scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/4p5olg.md

## Want to major in Global Catastrophic Risk Mitigation. What classes should I take?[D][Q]

* Author: u/Sailor_Vulcan  *Champion of Justice and Reason**
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4p5olg/want_to_major_in_global_catastrophic_risk/
* Score: 0

* Created: 2016-06-21T17:06:11

### Post:

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but I needed to post this somewhere enough people would see it and respond to it. It's been recommended to me that I design my own major, and I've decided to try majoring in Global Catastrophic Risk Mitigation. I'm thinking there would be a few different specializations available for GCRM students: AGI, Nanotech, Climate and Ecological, and Political. Maybe a specialization in Late and Low Probability GCRs (like meteors aliens and simulation shutdown) could be available as a minor.

I think that GCRM should have 3 Main Focus Areas:

**Critical thinking and Decision-making**--how to think critically and make good decisions; rationality

**Public Relations, Education and Finance**--how to raise money and support for a cause, how to educate people, how to effectively communicate with individuals and the general public

**Research and Development**--systematic investigation of GCR issues and the design and development of risk-mitigation technologies


What kinds of classes would you recommend for GCRM students overall, and what kinds of classes would you recommend specifically for each specialization? I want a decent list that gives a good general idea of what students going into the major should expect. I need this before I meet with my general adviser, so if you guys can respond fairly soon that would be much appreciated.

My university's course catalog can be found here: https://registrar.osu.edu/courses/

Thanks!

### Comments:

> **u/Alphanos** [+3]  *The Bright Powers* (an hour later)
> 
> To answer this, consider your goals.  There are 3 most likely goals I can think of:
> 
> 1) You find this an interesting area and want to be a jack of all trades in this field.  In this case, you'd want a selection of courses covering a number of the areas you mention.  This could be tricky because there are so many distinct fields that are related.  Philosophy, varying sciences, politics, education, business, finance, and more.  You can't become an expert in all of these.
> 
> 2) You want to be a technical expert who can help develop solutions to one or more of these problems.  In this case, I'd say you should change your plans and focus on the hard sciences specific to one particular problem.  For example, chemistry and climatology to develop an otherwise-harmless chemical we can release into the atmosphere to raise our albedo and counteract global warming.
> 
> 3) You want to have decision-making power to actually select and implement good ideas developed by the #2s.  In this case, you either need to go into politics or become so wealthy that you can substantially influence important politicians.  The selection and implementation of key ideas will have only a passing connection to their technical merits.

>> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+1]  *Champion of Justice and Reason* (an hour later)
>> 
>> I'm not entirely certain, but right now I'm angling towards 1, maybe with a bit of 2 for a minor or something. Not 3 though, since I doubt I could handle politics.
>> 
>> I'd like to be a jack of all trades in the field of GCRM, but I also want my future work to actually make a significant beneficial impact, and if I can't do that with option 1 I am willing to focus more on option 2 instead. However, option 2 depends on being hired by an organization involved in GCRM. The main pressing GCR right now is AGI. As far as I'm aware, MIRI is the only organization that is doing AGI safety research, and I don't know if they'll have positions open or not by the time I finish my schooling. Option 1 has the best chance of being applicable to my future career, and I might or might not enjoy it more, but I wouldn't mind contributing to AGI safety research too.

>>> **u/TennisMaster2** [+1]  (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Unless you do some serious self-learning and gain employment at a research institution (which is an awesome goal but a hard path), you'll need to go to graduate school.  Path one would let you decide which field is for you, so you can do path two in graduate school.  
>>> 
>>> If you want to self-learn, I recommend crafting your schedule with that included.  For example, you'd take an intro course on computer science while in your own time working through *Learn Python the Hard Way* or a like text.  That's six hours per week of CS class, plus *x* hours of CS self-learning.  Multiply that by five, or decide to only self-learn a couple topics per semester and devote your summers to more.  Also factor in time for sleep, exercise, and play.  Make a calendar with all this planned beforehand, and ample room for rearranging as you find clubs, friends, and other activities that may alter your schedule.
>>> 
>>> If you haven't yet, find a Professor doing interesting research and ask to join the team.  Now.  Check online and send e-mails asking for who is doing what, and request via e-mail while at the same time stating you're free to meet in person.  If the departments are still open, walk around and ask.  If you're having difficulty deciding, you could join multiple teams, but the time commitment may prove prohibitive to maintenance of your sanity.

