betting on the best case: higher end warming is underrepresented in research
The end of the Bronze Age as an example of a sudden collapse of civilization
Which properties does the EA movement share with deep-time organisations?
Keeping everyone motivated: a case for effective careers outside of the highest impact EA organizations
The 25 researchers who have published the largest number of academic articles on existential risk
EA in Germany: Insights about local groups
The best places to weather global catastrophes
The trouble with tipping points: Are we steering towards a climate catastrophe or a manageable challenge?
What factors allow societies to survive a crisis?
[Question] Lotteries for everything?
“can’t really draw much in the way of conclusions from this data” seems like a really strong claim to me. I would surely agree that this does not tell you everything there is to know about existential risk research and it especially does not tell you anything about x-risk research outside classic academia (like much of the work by Ajeya).
But it is based on the classifications of a lot of people on what they think is part of the field of existential risk studies and therefore I think gives a good proxy on what people in the field think what is part of their field. Also, this is not meant to tell you that this is the ultimate list, but as stated in the beginning of the post, as a way to give people an overview of what is going on.
Finally, I think that this surely tells you something about the participation of women in the field. 1 out of 25 is really, really unlikely to happen by chance.
Mapping out collapse research
Famine’s Role in Societal Collapse
Climate anomalies and societal collapse
Alright, that’s settled then. Also looking forward to resolution!
[Question] Making a collection of freely available mental health resources
It seems like my post created more of a buzz than I anticipated. Many people seem to get the message from it: “we should only care about demographic diversity and nothing else”. I’m sorry that my wording was apparently so vague, as this is not really what I meant.
To create a fruitful discussion you not only need diversity, but also at least some value alignment and some knowledge about the topic that is being discussed. Given that some value alignment and some knowledge about the topic are present, diversity of perspectives is a powerful way to make sure that the knowledge and insight gained from such a discussion increases. It allows the participants in the discussion to detect each other’s blind spots and challenge their assumptions. And this is where demographic diversity comes into play. I think that you cannot easily (or even at all) measure your subconscious assumptions and biases, but I think that those assumptions and biases originate from the experiences that you have in your life. Those experiences are strongly shaped by demographic markers like age, gender, race, etc.. Therefore, we should make sure to have enough people from different subgroups to not miss out on perspectives that would challenge erroneous assumptions in our thinking.
Another post from the EA Forum which might have done a better job at highlighting a similar idea is “EA Diversity: Unpacking Pandora’s Box”, as it unpacks the different facets of diversity explicitly. Unfortunately, I only came across it after I had published my post.
I’ll use this post to add some other potato related thoughts I had some time ago, as this chance might never come up again in the EA Forum:
Are the potato famine and the revolutions of 1848 an example for the fragility of the modern world?
Recently I came across the potato famine and how it contributed or even caused the revolutions of 1848. I wondered if this is an good example to show how cascading failures lead from an natural event to an agricultural crisis, to an economic crisis, to an financial crisis and finally resulting in a political crisis.
So what happened?
In the 19th century potatoes became a staple crop in Europe, because they were easy to plant and harvest, cheap and filled you up quite nicely. However, there were very few varieties at that time and this made them vulnerable to disease. In 1845 a new potato disease spread all over Europe and destroyed much of the yearly harvest. This was especially a problem in Ireland (because they almost exclusively used potatoes), but most parts of Central Europe were at least a bit affected. This basically left Europe without potatoes until new varieties could be developed.
In 1846 bad weather also affected the wheat and rye harvest. This lead to rising prices all over Central Europe, as now all major food crops had considerably lower yields. These food shortages forced people to kill most of their livestock, as they did not have any feed for it. But as many people slaughtered their animals at the same time, prices for meat plummeted (though they were still way to high for poor people).
This agricultural crisis lead to an economic crisis, as everybody had to use most of their money for food. Therefore, there wasn’t anything left to buy other consumer goods. This in turn increased unemployment considerably, as many people in the consumer goods industry lost their jobs. Especially in cities this was a problem, as many people had moved their in the last decades and could not find any jobs to sustain themselves.
So, after the agricultural crisis in 1845 and 1846 were followed with an economic crisis in 1846 and 1847, next came an financial crisis in 1847. The financial crisis was mainly driven by the bursting of a bubble around building railroads. In the 1830s and 1840s many railroad projects were started, but most were crap. The bubble burst in 1847 after states started to rise interest rates to consolidate their finances in the economic crisis. In addition, the food crisis diverted funds away from the railroads and this showed that most of the projects could only continue if they got more money continuously. When this did not happen they crashed and with them everyone who had invested their money. This again led to more unemployment as all the railroad companies closed and due to a lack of available loans many smaller businesses went bankrupt, making even more people lose their job.
So in 1848 you had a crashed economy, a debt crisis, still some famine and massive unemployment. Many people all over Europe faces several years of fear, hardship and poverty. They looked for someone to blame. This brought many people to politics. And finally in 1848 we can see revolutions in most states of Central Europe. Some being successful (France), while others failed (Germany). Still, it seems like an new potato disease basically started a chain of events that led to a drastic change of the political landscape in Central Europe.