I wish I had never come across the initial link on the internet that caused me to think about transhumanism and thereby about the singularity;
I wish you'd talk to someone other than Yudkowsky about this. You don't need anyone to harm you, you already seem to harm yourself. You indulge yourself in self-inflicted psychological stress. As Seneca said, "there are more things that terrify us than there are that oppress us, and we suffer more often in opinion than in reality". You worry and pay interest for debt that will likely never be made.
Look, you have three people all of whom think it is a bad idea to spread this. All are smart.
I read about quite a few smart people who hold idiot beliefs, I only consider this to be marginal evidence.
Furthermore, I would add that I wish I had never learned about any of these ideas.
You'd rather be some ignorant pleasure maximizing device? For me truth is the most cherished good.
If this is not enough warning to make you stop wanting to know more, then you deserve what you get.
BS.
Ideally, I'd like to save the world. One way to do that involves contributing academic research, which raises the question of what's the most effective way of doing that.
The traditional wisdom says if you want to do research, you should get a job in a university. But for the most part the system seems to be set up so that you first spend a long time working for someone else and research their ideas, after which you can lead your own group, but then most of your time will be spent on applying for grants and other administrative trivia rather than actually researching the interesting stuff. Also, in Finland at least, all professors need to also spend time doing teaching, so that's another time sink.
I suspect I would have more time to actually dedicate on research, and I could get doing it quicker, if I took a part-time job and did the research in my spare time. E.g. the recommended rates for a freelance journalist in Finland would allow me to spend a week each month doing work and three weeks doing research, of course assuming that I can pull off the freelance journalism part.
What (dis)advantages does this have compared to the traditional model?
Some advantages:
Some disadvantages:
EDIT: Note that while I certainly do appreciate comments specific to my situation, I posted this over at LW and not Discussion because I was hoping the discussion would also be useful for others who might be considering an academic path. So feel free to also provide commentary that's US-specific, say.