>>>> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+1]  *Champion of Justice and Reason* (2 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> To be honest, I'm not sure if it's a good idea for me to do path 2 or not. While it would make it possible for me to directly contribute to AGI safety research, it would take a long time. I'm going to school part-time right now and I'm in my third year attending my university. I'm worried that by the time I get out of graduate school there won't be much left for me to do with my degree, if anything. If that's the case, then my time and effort might be better spent focusing on path 1.

> **u/amennen** [+2]  (6 hours later)
> 
> I don't think this subreddit is a good place for this topic. I'd suggest /r/ExistentialRisk, but it doesn't seem very active. Maybe /r/EffectiveAltruism,  /r/Futurology, or LessWrong.
> 
> As for the question itself, do you expect other students to also follow the major you design? If not, it might make sense to just design the major around what you want to do and what you can get approved, instead of worrying about what the hypothetical other students would do. If you know of specific other students who are interested in such a thing, you could consult them. If you are planning on getting other students interested in global catastrophic risk, then that's great, but I'd guess that designing a major around it and hoping people take it isn't a good way to do that, since there probably aren't any classes that are directly about GCRs anyway, even though there are a wide variety of classes that are useful for people interested in reducing GCRs. Since there are so many subjects that are relevant to GCRs, I'd suggest not worrying too much about people's specific majors and what classes they're taking when doing outreach.
> 
> As for what you should take yourself, that's also hard to answer, and largely depends on what you're interested in, since again, there are so many subjects that relate to GCRs.
> 
> If you're not already familiar with it, there appears to be a [LessWrong meetup group in Columbus, OH](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong_meetup_groups#Columbus.2C_OH), which may have other people at Ohio State interested in GCR, who you could consult for advice specific to the university. I'd contact them before showing up at the meetup location, because LW wiki descriptions of meetup groups are often out of date.

>> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+1]  *Champion of Justice and Reason* (6 hours later)
>> 
>> I've been there before, but it's rather out of the way from where I live because I don't drive.

> **u/creatureofthewood** [+1]  (9 hours later)
> 
> Feast or Famine: The Global Business of Food
> 
> Special Topics in Biomedical Science I: Immunology & 
> Infectious Disease
> 
> Host-Pathogen Interactions: Research Seminar
> 
> Financial Institutions
> 
> Risk Management I
> 
> Risk Management II
> 
> Global Financial Markets
> 
> Managing Individuals in Organizations: Organizational 
> 
> Behavior and Human Resources
> 
> Managing Individuals in Organizations: Organizational  Behavior and Human Resources
> 
> Concepts and Competencies for Managing People
> 
> Leading and Managing Change
> 
> Developing Leaders through Practical Exercises
> 
> Human Resource Management in a Market Economy
> 
> China and Its Global Business Implications
> 
> That's as far as I'm got in that actual list before I got bored. These classes are chosen primarily because they are high up in the alphabetical listing.
> 
> This is generally a bad idea because formal school is mostly useless so you should approach it mostly with the mindset of getting credentials. 
> 
> You should likely know about macro picture of infectious disease - agriculture - famine triad.
> 
> You should know a thing or two about the largest non-English speaking cultures, as they will be the  major vectors for the above, and also will rapidly develop new tech.
> 
> You should know basic economics - how the federal reserve works and so on.
> 
> You should know how humans impact ecology.
> 
> If you don't want to be a specialist, then do not bother with unfriendlyAI or nanotech, or meteors. Only specialists can help there.
> 
> (But dude, remember, your goal is to *actually save the world*, think carefully if majoring in "Saving the World" is actually the path to that solution.)

>> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+1]  *Champion of Justice and Reason* (21 hours later)
>> 
>> In that case maybe I should go into computer science. I'm thinking I want to raise money and awareness for AGI safety research, but people aren't going to listen to me about AGI safety unless I've actually got credentials in that particular field. Even if that means I have to go to grad school and if there's only so much I can do with my degree by the time I actually graduate from grad school, at least making that my area of expertise will hopefully make it easier for me to raise money and awareness even before I graduate from grad school.
>> 
>> I'm still worried that I won't finish my schooling fast enough to be able to make much of any difference, though...

