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FJehn

966 karmaJoined Working (0-5 years)Giessen, Germany
florianjehn.github.io/

Bio

Participation
4

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.

Comments
107

Yeah, I share that worry. And from experience it is really hard to get funding for nuclear work in both philanthropy and classic academic funding. My last grant proposal about nuclear was rejected with the explanation that we already know everything there is to know about nuclear winter, so no need to spend money on research there. 

Hard to pin down exact numbers, but yeah 10-20 % (and maybe a bit more) seem plausible to me, especially if we end up in higher temperatures. I would expect global tensions to be much higher in a high warming world. Especially, between Indian and Pakistan. 

I meant specifically mentioning that you don't really fund global catastrophic risk work on climate change, ecological collapse, near-Earth objects (e.g., asteroids, comets), nuclear weapons, and supervolcanic eruptions. Because to my knowledge such work has not been funded for several years now (please correct me if this is wrong). And as you mentioned that status quo will continue, I don't really see a reason to expect that the LTFF will start funding such work in the foreseeable future. 

Thanks for wanting to check in if there is a difference between the public grants and the application distribution. Would be curious to hear the results. 

Thanks for the clarification. In that case I think it would be helpful to state on the website that the LTFF won't be funding non AI/biosecurity GCR work for the foreseeable future. Otherwise you will just attract applications which you would not fund anyway, which results in unnecessary effort for both applicants and reviewers.

Ah okay get it. Have you considered asking those on Metaculus? Maybe you could get a rough ballpark there. But I am not aware of anything like this in peer reviewed research. 

Hey Vasco. Haven't seen anything like this. But are talking about a probability estimates across all GCRs at once? My guess would be that the uncertainties would be so large, that it would not really tell you anything. 

Now that this paper is finally published, it feels a bit like a requiem to the field. Every non-AI GCR researcher I talked to in the last year or so is quite concerned about the future of the field. A large chunk of all GCR funding now goes to AI, leaving existing GCR orgs without any money. For example, ALLFED is having to cut a large part of their programs (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/K7hPmcaf2xEZ6F4kR/allfed-emergency-appeal-help-us-raise-usd800-000-to-avoid-1), even though pretty much everyone seems to agree that ALLFED is doing good work and should continue to exist. 

I think funders like Open Phil or the Survival and Flourishing Fund should strongly consider putting more money into non-AI GCR research again. I get that many people think that AI risk is very imminent, but I don't think that this justifies to leave the rest of GCR research dying on the vine. It would be quite a bad outcome if in five years AI risk did not materialize, but most of the non-AI GCR orgs have ceased to exist, as all of the funding dried up. 

Yeah I tried Connected Papers, as well das Research Rabbit, but somehow they never turn out to be super helpful. Do you have a specific strategy when you use them?

Could you elaborate what you mean with 2) ? What reference manager are you using?

What was the criticism of the university? I would have been pretty happy if my bachelor students would have been able to cobble something like this together. 

Yes I think posting it on a preprint server would be worth your time. As long as this stays an EA Forum post or a thesis hidden in a university archive no one can take a look at it. If you put it on a preprint server other people can find and reference it, if they find it helpful. Worst case that can happen is that nobody will built on it, but also the cost of putting it on a preprint server are essentially zero and if it stays an EA Forum post that chances that somebody uses this are much lower. 

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