The END OF THE WORLD is probably the most frequently-repeated failed prediction of all time. Humans are doing spectacularly well - and the world is showing many signs of material and moral progress - all of which makes the apocalypse unlikely.
The reason for the interest here seems obvious - the Singularity Institute's funding is derived largely from donors who think it can help to SAVE THE WORLD. The world must first be at risk to enable heroic Messiahs to rescue everyone.
The most frequently-cited projected cause of the apocalypse: an engineering screw-up. Supposedly, future engineers are going to be so incompetent that they accidentally destroy the whole world. The main idea - as far as I can tell - is that a bug is going to destroy civilisation.
Also - as far as I can tell - this isn't the conclusion of analysis performed on previous engineering failures - or on the effects of previous bugs - but rather is wild extrapolation and guesswork.
Of course it is true that there may be a disaster, and END OF THE WORLD might arrive. However there is no credible evidence that this is likely to be a probable outcome. Instead, what we have appears to be mostly a bunch of fear mongering used for fundraising aimed at fighting the threat. That gets us into the whole area of the use and effects of fear mongering.
Fearmongering is a common means of psychological manipulation, used frequently by advertisers and marketers to produce irrational behaviour in their victims.
It has been particularly widely used in the IT industry - mainly in the form of fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Evidently, prolonged and widespread use is likely to help to produce a culture of fear. The long-term effects of that are not terribly clear - but it seems to be dubious territory.
I would council those using fear mongering for fund-raising purposes to be especially cautious of the harm this might do. It seems like a potentially dangerous form of meme warfare. Fear targets circuits in the human brain that evolved in an earlier, more dangerous era - where death was much more likely - so humans have an evolved vulnerability in the area. The modern super-stimulus of the END OF THE WORLD overloads those vulnerable circuits.
Maybe this is an effective way of extracting money from people - but also, maybe it is an unpleasant and unethical one. So, wannabe heroic Messiahs, please: take care. Starting out by screwing over your friends and associates by messing up their heads with a hostile and virulent meme complex may not be the greatest way to start out.
Do you also think that global warming is a hoax, that nuclear weapons were never really that dangerous, and that the whole concept of existential risks is basically a self-serving delusion?
Also, why are the folks that you disagree with the only ones that get to be described with all-caps narrative tropes? Aren't you THE LONE SANE MAN who's MAKING A DESPERATE EFFORT to EXPOSE THE TRUTH about FALSE MESSIAHS and the LIES OF CORRUPT LEADERS and SHOW THE WAY to their HORDES OF MINDLESS FOLLOWERS to AN ENLIGHTENED FUTURE? Can't you describe anything with all-caps narrative tropes if you want?
Not rhethorical questions, I'd actually like to read your answers.
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.