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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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I am very frustrated at this $10M grant. I think I could do the part about "foundational research into the methodological challenges of existential risk forecasts, as well as applied research on estimating such risks, and on the identification of early warning signals" well, if not better. In fact I have been obsessing about that cluster of problems for the last several years. Yet I was rejected by the organization making the grant a few months ago. Feels bad man.

Sorry to hear, that does sound very frustrating. It does look like they have traditional academic prestige on their side, maybe that tipped the grant over to FRI. Did you apply for the same objective, or something else? Would you consider joining them so they do a good job?

I applied for an org that was 50% the same objective 50% emergency response. I am very unlikely to join FRI so they do a good job; if I quit my current thing I'm more likely to go into the private sector