I am considering extinction scenarios for any and all species. I’m trying to understand why safeguarding against the extinction of humanity is prioritised, but this is not the case for any other species.
As for examples, the IUCN Red List is the most comprehensive database that I’m aware of—assessing and reporting the extinction risk to 1000s of species worldwide. I have seen some criticism of this list however (notably that the approach used to assess risk lacks transparency), so wonder if the EA community would have some value to add here?
https://www.iucnredlist.org/
What you (or the EA community more generally) could do about it will vary from species to species. Interventions might range from tackling deforestation, to reducing harm from human waste, to lobbying against hunting/fishing…. the list of possible interventions is huge! Again, I wonder if the EA community might have value to add in identifying effective interventions?
I’m not yet arguing for the EA community to do these things—just trying to understand what has been thought about/discussed by others, so I might better understand why this work is not prioritised.
With my ‘Good Governance’ hat on, I think there’s something in this.
I personally celebrate that there is a culture of considering often and deeply whether an organisation/project should continue. Outside of EA, I’ve worked >50 mission-driven teams and have rarely encountered individuals, let along whole organisations, that are willing to ask this question of themselves. In my consulting work, I’ve recommended that organisations shut down or close a programme maybe a dozen or so times and can only think of one that took this recommendation seriously.
While I think it’s appropriate to celebrate that there are cancellations/closures, I worry that how this happens is less than ideal. I need to engage with this a bit more deeply to order my thoughts (and will do if anyone is interested in discussing this!) but my take is that there’s room to improve with regards to:
1. Defining who closes organisations—I think this is quite clearly a board responsibility (maybe the fundamental reason why good boards should exist) and think there should be more separation between a founder/exec team from this kind of decision than I understand to be the case
2. Defining when and why organisations should close—This post asks whether early-stage projects are closing too early but I also wonder if there are other questions to consider here
3. Articulating alternatives to closing/cancelling—Could projects continue in a different form? Might other people want to and be able to take on the work? Could the project continue to do good outside the EA community (with different funders, principles, values)?