This topic is vague and open-ended.  I'm leaving it that way deliberately.  Perhaps some interesting, better defined topics will grow out of it.  Or perhaps it's too far afield from the concept of less wrong cognition to be of interest here.  So I view this topic as exploratory rather than as an attempt to solve a specific problem.

What useful purposes does religion serve?  Are any of these purposes non-supernaturalistic in nature?  What is success for a religion and what elements of a religion tend to cause it to become successful?   How would you design a "rational religion", if such an entity is possible?  How and why would a religion with that design become successful and serve a useful purpose?  What are the relationships between aspects of a religion, and outcomes involving that religion?  For example, Catholicism discourages birth control.  Lack of birth control encourages higher birthrates among Catholics.  This encourages there to be a larger number of Catholics in the next generation than would otherwise be the case,  Surely there are other relationships like this?  How do aspects of religion cause them to evolve differently over time?

It is not uncommon to find organisations working, directly or indirectly, on a single Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR). For instance, the World Health Organization does much work to prevent pandemics, as part of its remit.

It is rarer for organisations to focus on multiple GCRs - for a start, this involves them having the concept akin to GCR, which is not often the case. In a report I'm preparing with Dennis Pamlin of the Global Challenges Foundation, here is a list of organisations focusing on multiple GCRs (note that it is not necessarily an endorsement of their quality). Let me know if there are any organisations missing, and I'll add them:

In response to the question

"Does anyone happen to know of reliable ways for increasing one's supply of executive function, by the way? I seem to run out of it very quickly in general."

(Kaj_Solata)

I posted that my military experience seems effectively designed to increase executive function. Some examples of this from myself and metastable are

Uniforms- not having to think about your wardrobe, ever, saves a lot of time, mental effort, and money. Steve Jobs and President Obama are known for also using uniforms specifically for this purpose.

PT- Daily, routinized exercise. Done in a way that very few people are deciding what comes next.

-Maximum use of daylight hours

Med Group and Force Support-Minimized high-risk projects outside of workplace (paternalistic health care, insurance, and in many cases, housing and continuing education.)

After a moment's thought it occurred to me that there are some double-edged swords in Military Rationality as well, some of which lead to classic jokes like 'Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.'

Regulations- A select few 'experts' create policies which everyone else is required to follow at all times. Unfortunately these experts are never (never ever) encouraged to consider knock-on effects. Ugh.

Anybody else have insights on the military they want to share here? I feel a couple of good posts on increasing executive function might come out of a discussion on the rationalities and irrationalities of the armed forces.

katydee and myself have written an annotated, preliminary list of organizations focused on the ethics and safety of future technologies. Please suggest additions!