>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+3]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> >In that case maybe I should go into computer science.
>>> 
>>> It's a solid field to go into financially speaking, but you're not realistically gonna steer AI in the right direction or be meaningfully recognized as any kind of expert with an undergraduate degree in computer science. 
>>> 
>>> Do you *like* computer science? Are you especially gifted in computer science already? I feel like this is ultimately the bigger question. We're not short on humans, so do something which is in your comparative advantage.
>>> 
>>> If you want to literally design AI and AI safety protocols, what you should actually do is major in Math (applied *and* theoretical) and/or *Computational Neuroscience* if it's offered. You should read this to get a sense of the path: https://intelligence.org/research-guide/#one. 
>>> You might want to read everything written by [Nate Soares](http://mindingourway.com/moving-towards-the-goal/) actually. I'd also consider just contacting MIRI now and asking for advice.
>>> 
>>> Otherwise,
>>> 
>>> These are the standard paths:
>>> 
>>> Academic: Apply technical prowess to an important problem. If you make important discoveries people listen to you. Choose Applied mathematics, engineering, computer science, or any physical, natural, or social science.
>>> 
>>> Capitalist: Make tons of money in business. Use money to solve problems.  People will listen to you if you have money. (Double if you are doing products they use every day - Elon Musk, Steve Jobs). Choose an Engineering, Computer Science, or *applied* Mathematics. Probably not basic science, although if basic science is your passion it is certainly  workable.
>>> 
>>> Activist: The art of influencing *other* people to do things. You can choose practically any field for this one, it doesn't really matter. It's a side job, not something you get paid for, but it can be very effective, and it pairs nicely with the other paths. Yudkowsky was essentially doing activism by starting Lesswrong, successfully. If you do want to credential yourself for this, consider going pre-Law. Law school is the most well worn path for elected politicians. A politician is basically a sort of activist under this schema.
>>> 
>>> Employee: Donate your money. You're inherently a contributing member in this route, the free market isn't perfect but unless you go into something particularly evil you are almost certainly helping someone and making a small impact simply by working. Going into the trades is the fastest way to make substantial amounts of money. Blue collar jobs often make better money than white collar these days. Otherwise, Engineering or Business will get you a solid job. You could also go Med/Law school route but that takes even more years. Don't be put off by the sound of the word "employee" - a doctor is an employee, for example. It doesn't make you a drone.
>>> 
>>> Bureaucrat: You can get *quite a bit* of  power by joining the Federal Reserve (if you're into econ) or affiliating with the CDC (if you're into biology), becoming a diplomat, advisor, etc. Realistically that's the sort of path you'd end up in if you tried to major in a generalized "saving the world" degree (where you studied disease and poverty and econ and all that). I might be wrong about the specifics, but there's generally a genre of advisory roles, and these sorts of people (not politicians) do the *actual* work of managing society. You want a mix of specialization and generalization for this one, and it's probably the sort of thing people who'd major in what you are envisioning would end up doing.
>>> 
>>> I think essentially, you should decide if you primarily want to solve social coordination problems, or technical issues, or just amass sheer power. If technical issues, you need to specialize. If social coordination problems, then you can generalize and do econ and whatnot in addition to having a grasp of science and it would be acceptable to do this "saving the world" degree idea.  If amass sheer power, you need to focus on money and politics. You could conceivably do *two* of those things (a socially active academic, a socially active businessman/engineer, a socially active doctor/lawyer/etc, a tech-savvy generalist, and so on) , but probably not all three.
>>> 
>>> The effective altruism community offers coaching on this sort of thing I think.
>>> 
>>> Also, keep in mind I'm being agnostic with respect to what your passions and skills are because you haven't said. But it matters, a lot. And I'm only putting forward the obvious effective-altruist paths, there's a ton of other non-conventional paths.

