8 possible high-level goals for work on nuclear risk

Abstract

For people aiming to do the most good they can, what are the possible high-level goals for working on risks posed by nuclear weapons? Answers to this question could inform how much to invest in the nuclear risk space, what cruxes we should investigate to determine how much and in what ways to work in this space, and what specific work we should do in this space. I see eight main candidate high-level goals, in three categories:. Longtermist & nuclear-focused: Reducing nuclear risk’s contribution to long-term future harmsDirect: Reducing relatively direct, foreseeable paths from nuclear risk to long-term harmsIndirect: Reducing more indirect/vague/hard-to-foresee paths from nuclear risk to long-term harmsLongtermist & not nuclear-focused: Gaining indirect benefits for other EA/longtermist goalsCareer capital: Individuals building their career capital (knowledge, skills, credibility, and connections) to help them later work on other topicsMovement strengthening: Building movement-level knowledge, credibility, connections, etc. that pay off for work on other topicsTranslatable knowledge: Developing research outputs and knowledge that are directly useful for other topicsMovement growth: Improving the EA movement’s recruitment and retention (either narrowly - i.e. among expert communities - or broadly) by being seen to care about nuclear risks and/or by not being seen as dismissive of nuclear risksEpistemic hygiene: Improving EAs’ “epistemic hygiene” by correcting/supplanting flawed EA work/viewsNeartermist & nuclear-focused: Reducing neartermist harms from nuclear weapons. I expect we should put nontrivial weight on each of those high-level goals. But my current, pretty unstable view is that I’d prioritize them in the following rank order: . longtermist & nuclear-focused, both direct and indirectcareer capital and movement strengtheningtranslatable knowledge and movement growth (especially the “narrow version” of the movement growth goal)neartermist & nuclear-focusedepistemic hygiene.