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.
There is roughly 0.02-7% chance per year of accidental full-scale nuclear war between US and Russia: source. Since NATO says an attack on one is an attack on all, this could easily spread to the UK. One simple precaution would be for EAs to locate in the suburbs where the risk of being hit his lower (as I have done). The economics of this appear to be favorable because housing prices are typically lower in the suburbs, especially if you can move by rail that is low risk and good potential for multitasking. I would like to formalize this into a paper, but I would need a collaborator.
Interesting, are you concerned that in a full-scale nuclear war that most places in the northern hemisphere would be unsafe due to military targets outside the cities and fallout?
What do you think about this Q&A on Quora about where it would be safest in the event of a nuclear war? Most of the suggested safe locations are in the southern hemisphere like New Zealand.