Consider all the actions possible tomorrow, which individuals or groups could take. Are there any which would "obviously" (meaning: you believe it with high probability, and you expect that belief to be uncontroversial) result in decreased x-risk?
(For example, consider reducing the size of Russia and the US's nuclear stockpiles. I'm curious if this is on the list.)
(I include "which individuals or groups" could take because I am interested in what actions we could take if we all coordinated perfectly. For example, neither Russia nor the US can unilaterally reduce both their stockpiles, and perhaps it would increase x-risk for one of them to lower only theirs, but the group consisting of US and Russia's government could theoretically agree to lower both stockpiles.)
ALLFED and related projects like seed banks seem pretty uncontroversially likely to reduce the risk of human extinction.
I agree. However, your reply makes me think that I didn't explain my view well: I do, in fact, believe that it is not obvious that, say, setting up seed banks is "better than doing nothing" - and more generally, that nothing is obviously better than doing nothing.
I suspect that my appeal to "diverting attention and funding" as a reason for this view might have been confusing. What I had in mind here was not an argument about opportunity cost: while true, I did not want to say that an actor that set up a seed bank could perhaps have... (read more)