I'm Sebastian Lodemann, for the moment Research Manager on Data Analytics in Supply Chain Management at a German university, currently pivoting towards direct work on GCRs. I have experience in research, research management, consulting and am by training a systems engineer.
I like this advice and plan to follow it myself.
I'd like to note though, that one part of my brain insists that this approach increases "false positive hires", where there is some probability for every application of the employer selecting me for a role someone else would be more suitable for, reducing counterfactual impact.
Spending time to figure out if I consider myself suitable instead of just applying would reduce this probability.
"Just applying" is likely still be the optimum default for the community as a whole by reducing false negatives (people not applying for roles they end up being a superior fit for compared to others) and accepting the false positives. Additionally, the false positives seem to have less downsides as they can be ideally identified quickly, with the false negatives not having a feedback loop to identify this counterfactual loss.
I think this event is valuable from multiple perspectives:
(1) I'm generally excited for more longtermist phase 2 work, since I think establishing such a track record has multiple benefits, such as signaling effects for implementation-focused people, moving us forward on the implementation learning curve for building real-world things, simply being more “believable” by putting skin in the game as opposed to theorizing, etc.
(2) On an object level, I believe shelters may turn out to be an important element in our portfolio to reduce existential risk, potentially both in a response as well as a resilience function
(3) I am curious whether this approach to catalyzing organizational development for an ex ante defined project may be a model for future events
(4) Establishing a project focused on existential risk where we can show a straightforward causal chain towards reduced existential risk extends (if successfully executed) our list of legible achievements, thereby strengthening the case for high EV interventions out there, waiting to be executed