The effective altruism movement needs to be disaster resistant. That requires information we can use to put probabilities on potential problems that have severe consequences. Even a small chance of a large disruption to organisations that are saving so many lives is worth some of my hours. Therefore, I've been gathering information on the probability of war in America and the UK to see whether that probability is small or not. I've been asking around and haven't found anyone else in EA who has collected the available data on this so far.
If you or anyone you know has related information or projects, let's not duplicate each other's work. Let's collaborate!
To check out the project or exchange contact info, please send me a PM.
Edit Two: I now suspect that the audience on this website expects the content to be more like a publication than a message board. I think they want posts to resemble something between a finished blog article and a study. I think I was confused because I'm used to the word "forum" describing an Internet discussion forum, which is much more casual. If I still don't quite seem to get it, I'd appreciate an explanation. I need to find out whether anyone else has done similar projects and locate collaborators who may have information sources I'm not aware of. If you think there's a way to present something that's in progress for the purpose of finding existing projects and collaborators, I'd like to know how to present it. Thanks.
Edit One: I removed anything from this post that could give people the idea that I should be supplying data as it's way too early to share my work at this stage. I'm looking for anyone who has already made progress on this or similar projects to be sure I don't duplicate the work. I've been taking time away from doing more freelance work to research this because this project is not yet funded. I don't want to waste a bunch of time duplicating work that might already be out there.
Depending on the circumstances, a focus on preserving EA as a movement and avoiding disruptions to existing top philanthropic opportunities may miss the most important opportunities. My guess is that we'll do better asking questions like:
What types of disruptions might hamper our ability to coordinate with one another and outsiders to improve the world or mitigate emerging problems? (Different sub-problems may demand very different solutions.)
How can we solve these problems in a way that works for EA and other individuals and groups trying to do good? (We should try to generate solutions that transfer well, not just solve the problem for ourselves.)
Who else is already working on similar problems RE making global cooperation more robust to war or other likely disruptive events? What can we do to help them or benefit from their help?
What disruptions are EAs especially well placed to mitigate?
Which interventions are likely to be most important in the event of various disruptions?
Ooh. This looks interesting! To accomplish goals like these requires over ten times as much time, so this definitely requires funding. I'm now envisioning starting up a new EA org which serves the purpose of preventing disruptions to EA productivity through identifying risks and planning in advance!
I would love to do this!
Thanks for the inspiration, Ben! :D
At the current time, I suspect the largest disaster risk is war in the US or UK. That's why I'm focusing on war. I haven’t seriously looked into the emerging risks related to antibiotic resistance, but i... (read more)