>>>> **u/earnestadmission** [+1]  *Singular "they" user* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> This is a good post. I particularly like the way that you give concrete paths; once we accept that our problem solving has to operate on a timeframe in the dozens to hundreds of years, the solution space becomes much more manageable.
>>>> 
>>>> (The thing I restrained myself from writing is that if you genuinely believe that civilization will collapse in 4-9 *years, you should be learning something like the Primitive Technology YouTube channel offers.)
>>>> 
>>>> *numbers picked by time constraint ruling out effective intervention following completion of a graduate degree

>>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thank you :)
>>>>> 
>>>>> > if you genuinely believe that civilization will collapse in 4-9 *years, you should be learning something like the Primitive Technology 
>>>>> 
>>>>> That's for surviving the collapse / minimizing the fallout, not preventing it. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> But, yeah, if someone believes in collapse and wants to prevent it, the situation is pretty desperate and I wouldn't be sure what to advise. The possibility of collapse happening *now* seems small enough to not devote that many resources to. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> In the "chicken-little was right after all" scenario where someone has *high confidence* in collapse but no one else believes it, I would say "what do you think you know, and why do you think you know it", and if they can give a convincing answer, then they should take that answer, figure out how to stop the collapse. The first step in "stopping the collapse" probably means locating the people who can help stop it, and explaining them the reasons. If everyone *does* believe you then the aforementioned paths are probably (?) still the best bet for organizing society towards the solution.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Global warming is a good case of a scenario where pretty much everyone who knows anything agrees that it's a problem but civilization is too inadequate to fix it. The solution would be to rapidly plant trees as quickly as possible. Here's the world record for someone doing just that - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_GreenHands.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So /u/Sailor_Vulcan, if you really think the end is very urgently nigh, then you might take a leaf out of Jaggi Vasudev's book. Or hell, even just throw yourself into engineering and computer science and math directly, skip the bs. It's not necessarily *safe* as a life path but I certainly won't tell you not to.

>>>>>> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+1]  *Champion of Justice and Reason* (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> it's not that i believe that the end is very urgently nigh. it's that i don't know how nigh it is, and i don't know how long it will take me to finish my schooling.

>>>> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+1]  *Champion of Justice and Reason* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> I don't know if I like computer science or not. I took an introductory database class and kinda liked it, and I took a Geographic Information Systems class and it wasn't really interesting to me. I have no interest in politics and I doubt I would have the skills for it even if I was interested in it. Problem is that if I don't get credentials related to AGI nor get a lot of money then people won't listen to me about AGI-risks, and AGI is the main GCR to focus on because it is nearer and can help deal with other GCRs.
>>>> 
>>>> Not sure what I should do now.

>>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Okay lets start from what do you like and what are you good at?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Edit: Ooh dude check out this thing
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://80000hours.org/career-guide/

>>> **u/earnestadmission** [+1]  *Singular "they" user* (21 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure why you keep saying that there won't be much to do with your degree after graduate school.
>>> 
>>> Do you think that existential risk will go away by the time you graduate? Then there's no point in "majoring" in X risk reduction because you expect it to have been dealt with. 
>>> 
>>> Do you think there will be a civilization collapse in the time between your undergraduate degree commencement and your graduate degree commencement?
>>> 
>>> If so, will the catastrophe be averted by the addition of one unconventionally trained entry level worker in whatever agency hires you?
>>> 
>>> With all due respect, it's easy to get caught up in the dramatic rhetoric that EY uses about X-risk. But you are not acting as though you believe a civilizational collapse is imminent. To take the philosophical ideas behind Xrisk or Effective altruism seriously, your best program is one that has a clear path to monetization and in which you have some talent.
>>> 
>>> People get specific majors because there is help with job-finding. If you make your own major, you will have to convince a recruiter that your unique (and untested) skill set is more suited to the task than, say, a computer science major. Building your own narrative is important, but right after college you also need to land a job.
>>> 
>>> *edit to add: I'd suspect an undergrad version of advanced finance would be far superior to an undergrad version of advanced economics w/r/t understanding how the Fed works.

>>>> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+1]  *Champion of Justice and Reason* (21 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> thanks for the advice, i think you're right and i should probably go into computer science.
>>>> 
>>>> thanks!
>>>> 
>>>> EDIT: saw some more posts and now im not so sure

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