From your top level post it's clear that at the moment there are very strong negative pressures against people studying existential risk. I wish there weren't such pressures but they're there. It's plausible to me that these pressures make it much more difficult for you to existential risk research than you would be if existential risk research were more mainstream.

I would phrase this differently. Certain types of existential risks (nuclear war, asteroid impacts) seem to be studied in the mainstream. Perhaps the study of AGI-related existential risks is the key area pushed out of the mainstream?